History of The Historic Murphey House

We have had many people ask about the history of the house.  After many hours of research and the help of the wonderful people at the St Augustine Historical Society, we have come up with some of the story, yet there are still many gaps.  Records indicate that the house was built sometime between 1885 and 1894.  While restoring the door hardware, we found the date of 1888 stamped inside the locks (and yes, those are the locks that are on the doors now.)  So that dates the house sometime between 1888 and 1894.
 
There were no copies of the St Augustine City Directory available for the years between 1888 and 1899, however in 1899 a person by the name of T. Rowe lived at our address.  No other information could be found about this person.

In 1904 a Charles Morse was listed as the occupant of house number 42 1/2, which indicates that the house might have been built as a two family (we know that it was used as a two family again in the 1940's -- which explains why there are two doors in the living room -- but until 1945 no other Directory listing shows that the house was used by more than one family.)

1911 Federick Brown, who was a photographer at 34 St. George St, lived there with his wife Cecilia.

1916 - 1927 Leo J Capella, his wife Bessie and their two sons lived there.  Leo was a clerk for H.W. Davis Co. that was located on King Street.  Their telephone number was 185-L.

1934 - 1937 Horace Reyes rented the house and lived there with his wife Elma, his mother Julia, and his two daughters and one son.  He was a carpenter.

1940 David McKinney and his was Elizabeth lived there.  He was a professional baseball player.  At that time, St Augustine had their own baseball team.

This is when the house began to be used as a two family again.  Many, many people have lived in the house, usually moving after a year or two and new people moving in.  For those who might be interested, we will quickly list what we have found out.

The upstairs apartment:

1945 - 1947   Perry Farmer and wife Rose Marie.  US Coast Guard.
1949              Agnes Love (who moved to the downstairs apartment in 1950)
1951              Ethel Welsh.  Dressmaker.  (Listed as owner)
1953 - 1954   Steven McCullough with wife, Rose.
1955              Edward Abraham Roth with wife, Gladys.  Clerk at Florida State Iron & Metal.
1957              Toni Sieg.  Waiter, Marine Land

The downstairs apartment:

1945 - 1949   Norman Myers with wife, Virginia and one daughter and three sons.  (Where did they put all of these people??)  Commercial artist.
1951               Agnes Love (moved from upstairs).  Agnes passed away in 1951, and the apartment remained vacant for several years after her death.
1955               J. C. Eskildsen
1957               Winford Barkman with wife, Della.  Driver.

After 1957, the City Directory stopped listing by address, and began listing by name instead.