In a day and age when a city garden was too small to feed boarding house guests, they were not too small to enhance daily living at the Ximenez-Fatio boarding house. Herbs were grown to enhance the flavors of food cooked in the coquina kitchen. Aromatics were grown because, well…smells needed to be held at bay with a dozen guests or more in the house!
Built in 1798 during St. Augustine’s Second Spanish Period, this coquina stone house has witnessed more than 225 years of Florida history. Don Andres Ximenez (a merchant from Spain) was its first owner, having built it for his family. Alongside his wife — a Minorcan woman named Juana Pellicer — Ximenez operated a general store and a billiards hall on the ground floor and lived on the second floor.
After Florida became a territory of the United States, the house was owned by a series of women who turned the house into a boarding house hotel. Three of these female managers were widowed while the most prominent, Louisa Fatio, was single her whole life. These enterprising individuals defied odds and adversity — from yellow fever epidemics to Seminole and Civil Wars — by operating successful and popular businesses.
