Folio Weekly re: Robert Hall's Work to Stop St. Augustine From Being Turned Into A Hysterical Version of Disney World

Old and In the Way St. Augustine’s colonial history stands in the shadow of new, modern-scale construction Once a visual and historic landmark, the old gates to the Ancient City are now overwhelmed by the two- and three-story buildings behind them. Published January 3, 2012

Twenty years ago, the old gates to the Ancient City were a visual and historic landmark. Today, tourists are likely as not to simply pass by the coquina sentries, which are overwhelmed by the two- and three-story buildings looming behind them.

The new construction resembles colonial architecture in some respects, but the size of the buildings dwarfs true colonial scale. And it is the height of those buildings that has St. Augustine resident and retired Flagler College art professor Robert Hall sounding the alarm.

In truth, Hall has been sounding the alarm for the past 38 years. He has long advocated that the city restrict development in its core to only 18th-century Spanish Colonial-style architecture. Hall has so often spoken on the subject to the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board and the St. Augustine City Commission, he’s literally been told to “go away.” Instead of opting for small-scale buildings and strict adherence to the architectural styles of the 18th Century, Hall says, the city has allowed property owners to do what they wanted, as long as their buildings had a historic flair. The result, he says, is architectural fakery no better than Disney World.

“Commercial pressure has always been a problem in this town,” he says. “Everyone wants to enlarge their business, enlarge their home, put another story on it, put another building next to it. As a result … the buildings are not the correct scale. They’re not on the correct foundation. They’re just fake.”

Hall is not quite ready to give up, however. He recently rewrote and self-published a 106-page booklet of research and commentary, “St. Augustine: Historical or Hysterical?” While Hall admits that he’s failed all these years to communicate the importance of establishing and following a set of historically appropriate architectural guidelines, he’s hopeful the booklet will have some effect. On the eve of the city’s 450th anniversary, he says, only isolated examples of Colonial architecture remain, including those in the Spanish Quarter, a few buildings on St. George Street and elsewhere. To Hall, it’s a tremendous lost opportunity.

“These are the places where people want to come to when they visit St. Augustine,” he says of the Spanish Quarter. “They say, ‘Ooooh, this looks real,’ ” says Hall. “Instead, we’ve got a lot of fake material and misguided efforts.”

Hall points to a laundry list of buildings that offend his sense of how St. Augustine should have evolved — from the building of the Columbia Restaurant in the 1970s to the recent construction of a Hilton Hotel between Charlotte Street and Avenida Menendez, and the new two-storied balconied building behind the Old City Gates. Although the city’s Architectural Guidelines for Historical Preservation specifies that new construction, “whenever practical, should follow old foundation lines in order to preserve the original scale and pattern,” all three buildings are way out of scale for an 18th-century town, and were erected without regard for the building techniques and materials from that era.

“No one felt the need to do it correctly,” Hall says. “And this is the one place in the country where we need to do it correctly.”

Hall first visited St. Augustine in 1961 to participate in an archeological dig with Florida State University. After graduating with a degree in art, he secured a position at Flagler College, moved to St. Augustine and immersed himself in its history. He bought the Triay House at 29 St. George St., originally built by Minorcan settler Francisco Triay, constructed between 1768 and 1790, and reconstructed in 1963. He joined the Historic Florida Militia and performed as a re-enactor during city’s 400th anniversary in 1964 and during the Bicentennial in 1976, as well as during other events. Though a city as old as St. Augustine is bound to lose buildings to age, Hall believes the biggest threat to the city’s appearance is the modern demand for bigger and “better.”

Not that Hall objects to the appearance of the new buildings. Next to the Old City Gates and a new three-story balconied inn, he points out, there is an attractive plaza with a fountain and spots for people to sit. It’s lovely, admits Hall, but all wrong. “It would be very nice in Palm Beach or Sarasota,” says Hall. “It has that nice ambience or rich feel. It’s a nice little area, but the trouble is that it is nothing like what was ever here in the 18th century.”

Finally, he asks the residents of St. Augustine to be good stewards of its history. “We have had a National Treasure handed to us,” Hall writes in his booklet. “What in the world are we doing?”

Susan Cooper Eastman

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