enclosed yard, then through a loggia or covered porch. Some fences were
wood, others wattle, others coquina. Walls were plastered inside and out.
Domestic shelter, in particular, was sited with seasonal weather a principal
consideration. The private indoor-outdoor sector, with loggia and garden,
faced south (preferably) or east, so winter’s sun might warm the air inside
and out. Walls were thick to insulate against both extreme heat and cold.
Before and after Americans took control of Florida, during the s,
other (and complimentary) subtropical architectural forms were blended
with the Spanish Floridian. The British, after all, had ruled Florida for two
decades, between the two Spanish periods, and American planters just
north of Florida had adopted their own distinguished traditions of housing
for hot climates. So among the northern Spanish-style buildings in the town
were also to be found Anglo-style ‘‘plantation’’ structures—often large, two-
story, central-hallway affairs with front galleries.
All this said, and simplifying a lengthy and complex nineteenth cen-
tury in St. Augustine, the Ancient City several times became nearly extinct.
Natives—this time the Seminoles—took their revenge again, waging three
wars between the s and s, the second (during the late s and
early s), virtually shutting down Euro-Florida. Two decades after the
Civil War, St. Augustine was lightly peopled by the poor and by famously
proud, long-established families, its structures approaching or already de-
scended into dereliction. Then, and suddenly, the city was reinvented, its
look simultaneously enlarged and transformed, by a savior-knight from
afar. This was Henry Morrison Flagler (–).
Son of an itinerant Presbyterian pastor from upstate New York, Henry
migrated to northern Ohio as a teenager to work for relatives who owned
general stores. With little formal education, Henry learned his numbers
and markets quickly. Fatefully, through business young Flagler met the
young John D. Rockefeller of Cleveland, who before the Civil War brokered
grain deals. Flagler and his kin made money consigning grain, too, much
of it ultimately bound for their own distillery, which earned fortunes be-
fore and especially during the Civil War. Flagler paid a substitute to save the
union in his stead and headed north, into Michigan, to the lucrative salt
business. Cutthroat competition persisted into the postwar’s falling salt
market, however, and led to Flagler’s near-ruin. Starting over in Cleveland,
he worked for Rockefeller, now a petroleum trader, distiller, and shipper.
Flagler soon recovered his fortune many times over. As full partner in the
new, burgeoning Standard Oil Company, Henry Flagler was the genius who