Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: This two-story coquina house and detached kitchen was built for Spanish merchant Andres Ximenez ca. 1789 fir use as a general store, tavern and family residence. After Florida became a US Territory in 1821, Margaret Cook bough the property in 1823 and, with Eliza Whitehurst, operated it as “Mrs. Whitehurst’s Boardinghouse.” Sarah Petty Anderson bought the house in 1838 and in 1851 she retained Lousia Fatio to manage it as a boarding house. Fatio bought the property four years later and ran it as a fashionable in for twenty years, proving lodging for Florida’s earliest tourists who came to seek a healthier climate. In 1939, the Fatio heirs sold the house to the National Society of Colonial Dames of America- Florida for use as a house museum. Considered one of St. Augustine’s best preserved Spanish Colonial Dwellings, the Ximenez-Fatio House depicts the boarding house lifestyle of Florida’s territorial/Early Statehood Period. It is one of the first museums in America to interpret 19th century women’s history. Multiple archeological excavations document the properties occupation by the Native Americans, Spanish, and British. A rare Spanish Caravaca Cross (ca. 1650) was found on this site.