Our Distinguished Neighbors

The apartment overlooks the lush garden of the Segui-Kirby Smith house, home to the library of the St. Augustine Historical Society.  The garden holds a sculpture of two of the most famous men who lived in the house, Dr. A. H. Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith.  Dr. Darnes was born a slave in the house and lived a remarkable life ending up a highly respected doctor in Jacksonville and as a prominent mason was the Florida Deputy Grand Master and High Priest of the Royal Arch chapter of Washington, D.C.  Kirby Smith was a general in the Confederate army and a professor of mathematics at the University of the South at Sewanee.

One evening we were walking hand-in-hand and as we rounded the corner of Aviles Street and Artillery Lane, I felt Cristan give a start.  She admitted that she was scared by the two guys standing quietly in the garden even though she knew they were statues and that this was not the first time they had startled her.  I didn't admit at the time that they had the same effect on me the first time I came across them in the dark.

The sculptor, Mariah J. Kirby-Smith is the great granddaughter of Edmund Kirby Smith.  A list of her works shows several in Columbia and I intend to find them while I'm still up here.  Edmund Kirby Smith was so respected that the state of Florida chose a statue of him as one of the two allowed representative statues in the Capitol building in Washington and there are many other monuments and memorials to him across the south.  Dr. Darnes was the only servant in either of the Civil War armies to have kept a journal and I can't wait for a chance to read through it.  The sculpture of these two men will certainly be a part of the walking tour and I hope to have enough information about both men to give the listener an idea of what sort of men they were as well as enough information to help him or her recognize the meaning behind the medical bag, Masonic watch fob and professorial robe.  This is exactly the point of the project - to add more depth and meaning in the surroundings of the curious traveler.

Why St. Augustine?

In May of 2012, +Cristan Carmon and I were on vacation for a couple of weeks in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  We had driven down from Columbia, SC, stopping in Daytona for one night on the way just to break up the long drive.  The stopover worked out so well that I determined to do the same on the way back to Columbia.  A couple of years ago my sister, +Suzanne Smith , was in the area for her son's, +Sean Smith , graduation from Embry-Riddle University and she had visited St. Augustine while she was in the state.  She raved about it and told me that the city should be a 'must see' on my list.  Su has great taste in these matters so I chose St. Augustine as the stopover point on the return home from Lauderdale.

I chose The Inn on Charlotte for our stay since it appeared to be well positioned in the middle of the historic part of town.  It is a quaint bed and breakfast that is converted from a home built in the early 1900's and Charlotte is a cobblestone street only one block west of the harbor.  Cristan had been asleep as we pulled into town, but woke up as soon as I turned onto the cobblestones.  She popped her head up, took one look around, and the first thing she said was, "Wow!  We're going to have to stay more than one day".  I agreed.  The historic part of town has that effect.  Little did I know what 'more than one day' would equate to.  I had booked one night in the converted carriage house behind the inn, but it was already reserved for the next night.  We extended one night and moved into the big house the next day.

St. Augustine is the oldest town in the US.  You can't throw a rock there without hitting a building that's older than the whole rest of the country.  The narrow streets in the old city are set up perfectly for walking and that's what people do.  This contributes to the overall feeling of pace of the town.  It seems to breathe and beat at a walker's pace rather than the jet-set feel of most of our other cities.  The combination of history and pace gives a feeling that, as they say in Louisiana, "is so good you t'ink you someplace else".

I had learned from my forays into Charleston, SC that a great way to learn a town is by using a walking tour - a small pamphlet with a map of historic locations and a brief description of each.  We asked around and looked for one of these with no luck.  I have been searching ever since and after much effort have only found two attempts at a walking tour.  One is The Standard Guide from 1898 and the other is Dr. Bronson's History of St. Augustine and both only appear to be available on-line.  The Standard Guide is well suited to a walking tour if printed out, but a bit out of date.  Dr. Bronson's guide is more up to date and may have been available in print form at one time, but is not easy to print now.  This got me thinking that an electronic walking tour would be a perfect fit for any GPS enabled smart phone or tablet.  It would be easier to use than a pamphlet since you could listen to the commentary as you stroll around and the GPS locator would keep track of your position and point out interesting things that are around you.

Cristan and I left St. Augustine with plans to return in 2 weeks.  That led to other stays and the more we experienced the town, the deeper we fell in love with it.  Cristan even had an extended stay of 2-1/2 months in a sub-leased apartment.  We finally decided to just go ahead and get a place in town and move to St. Augustine.  So now we will be living on the oldest platted street in the oldest city in the country and what better place to pursue the vision of an electronic walking tour while we learn about our new surroundings?  I have since established a little dot com, NAVIDET, for this project with plans to make it scale-able to additional cities.

So that's the reason why St. Augustine is the pilot location for our project.

Base of Operations

We have stayed at The Inn on Charlotte many times since our initial discovery of St. Augustine and have got to know Rodney and Jerry as good friends.  Cristan also sub-leased an apartment on Anastasia Island for a couple of months which helped us get a feel for the town in general and to better understand where we would like to ultimately establish our roots.  We determined that the optimum location would be right downtown within an easy walk of all the best points of interest and in an apartment so that I did not have to worry with maintenance while home from my travels.  Unfortunately, due to proximity to the college with the associated competition from students along with the limited number of available apartments, we had low hopes of finding something to fit these criteria.

We have been frequenting Nonna's Tratoria, a delicious Italian cafe on Aviles Street, where we have become good friends with the proprietor, Adamo.  We introduced my brother, +daniel raz , and his fiance, Rhonda Head to this place when they came to town in August and they fell in love with it and the location - enough so that they decided to get married there on New Year's Day.  Cristan and I returned to St. Augustine the day after Christmas for the wedding and had dinner at Nonnah's that night.  After dinner and some time for business to calm down, Adamo was able to join us at table where he surprised us with 3 excellent recommendations for apartments that perfectly fit our criteria.  We checked them out the next day and settled on a unit on Artillery Lane between Aviles and St. George streets.

Artillery Lane, Aviles Street and Charlotte Street are the oldest platted streets in the country.  The apartment is converted from a building which was completed in 1910 for C.F. Hamblen and used as his general store.  The building also later housed the Oldest Store Museum beginning in 2003.  We are in a corner apartment overlooking the garden of the Segui-Kirby Smith house, built in the 1700's.  As an added bonus the Sequi-Kirby Smith house is now the library of the St. Augustine Historical Society!  What a find!!

Oldest Store Museum photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/93627

Cristan will start moving in within the next week and is so excited that she and the dog, Sable, are already packed.