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St. Augustine, Florida
Casa de Solana
Norman2004-08-11 16:34:44
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There is nothing more romantic than staying in a B&B that can boast of dating back to the city's second Spanish Colonial period and being one the prides of St. Augustine, Florida.
Located in the heart of the historic district of a city known as the first permanent settlement in the USA, the charming and elegant Casa de Solana is probably one of the most fascinating inns we have come across in our world travels.
It is one of those inns you walk past and say, this must be historic; I would like to stop in and take a look around. In fact, while we were sitting in the inn's courtyard, there were several passerby who did peek in. One exclaimed: "this is a wonderful historic home - fingerprints of Spanish settlers are all over with the architecture, verandas and narrow streets."
An added feature is that the inn is only minutes away from the The Oldest House (The Gonzalez-Alvarez) in the USA - inn's guests receive a 50% discount on admission - as well as various other historical attractions. History is all around you, and its innkeeper, Joe Finnigan, indicated to us that its roots could be traced back to its original owner, Don Manuel Lorenzo Solana, who owned the land and the house during the mid 1700s.
Adding another romantic dimension to the inn's eclectic historical personality is that many of St. Augustine's natives can trace their lineage back to Don Manuel and other members of his family.
Don Manuel was one of only eight men of the Spanish Army who were permitted to continue residing in St. Augustine when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain for Havana in 1763. It would be an understatement to say that the English were not very fond of the Spanish, and for the most part, forced them out of Florida.
Don Manuel met an English woman by the name of Mary Mitchell, whom he married, and the couple had a daughter and one or two sons. Eventually, the couple
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See photographs from:
United States Gallery
