Villa Zorayda

Villa Zorayda

Zorayda Club

Zorayda Castle or Castle Zorayda

Villa Zorayda Museum

1883

1903

1925

1933

2000-2008

This building was built as a private home.

Around the turn of the 19th century, this building served as a club and restaurant with dance floor.

This building was operated as a casino in the 1920s.

This building is now a museum.

Constructed as a winter home for hardware merchant and amateur architect, Franklin W. Smith, he was so impressed with the Moorish style Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain that he wanted his winter house to be a replica of one of the wings. It is one tenth the size of the original. Smith designed his house and had it constructed with a mixture of poured concrete, reinforced with crushed cocquina stones. This was only the second building in the U.S. to have been built from concrete. He published a book about architecture entitled, Design and Prospectus (1891).

In 1903, the home was transformed into the Zorayda Club, a restaurant with a dance floor as a place for the well-heeled to mingle. It continued to operate even after Smith's 1911 death, but in 1913, Abraham S. Mussallem bought the building.

However, Mussallem did not upgrade the club into a full scale nightclub with casino until 1922. In 1925 Florida outlawed gambling. The Mussallem's decided to convert the club back into a private residence. But, in 1933, Mussallem reopened the building as a tourist attraction under the name, Villa Zorayda Museum. The attraction had objects that fit with the architectural theme/style of the building, which dovetailed with Mussallem's oriental rug business and collecting of Middle Eastern and Oriental art. He'd previously been an Egyptian consulate and many items on display date to his time there.

After the Mussallem's died in the 1960s, care of the building passed to their sons who renamed the attraction, Zorayda Castle. Between 2000 and 2008, the Villa Zorayda was renovated by a 3rd generation Mussallem, Marcia and her husband, Jimmy Byles. The building needed extensive work before its grand reopening in Feburary 2008, again under the name, Villa Zorayda Museum.
 
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, which is an affiliate of the National Park Service.

The Villa Zorayda is open 359 days a year. For visitor information please go here: Hours and Location.

Villa Zorayda Museum
83 King Street
St. Augustine, FL 32084
Villa Zorayda Museum

The following books, articles, websites, and photographers were used to find the above photographs or illustrations:

Photograph 1 (1888): Witteman, A. St. Augustine. New York: A. Wittemann, 1888.

Photograph 2 (1891): Bierstadt, Edward. Sunlight Pictures: Saint Augustine. New York: The Artotype Publishing Co., 1891.

Photograph 3 (1904): Bowen, Beth Rogero, and the St. Augustine Historical Society. St. Augustine in the Gilded Age. Charleston, SC: Acadia Publishing, 2008.

Photograph 4 (2023): Augusty, Jean-Marc. "Villa Zorayda." March 24, 2023.

The following books, articles, and/or websites were used to find information about this location:

Harvey, Karen. St. Augustine Enters the Twenty-First Century. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company, 2010.

“Our History.” Villa Zorayda Museum. https://villazorayda.com/our-history/.

Rajtar, Steve, and Kelly Goodman. A Guide to Historic St. Augustine, Florida. 1^st edition. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2007.

Villa Zorayda Museum Sign. 83 King Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084.

Flagler College’s Rare Books, Floridiana & Institutional Repository are neither the original nor current copyright owner for the photographs. Please contact the publisher or source cited for each photograph to obtain a copy and/or permission to reproduce these items.

The following St. Augustine Fiction books feature this building as a location:

Bad News Travels
St. Augustine A to Z

This record was last updated on October 10, 2024.