The Spanish Quarter Village

One of the great delights of St Augustine is the pride its residents take in their heritage and the legacy they cherish. Parts of the town have been carefully preserved to maintain the “old St Augustine” atmosphere while offering a clear look back into the past. One of the best places in St Augustine to see the past up close is at the Spanish Quarter Village.

Every time I visit The Spanish Quarter Village, I can’t help but wonder if looking into the past, we might build a better future?

A Spanish housewife chats with a neighbopr through a window.

Located along St George Street, across from the Castillo de San Marcos, the Spanish Quarter Village is a living history museum where interpreters become residents and 1740′s St Augustine is a way of life. The village resembles St Augustine near the end of the first Spanish period, and each “resident” offers a skill that provides what the village needs, just as they did over four hundred years ago.

A self-guided walk through the Spanish Quarter allows close-up glimpses into the homes of soldiers and their lives with their families. The houses in the village are reconstructed from archeological findings and research into the history of the structures that once stood along St George Street. Additional structures are built by hand, using hand tools of the period, and crafts and art such as spinning, weaving, sewing, tatting, lacemaking, carpentry, netmaking, candlemaking, woodworking, gardening, leathercrafting and blacksmithing are all done by hand at the village. Some of the clothing worn by the residents is spun, woven and sewn on site. Tools are either made or acquired as best the residents are able to find them. The Village includes many craftspeople as well as a garden and chickens, and you can often find Senora Gallegos preparing lunch in her house.

I have roamed about the Spanish Quarter village for all the years I have been roaming around St Augustine, and I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to the residents and getting an inside look at what it is really like to live in my favorite city. It’s one thing to live in St Augustine – it is an entirely different thing to live there. Many of the interpreters at the village are not “portraying” a character while they are on the timeclock – many of them actually incorporate the 1740′s Spanish lifestyle into their own daily lives. I once spoke with an interpreter there who told me she often dressed the same out of the village as she did when she came to work – she sensibly pointed out that the clothing was far cooler and more practical for her way of life.

The village blacksmith in his shop.

I have always been fascinated with the Spanish implements and tools of the day, and the construction of the Spanish houses. Visit the Casa de Gallegos; wouldn’t cooking a meal be so much more enjoyable if you could sit comfortably on a wide, low “kitchen counter” to prepare your family’s food, while a breeze wafted in through the wide, open windows, and your pet blue jay chattered at you from the top of your shutter? And how much easier would it be to keep a house with only two rooms, when you rolled up your sleeping mats and swept your floor each morning? The idea has its merits, I think.

The sense of community is strong here. It is easy to feel the bond that exists between the people who “live” here; and it clearly paints a living picture of what life in St Augustine in 1740 was really like. It was not simply a good idea to band together for a common purpose – it was crucial to the very existence of these people to band together for survival. They had only what they had; only what they could repair, make, or barter for. Money had little value, really, for if ships couldn’t come from Spain, what was there to buy? When the town had money and there were things to buy with it, times were good. And when pirates attacked, or General James Oglethorpe came up from Georgia to cause problems for St Augustine, everyone grabbed their chickens and their cow or their pig, whatever belongings they could carry, and huddled in the Castillo and hoped for the best.

But most times, soldiers could be found socializing in the tavern and housewives chatting over the fences or through the windows. When a Spanish ship was sighted in the Atlantic, great celebrations broke out, for a new load of goods was arriving and stocks and stores would be replenished. Soon a new belt would appear here or a new skirt there, new bowls and pots and pans and materials to make all manner of new and useful things, and everyone felt wealthy!

Today, many of the interpreters who work in the village will tell you that doing what they do makes them feel wealthy.

The Taberna de Gallo

The Spanish Quarter Village now opens the Taberna del Gallo (Tavern of the Rooster) to visitors on selected evenings. Visit the Taberna for a true St Augustine experience offered nowhere else – socializing in an authentic 18th-century Spanish tavern! Enjoy cool drinks; and on special evenings, live entertainment. It is great fun! You know you are in for a good time when you can hear the celebrations in the tavern a block away.

Be sure and visit the Spanish Quarter Village Museum Store. It is filled with delightful things like crafts and games for children, unique gifts, wonderful T-shirts, and household items that look as though they belong in an 18th-century Spanish home, but are beautiful and functional in any home. You can also purchase items made in the Village, such as iron hooks and nails, handmade beeswax candles, and wooden kitchen goods. The bookstore next to the Museum Store has one of the best selections of local-interest and Florida-related books in the city. I never leave St Augustine without bringing home something from The Spanish Quarter Village!

I spoke with one of the village craftsmen recently; I watched him hammering away for a few minutes, and then I asked him, “What would you be doing if you weren’t doing what you are doing right now?”

He pondered the question for a moment and then he replied, “If I couldn’t live here, I’d be doing this somewhere else!” He went on to tell me how content he is to live in St Augustine, and how he himself has incorporated so much of the Spanish Quarter lifestyle into his own life. And I told him I thought he was one of the luckiest people I know!

