June 8-12, 1975: A Week in Toronto, Canada
	May 11-16, 1975: A Week at Disneyworld in Florida
	Return to Index for 1975

After my conference was over at Disneyworld, I thought I would take an extra day and go over to Florida's East Coast and visit a couple of place I had been to before, but not in many, many years.

Ellinor Village

One place I thought I would like to revisit is Ellinor Village, a kind of resort in Ormond Beach, Florida, so from Orlando and Disneyworld, I drove across the state to Ormond Beach.

I checked out of the Contemporary Resort and hopped onto Interstate 4, went through Orlando, and then continued on the Interstate northeast towards Daytona Beach. When I got got to Interstate 95, I took that north a few miles until I came to an exit for Ormond Beach, and I headed east towards the ocean.

I crossed the Intercoastal Waterway onto the barrier island, continued on to A1A, and turned south. After about a mile or so, Ellinor Village was on my left.

Driving south on A1A, I kept my eye out for Ellinor Village. What I was looking for was the resort office, which was located at the north end of a shopping center that served the resort. I remembered that the office was a landmark, with an extremely high, extremely steep A-frame roof. Although the area had changed a great deal since my last visit here in 1961, I found the resort with little problem, and it was pretty much just as I remembered it.

Ellinor Village was the largest family resort in Florida in the 1950s. It was built here in Ormond Beach by Merrill Ellinor and his brother Byron, and comprised 660 “cottages” and apartments. Ellinor Village resort opened in 1949, with triplexes, duplexes and single-family units for rent.

The resort was a real family destination with plenty of activities for kids and adults alike; I did not know it during the years we visited here, and I actually didn't know it until some years ago when I did another album page for a visit I made here in 2009, Jews were not welcome (the resort brochure said the property was "for restricted clientele", as the brochure explained in euphemistic terms. Ellinor Village had its own shopping center and amusement park and was just steps from the beach.

In the early 1950s, Ellinor purchased the old Ormond Hotel and a nearby golf course, adding them to the resort. In 1954 the Mrs. America contest was held at Ellinor Village, which attracted nationwide publicity. Ellinor Village and the hotel were sold to Milton Pepper, a local developer, in the late 1950s, and he is the owner now.

I didn't take a picture of the shopping center on this short visit, so I have found a stock picture of the shopping center as it was circa 1960. If I had to guess, I'd say we went down there three or four years in a row- maybe 1957-1960. And I think we stayed about ten days each time. It was a neat place to stay, as you had your own little house, with a couple of bedrooms, a bath, a living room, dining area and fully-equipped kitchen.

I remember the trip down to Florida very well; we would head due south from Charlotte, go through Columbia SC, then through a string of small towns, and eventually end up in Savannah, Georgia. Then it was down to Jacksonville where we picked up A1A, drove down through St. Augustine and into Ormond Beach. I don't think that I-95 was completed then, and certainly there was no I-77 going south from Charlotte.

We got a two-bedroom bungalow that was completely furnished, and we spent our days at the beach or off on an excursion and our nights reading, watching TV or playing outside. Some days, I would walk the couple of blocks to the drug store next to the A&P in the shopping center between the bungalows and the beach, and I'd have some french fries slathered in ketchup (yes, my affinity for ketchup began early).

Re-connecting with my old memories of the summer vacations we spent here was quite an experience; those memories are among the strongest of my childhood. I can still remember much of the highway down here from Charlotte; I'd wager I could retrace the route without missing a turn even now (unless the highways and streets themselves have been changed). The trip was before Interstate highways, and it took us over a day to get down here from Charlotte, since the trip was entirely on two-lane roads that went through innumerable cities and towns. I can remember my days at the beach, timing the building of my extensive sand castles so that I could be inside them when the tide came in and washed them away.

I remember, too, the sunburn I usually got the first few days we were here, and how I'd be miserable for a day or two until all the lotions that Mom brought along could take effect. I never seemed to learn to ease into the sunlight. (Writing some of this narrative in 2010, I can report that the legacy of those sunburns didn't become apparent until well into the new millenium.) I can still remember the trouble I got into when I took my Dad's battery-operated radio to bed one night so I could listen to Chicago's WLS. I fell asleep doing so, and the radio fell off the bed onto the floor and its plastic case got cracked. My Dad was really, really mad at me.

