Qualla: Gonzalez-Alvarez House

Gonzalez-Alvarez House: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bwickliffe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three hundred years of St. Augustine live inside one house. The ground floor is built of coquina -- the same compressed-shell limestone that makes the Castillo de San Marcos nearly indestructible -- its thick walls oriented east to west so that prevailing southeasterly winds blow through the open loggia and cool the interior without any need for modern engineering. The second story is framed in wood, added by an Englishman who wanted glass windows instead of wooden shutters. A two-story coquina wing came later, built by the home's third family. Each generation of owners left their mark in the walls, and the walls kept every one. At 14 St. Francis Street in St. Augustine, the Gonzalez-Alvarez House -- known to nearly everyone as simply The Oldest House -- is the oldest surviving residence in the oldest European-founded city in the continental United States.

Read more: Gonzalez-Alvarez House on Qualla

Image: Bwickliffe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Gonzalez-Alvarez House: An Artilleryman's Home

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. E. Crane, U.S. Department of Transportation, Public domain. The land at 14 St. Francis Street has been occupied since the seventeenth century, when Spanish colonial records document a building standing on the site. The present structure dates to about 1723, when the first floor was built for Tomas Gonzalez y Hernandez, an artilleryman sta...

Read more: Gonzalez-Alvarez House on Qualla

Image: A. E. Crane, U.S. Department of Transportation | Public domain

Gonzalez-Alvarez House: Three Empires, One Address

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown artist, Public domain. When the Treaty of Paris transferred Florida from Spain to Britain in 1763, the Gonzalez family did what most Spanish residents of St. Augustine did: they left for Cuba. The house sat empty until 1774, when Major Joseph Peavett, an English officer, purchased it and immediately be...

Read more: Gonzalez-Alvarez House on Qualla

Image: Unknown artist | Public domain

Gonzalez-Alvarez House: Walls That Remember

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0. What makes the Gonzalez-Alvarez House remarkable is not just its age but its legibility. The coquina first floor, with its thick walls and tabby floors, is unmistakably Spanish colonial -- a style developed for the specific climate and materials of northeast Florida. The timber s...

Read more: Gonzalez-Alvarez House on Qualla

Image: Diego Delso | CC BY-SA 3.0

Gonzalez-Alvarez House: Preservation and the Alligator Farm

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LittleT889, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the Alvarez family's long tenure ended in 1882, the house passed through several owners in quick succession: the William B. Duke family, Mary and Dr. Charles P. Carver, the James W. Henderson family, and -- in an only-in-Florida twist -- George T. Reddington, who operated t...

Read more: Gonzalez-Alvarez House on Qualla

Image: LittleT889 | CC BY-SA 4.0