My St Augustine Obsession

The Castillo de San Marcos

I suppose I am obsessed. I’ve certainly been called that before.

When I was nine, my dad told me we were spending two weeks in “the country’s oldest city.” I figured that was cool; yes, I had to combine fun with a little education, but heck, I was going to Florida! Two whole weeks in Florida! I could stomach sightseeing and learning as long as I knew there was a beach or a pool in it later.So off we went; the car loaded with me, my parents and my 6-month-old brother, who was supremely unimpressed with the Nation’s Oldest City and howled pretty much the whole time we were there. As adults, he has since asked me to take him back there but I can’t shake the memories of his howling, and it’d be just my luck he’d do it again.

We arrived in St Augustine, driving along San Marco Avenue, which to this day remains my favorite way to enter the city. I looked through my pop-bottle glasses at the City Gate, and at the hulking Castillo de San Marcos on my left, and thought, “Yes! THIS is where I am supposed to be!”

Fascinated, I continued to soak up my first impressions of what was to become the dearest place in the world to me. The line of buildings along the bayfront, the Bridge of Lions, the Plaza… I was home and I knew it.

The scene changed constantly as we crossed the bridge – boats heading into Matanzas Bay, my first glimpse of Anastasia Island, the lighthouse tower… oh, THIS was MY place in the world! I couldn’t wait to explore it – to see it up close, touch it, smell it, hear it – even taste it.

But first we had to find a place to stay. We found a cute little motel with a pool out on St Augustine Beach, and since it was late in the day, my dad decided we’d sightsee tomorrow. First, he wanted to take me out on the air mattress and teach me to ride the waves. I wanted to go back to town – I was foaming at the mouth to see everything but Dad had the car keys and I was only nine. You kinda have to do what your parents make you do at that age.

We unpacked the car and my dad and I headed to the beach. I hadn’t spent much time in Florida, and I was excited to be there and to get to play in the ocean. We waded out into the water, and my dad helped me get on the air mattress. Riding the waves was wonderful fun… feeling the dip in the water before the swell pushed me into the air and then dropped me back again, with a little “flip” in my stomach. I rode the waves for about five minutes before a huge wave broke right over top of me and washed my pop-bottle glasses right off my nose.

St George Street, looking south along the Spanish Quarter Museum.

Great. Now, here I was, in the one place on earth I wanted to be, the place I had found where I knew I belonged, and I couldn’t even see it! We went out sightseeing the next day and I didn’t see many sights! I could see the blurs of my parents pointing things out to each other, and I could see the blurs they were pointing to, and that was about it. But I could smell it. And I could hear it and feel it. I could touch things… the Castillo walls, the doors of the Oldest House, the pillars of the City Gate, the air… and I had no doubt that I was home.

Our two weeks ended, and we headed back to Georgia. Back to routine, to school, to everyday things but I dreamed often of St Augustine. I have always been an avid reader of anything I could get my hands on, and one day, while digging through my grandmother’s bookshelf for something new to read, I came across her copy of “Maria,” by Eugenia Price. I became interested in it almost immediately, for it was set in St Augustine! Fascinated, I devoured the novel in a day, and while reading Miss Price’s afterword, I realized one of the places I had visited in St Augustine, The Oldest House, was Maria’s house! I had been to Maria’s house- I had walked through her rooms and sat in her garden! Wow!

I returned to St Augustine several more times on vacation with my parents, and then several more times with friends. But I longed to visit my city by myself, to wander through it, taking my time, exploring it and discovering all its secrets. So, in 1991, I packed up my little silver Mazda RX-7 and headed south, delightfully alone, eagerly anticipating the treasures I would find. I started my visit at The Oldest House, of course, and while I was there, soaking up Maria’s essences in her house, one of the house guides remarked that there was an historical research library out back and anyone who wanted to could go in there and read, and look things up, and see the history of the Oldest City for themselves.

The Llambias House, St Francis Street.

I wasted not one second getting to this treasure trove. I opened the doors to the library and was immediately surrounded by piles of incredible information and the most helpful and knowledgeable people – people as obsessed as I was about this beautiful city and its secrets. The library has since been moved to its new larger home, the Kirby-Smith House on Aviles Street, and it remains my favorite spot to visit in St Augustine.

I started talking to people. I wanted to talk to everyone who lived in my city. I wanted to know everything. And I learned something interesting: if you live in St Augustine, it’s okay to say you are “from” St Augustine. I noticed that pattern as I began to get to know people. So, my question, “are you from St Augustine?” was always followed with “how long you been here?” Answers would range from a week to years. That always cracked me up.

I have made St Augustine my part-time home. I hold a tour guide’s license issued by the city, and plan trips online for anyone who asks. I have taken several groups of visitors to the city for guided vacations. I guess I fit in pretty well, for I am frequently approached by visitors asking for directions or information about the city. Once when I was there, a couple asked me to recommend a good place for breakfast, so I did. They thanked me and as they turned to leave, the husband asked me if I was from St Augustine.

I couldn’t resist. “Sure am!” I replied.

I never did find my glasses. I think I learned to see the old city better without them.