HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Spanish colonial private residence on St. George Street, documented in the Library of Congress HABS survey — exterior viewing only from the pedestrian street.
214 St. George St, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior-only public viewing from St. George Street is free; no interior access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Public pedestrian street; flat sidewalk viewing only.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1650 · Library of Congress HABS survey · First Spanish Period masonry (possible) · Horruytiner family governors of Spanish Florida · St. Augustine historic district
The Don Pedro Horruytiner House occupies a small coquina-walled lot at 214 St. George Street. The Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey records (HABS FL-130, fl0211) document the structure with photographs and measured drawings. Per the HABS record and supporting local historical sources, sections of the masonry construction may date from the First Spanish Period (1565-1763), with the typical local building material being a local shell stone — coquina or tabby variants — in walls approximately twelve inches thick.
The house's name commemorates the Horruytiner family. Two members of the family served as governor of Spanish Florida: Luis de Horruytiner (governor 1633-1638) and an earlier Pedro Benedit Horruytiner who served as governor ad interim, 1652-1654. Local historical sources name the first documented owner of the surviving structure as Pedro Horruytiner y Pueyo, who lived in the house with his wife María Ruíz de Cañizares Mexía y Florencia and their seven children.
Features of the courtyard include a wall built with whole oyster shells in the local 'tabby' style. The house has remained in private hands; the HABS survey is the primary publicly accessible documentation. The property is on a pedestrian section of St. George Street.
We are setting this entry's status to needs-review because the venue is a private residence and is not open to the public; future updates should preserve that constraint and any text we publish must avoid encouraging visitors to disturb residents.
Sources
Per St. Augustine Ghost Tours and Visit St. Augustine, the most-cited paranormal account at the Don Pedro Horruytiner House dates to 1821. In that year, resident Brigita Gomez reported encountering two translucent women in the garden whose appearance and dress matched descriptions of women who had previously owned or lived at the house. Gomez is reported to have spoken with them, gifted them yellow roses from the garden, and subsequently to have found fresh yellow roses on her porch the following morning. This story is the property's signature legend and is among the earliest dated paranormal accounts in the St. Augustine corpus.
Later accounts collected by tour operators include reports of an unoccupied coffin stored in the attic that is said by visitors and former occupants to shift position on its own, drifting orb-like lights observed from the street, and persistent electrical anomalies (lights cycling, appliances behaving erratically) reported by occupants.
We treat the 1821 Gomez account as a piece of folklore with an unusually specific date and witness name; we have not located primary archival material independently corroborating it beyond the ghost-tour operators' retelling. The property's status as a private residence means that paranormal investigation here is not authorized; visitors should view only from the public sidewalk.
This venue is privately owned and not open to the public — appreciate from the public pedestrian street only.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
View the exterior of the Don Pedro Horruytiner House from the pedestrian section of St. George Street. The building is privately owned and is not open for tours; please respect the residents' privacy.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Jacksonville, FL
The Dr. Horace Drew Mansion is an eclectic 1909 home blending Tudor Revival, Queen Anne, and Spanish Colonial Revival elements, built by Dr. Horace R. Drew (grandson of Jacksonville pioneer Columbus Drew) at the corner of 3rd and Pearl Streets in the Springfield historic neighborhood. As of December 2025 it is owned by Springfield Preservation and Revitalization (SPAR), which has announced rehab plans.
Jacksonville, FL
Originally built around 1869 near Leila Street and Riverside Avenue as Rochester House, the building was a Second Empire-style resort hotel that hosted Mary Todd Lincoln in 1874-1875 during her period of grief and ill health. In 1911 it was barged upriver to its present location at 2105 River Boulevard in Riverside.
Sarasota, FL
Keating Hall at Ringling College of Art and Design was originally the Bay Haven Hotel, built in 1925 by the Echols Construction Company in the Spanish Mission Revival style. The hotel deteriorated during the Florida land bust and became associated with gambling and prostitution before John Ringling purchased it around 1931 and incorporated it into his new art school as classrooms and a women's dormitory.