Warden Winter Home

Built in 1887 for William G. Warden of Philadelphia, a partner with Henry Flagler and John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company who also served as president of the St. Augustine Gas and Electric Light Company and financial director of the St. Augustine Improvement Company, the Warden Winter Home was one of the most imposing private residences in the city and a center of winter social activity. Its Moorish Revival architecture and elaborate interior reflected the exuberance of the Gilded Age and St. Augustine's role as a winter resort. The house remained in the Warden family through the 1930s. In 1941 Norton Baskin purchased it and remodeled it as the Castle Warden Hotel, where he and his wife, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, had an apartment on the top floor. Many writers and other distinguished visitors came there during its decade as a hotel. Known locally as Warden Castle, it has served as Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum since 1950.

St. Augustine, Florida · United States