A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway
Oldest House (Gonzalez-Alvarez House), FL

For over half a century, the Gonzalez-Alvarez House has been portrayed locally as the City's oldest residence, a description once shared with a number of houses exhibited. However, this building's claim is legitimate. Its beginnings date to the immediate time after the destruction of the English forces in 1702. The oldest part of this house was erected as a two-room one-story coquina structure in the early 1700s.

A number of alterations after 1763 brought the house to its present appearance reflecting Spanish as well as British architecture. Today it is furnished to represent different periods. This house was first exhibited as a house museum by a private entrepreneur in the late 1800s. Then the building was acquired in 1918 by the St. Augustine Historical Society. Since that year, it has served as the centerpiece for the Society's historical holdings and interpretive museum. In daily public tours of the building, guides explain life in Colonial St. Augustine.