Anyway, I did take a couple of pictures on today's visit; these are the bungalows of Ellinor Village:

St. Augustine

I thought that I would also drive up the coast along A1A, which runs along the coast and is very scenic, to St. Augustine, one of the places that my Dad liked to stop on the way down to Ellinor Village.

A1A comes into St. Augustine via the Bridge of Lions across the Intracoastal Waterway, and you are right in the center of town:

On the aerial view above, I've marked the various locations where I stopped and took pictures. The town is pretty small, and I found a parking space and then just walked from place to place.

The Hospital Militar

The Spanish Military Hospital Museum was quite close to the city end of the bridge, and it covers the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821) medical practices.

During the British occupation of St. Augustine 1763-1783 a Scottish carpenter named William Watson purchased and remodeled the building into a dwelling. The hospital was a three part facility consisting of Hospital West (constructed in the First Spanish Period), Hospital East (constructed during the British Period) and the Apothecary in the William Watson House (constructed in the British Period). These three parts plus their outbuildings and gardens functioned as a hospital complex during the Second Spanish Period.

The hospital was strictly a military facility; only military were treated there and only military personnel worked on the staff. Hospital West burned in 1818 and the remaining parts of the hospital stayed in operation until two years into the American Territorial Period and officially closed down in 1823. Hospital East was destroyed in the fire of 1895. The Watson House still stands today.

Early in 1966, the St. Augustine Historical Restoration and Preservation Commission (later renamed the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board) reconstructed the Spanish Military Hospital as it appeared in the 1790s on its original foundations. Upon its completion, a suggestion was made by Dr. William M. Straight, historian of the Florida Medical Association, that the building be utilized as a medical museum. The idea was enthusiastically received by the Commission, and plans were accordingly drawn. Private funds were obtained, and the reconstructed hospital museum was dedicated and opened to the public in 1968.

On the second floor, the Medical Museum was dedicated and opened to the public in July 1973. It was jointly sponsored by the Florida Medical Association, its Woman's Auxiliary, and the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board and included exhibits about medical history.

Next, I walked a couple of blocks to the Lightner Museum, which is a museum of antiquities, mostly American Gilded Age pieces, housed within the historic Hotel Alcazar building in downtown St. Augustine. This 1887 Spanish Renaissance Revival style building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Lightner Museum

The Hotel Alcazar was commissioned by Henry Flagler, to appeal to wealthy tourists who traveled south for the winter on his railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway; it was designed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival style. The hotel was one of the first buildings in the world constructed of poured concrete.

The hotel had a steam room, massage parlor, sulfur baths, gymnasium, a three-story ballroom, and the world's largest indoor swimming pool; however, after years as an elegant winter resort for wealthy patrons, the hotel closed in 1932. After purchasing the building to house his extensive collection of Victorian Era pieces in 1947, Chicago publisher Otto C. Lightner turned it over to the city of St. Augustine. The building is an attraction in itself, centering on an open courtyard with palm trees and a stone arch bridge over a fishpond.

The first floor of the museum houses a Victorian village, with shop fronts representing emporia selling period wares; a Victorian Science and Industry Room displays shells, rocks, minerals, and Native American artifacts in beautiful Gilded Age cases, as well as stuffed birds, a small Egyptian mummy, a model steam engine, elaborate examples of Victorian glassblowing, a golden elephant bearing the world on its back, and a shrunken head. Moreover, the first floor contains a music room, filled with mechanized musical instruments— including player pianos, reproducing pianos, orchestrions, and others— dating from the 1870s through the 1920s.

The second floor contains examples of cut glass, Victorian art glass and stained glass work from Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio. The third floor, in the ballroom's upper balcony, exhibits paintings, sculptures, and furniture, including a grande escritoire created for Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother and King of Holland between 1806 and 1810. The Ballroom Gallery has oil paintings by Paul Trouillebert (Cleopatra & the Dying Messenger), Léon Comerre (Maid of Honor), and Albert Bierstadt (In the Yosemite).

