Architectural Treasures of Amelia Island

Architectural Treasures of Amelia Island

Amelia Island offers a unique opportunity to experience history. Fernandina Beach's Historic District is a living museum. Like sleeping beauties, the island's Victorian-era homes have been frozen in time. Each offers a story about the people and events that shaped the history of Florida's northernmost barrier island.

Once a month, we will feature a home located in Fernandina Beach’s Historic District.

The Hirth House

The Hirth House was constructed in 1886 and is a prominent residence located at 103 North Sixth Street, in the"Silk Stocking District," a prestigious residential area in the Fernandina Beach Historic District.  Historians refer to the street as Amelia Island's Silk Stocking District because it was assumed only those who could afford silk stockings lived on the tree-lined street. There are several notable homes on the street, including the Chadwick House, the Prescott House, the Humphreys House, and the Baker House.

The Hirth House, with its distinctive Italianate design, is similar to the Fairbanks house on South Seventh Street. The same architect, William Sands Schuyler, designed both. It was built in 1886 by Thomas Moore, editor of the local newspaper, who later transferred to another city. Both houses feature classic Victorian details, including bay windows, Doric columns, leaded stained glass, and distinctive towers. The house appears to be a half-finished house, and it is speculated that there might have been plans to complete it at a later date.

Several houses on North Sixth Street were influenced by the Horsey House, which sits next to the Hirth House to the north. Porches on the Hirth House and the Archibald Baker House across the Street were added during the Colonial Revival Period.

Many houses on South Sixth Street were damaged in the hurricane of 1898. There was so much destruction that boats landed in the middle of Centre Street. The Hirth House was one of many damaged and ended up slightly tilted. That was remedied when Hirth's granddaughter, Adele Davis, and her husband, George, did a total renovation and corrected the tilt. Davis was a well-respected harbor pilot, journeyman carpenter, and craftsman. His collection of photographs is a valued resource in the archives of the Amelia Island Museum of History.

Louis G. Hirth immigrated from Wurtenberg, Germany, in 1885 at the age of 16 and moved to Fernandina in the 1890s. He opened a famous working man's bar called Trilby’s on North Third Street. At that time, there were 22 bars in town, and he thought there would be a demand for a "gentleman's bar." In 1903, he purchased the Prescott building and converted a haberdashery into the Palace Saloon, which remains operational to this day. Hirth enlisted his friend, Adolphus Busch, co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, to help design the elaborately detailed interior of the saloon. Its elegant features survive and include inlaid mosaic floors, embossed tin ceilings, hard-carved mahogany caryatids, colorful murals, and a 40-foot bar.

The Hirth House on North Sixth Street and the Palace Saloon on Centre Street remain as reminders of Fernandina’s golden age in the late 1800s.

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