Lightner Museum, St Augustine
The Lightner Gallery is hosted in the previously called Alcazar Hotel, and it contains an assortment of artwork and valuable antiques and culture buff.
The Hotel was built in 1888 by Henry Flagler, and it began with a reasonable amount of visitors, but later in 1932, it closed doors due to a calamity and was bought by Otto C. Lightner to keep his many collections of antique and artwork.
He later opened it to the public after filling the museum with the collection. The Museum was later opened after the city’s renovation and housed three floors of the Alcazar Hotel and has been a visitation of many tourists due to its historical and cultural holdings.
The Museum Collection (also special collection)
The museum is popularly known as “collection of collections” hosts more than twenty thousand items in its collection. The items have different variations, and they include different pieces, including hand wrists, furniture stereos, animal trophies, guitars, paintings, pianos, bottles, cut glass, and even art made from human hair and shrunken heads.
The first floor contains Victorian antique items such as pianos, furniture, lamps, and also dolls.
The next floor of the museum includes the museum’s one beautiful bowl, notably from L.C. Tiffany, which was made of stretch glass in the year 1905. It has a clear butterfly/dragonfly and also flowery markings aligning the rim and bright rainbow colors in the center of the bowl.
The tertiary floor contains large, well-detailed furniture pieces and more Victorian artwork. One of the pieces is thought to have belonged to Louis Bonaparte, in 1806 who was the nominated king of Holland then, and the Grand Escritoire was made all for him out of Mahogany wood in the French style with ebony and ivory inlay.
The Exhibits
One of the museum’s most popular exhibits is The Music Room, where antique instruments from as early as the 1870s can be found here. The museum’s collection of antique Tiffany glass is one of the finest in the country. The museum, among other items, has got more than five thousand salt and pepper shakers and also shrunken mummy heads.
One of the museum’s most prized works of art is a painting of the Saint Augustine skyline by Felix F. de Crano from the year 1900, which is close to the museum’s heart and depicts the sun setting over the historic Alcazar Hotel. It is one of the private collections.
The museum holds a lot of exhibits, including travel exhibits, and attracts a lot of tourist attractions. There are also special exhibits where the museum showcases special collections that are not usually displayed typically.
The Ocean View General Contractors, Inc is a private company that models and constructs home structures such as windows and doors, kitchen and baths, as well as remodeling worn out or destroyed structures.
Brief Directions
From St. Augustine, the Lightner Museum is a 3hr and 19 minutes ride to Florida, and one can get there by road. From St. Augustine, there is the Daytona beach, Orland city, then Tampa city then to Florida where the Ocean View General Contractors Inc. is located.