I definitely wanted to visit the fort, so I walked diagonally toward it through St. Augustine's narrow streets. On the way, I passed through a charming garden.

Entrance to the Hispanic Garden

The St. Augustine Historical Restoration and Preservation Commission bought the plot of land between the Casa del Hildalgo, once a tourism office run by the Spanish Government, and the Pan American Center to build a garden as a symbolic link between the shared Hispanic heritage of Spain, Latin America, and Florida. The Hispanic Garden Committee raised the $45,000 needed to complete the garden by holding fashion shows, teas, and art auctions, and by selling small items, including jewelry and coins, donated by the Spanish Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

The garden was designed by the only two female landscape architects working in Florida at the time, and the design was inspired by plazoletas, classic Spanish gardens like ones seen at the Alhambra Palace. It was laid out in a trapezoid, measuring 75 by 80 feet. The addition of an arbor on the eastern end gave the garden a more square appearance. The arbor was decorated with Confederate jasmine and Cherokee roses to act as a shaded walkway and rest area. There was no grass in the garden in order to maintain a historically accurate appearance. Plants included in the design were cabbage palms, kumquats, marigolds, yaupon holly, and Burfordi holly. Each of these plants was chosen because it was native to northeast Florida or was introduced by the Spaniard settlers upon their arrival in the 16th century.

Sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington created and donated a bronze sculpture of Queen Isabella riding a donkey that was placed in the center of the garden on a raised pedestal. A square pool was placed underneath the statue, and is surrounded by an inlaid pebble mosaic that was inspired by Spanish design. The Hispanic Garden was officially dedicated in 1965 as part of the 400th Anniversary Celebration of St. Augustine, although it wasn't yet completed. It was actually completed and re-dedicated in 1967.

Outer Walls of the Castillo de San Marcos

The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest and largest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay here in St. Augustine, just a few blocks north of the A1A bridge. The Castillo was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza, with construction beginning in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding by Spanish Admiral and conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire.

The fort's construction was ordered by Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after a raid by the English privateer Robert Searles in 1668 that destroyed much of St. Augustine and damaged the existing wooden fort. Work proceeded under the administration of Guerra's successor, Manuel de Cendoya in 1671, and the first coquina stones were laid in 1672. The construction of the core of the current fortress was completed in 1695, though it would undergo many alterations and renovations over the centuries.

Panoramic View of the Castillo de San Marcos

When Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 pursuant to the Treaty of Paris, St. Augustine became the capital of British East Florida, and the fort was temporarily renamed Fort St. Mark, but reverted to its original name when the Peace of Paris transferred Florida back to Spain. When Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1821, the fort was designated a United States Army base and renamed Fort Marion, in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. The fort was declared a National Monument in 1924, and after 251 years of continuous military possession, was deactivated in 1933. The 20-acre site was subsequently turned over to the United States National Park Service. In 1942 the original name, Castillo de San Marcos, was restored by an Act of Congress.

Castillo de San Marcos was attacked several times and twice besieged: first by English colonial forces led by Carolina Colony Governor James Moore in 1702, and then by English Georgia colonial Governor James Oglethorpe in 1740, but was never taken by force. However, possession of the fort has changed six times, all peaceful, among four different governments- Spain, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America.

Under United States control the fort was used as a military prison to incarcerate members of Native American tribes starting with the Seminole— including the famous war chief, Osceola, in the Second Seminole War— and members of western tribes, including Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apache. The Native American art form known as Ledger Art had its origins at the fort during the imprisonment of members of the Plains tribes such as Howling Wolf of the southern Cheyenne.

Ownership of the Castillo was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933, and it has been a popular tourist destination since then. I, myself, found it immensely interesting; it was the first Spanish fort I'd ever been in, and there were numerous interesting exhibits.

I left St. Augustine late in the afternoon to head back over to Orlando and my flight back to Chicago.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	June 8-12, 1975: A Week in Toronto, Canada
	May 11-16, 1975: A Week at Disneyworld in Florida
	Return to Index for 1975