The Knott House, Tallahasse, photo courtesy of Museum of Florida History
Tallahassee, the heart of Leon County, is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen. With rolling hills, moss-draped oaks, and columns on every building, the city seems more like an extension of Georgia than Florida—absent are the beaches, ocean breezes, palm trees, nightclubs, and shell shops which are commonly associated with the Sunshine State. Tallahassee is a big small town that seems to find itself in national spotlight often, certainly every presidential election at least.
Sisterwoman’s place in Rose Hill, before the proposed addition of columns to the façade.
I have visited Tallahassee numerous times. Sisterwoman’s family had a three-acre estate in the ritzy Rose Hill subdivision. From Houston’s Bush International to Tallahassee Regional is a quick jump on a United Express jet (although I was also known to throw Katie Scarlett into that little red Mercedes, strap my bike on the back, and peddle to the metal for a drive across the Third Coast). I visited while helping to put the house together and, once the house was complete, would visit just to relax.
And of course where I find myself visiting, I find myself in search of art and museums. But despite pamphlets, the Tallahassee Democrat’s “Limelight” section, or the Cultural Resources Commission website, the art scene can prove elusive.
The First Friday Gallery Hop occurs on the first Friday of every month and all of Tallahassee’s art galleries and cultural centers open doors free of charge to the public. In selected months the First Friday Gallery Hop Trolley will shuttle patrons and on-board tour guides to sample a variety of offerings; the trolley used to depart at 6pm from beneath the sprawling live oaks of swanky Chez Pierre where I loved to show up early and swill martinis (I understand that Chez Pierre / The Front Porch is now closed); it now departs from the Art Gallery at City Hall. The trolley will take you to galleries from hoytie toytie to the outsider warehouses off the beaten path.
As for fine art, FSU Museum of Fine Arts is probably the best public display. It’s hard to find parking and they seemed surprised when we showed up to tour the exhibits…
But house museums are the truest way when traveling to find the pulse of a city’s stylistic influence. Standards are undoubtedly set by those who establish trends and taste, manipulating environs for generations to come through cultural infusion.
When asking locals about house museums I usually conjured puzzled expressions. But one name came up on occasion—the Knott House. The Knott House, 301 E. Park Avenue, is considered one of the most important house museums in Florida. I found this unusual southern treasure both beautiful and idiosyncratic.
The Library of the Knott House, courtesy of Museum of Florida History
The William Knott family purchased the circa 1843 structure in the 1920s. Its massive Doric columns were added to give the house a more politically acceptable look; William Knott was a politician and Democratic nominee for governor in 1916 (surely elected if not for the Prohibition Party wildcard that cycle). This mansion is also known as The House of Rhymes for poems written by Luella Knott, each piece of furniture and accessory in the home has a postcard attached with a type-written poem. Luella wrote of her living room settee:
I have given comfort To many a lazy loafer, When he sneaked into the parlor To snooze awhile on the sofa.
But there is something quirkier about the mansion than furniture tagged with verse. The look is right and it photographs beautifully, but one discovers that broken furniture is fitted together and the grand wallpaper mural in the entry hall is created from scraps of old wallpaper and pieced together like a collage—Luella went to great lengths to give the house a prominent look without monetary resources befitting such a mansion, especially during the Great Depression. She worked quite hard at fitting in with the powerful old money families who exerted so much influence at the time. And to further make ends meet, she took in borders in the upstairs bedrooms—one can still see number indentations on the doors.
A strange portrait caught my eye in the parlor. The docent seemed amused that I asked and explained that since Luella was orphaned at the age of eight, she desired a painting of her mother. So she found an antique portrait and hired an artist to paint over the existing sitter’s face with her own mother’s face. Skin tones vary between the face, neck, and hands. It’s like one of those carnival boards to put a face through for a souvenir photo. Even more abnormal is that because of the precarious over-painting of the mother’s face, attempts to restore the artwork were aborted midway; only half the dress is clean, creating in essence a half black and half white gown.
The house is like a depression era time capsule. Quirky, yes, but the house is imbued with captivating animation. It is given life not only by verse but also family mementos, private history, and correspondence.
The house remained unchanged throughout the 20th Century. The youngest son, Charlie Knott (a bachelor and quail hunting enthusiast) lived in the home until his death in 1985. He willed the mansion and its contents in entirety to the State of Florida. Now part of the Museum of Florida History the house is of particular historical significance because on May 20, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation was read on the front steps. My appreciation to Gary Pettit of the Museum of Florida History for the photographs!
Upon further investigation I found another jewel of a house museum in Tallahassee—Goodwood Museum & Gardens.
Goodwood Plantation, Tallahasse, photo courtesy of Goodwood Museum
Not far from downtown is the center of what was once a 2,400 acre cotton and corn plantation. The main house was built in the 1840s. The estate dwindled to 19 acres over the past 175 years but the site still encompasses period outbuildings such as a kitchen, water tower, aviary, guest houses, antebellum laundry house, servants’ quarters, extensive antique gardens, and rolling moss draped lawns. On one of my visits I enjoyed a lengthy private tour of the mansion after a hike of the grounds at my leisure.
The plantation was established in the early 1800s by the Hardy Croom family of North Carolina. But as Croom, his wife, and their three children traveled the Atlantic coast en route to Florida to take up fulltime residence in the new mansion, their steamship was overtaken by a violent storm (damn those hurricanes) and they all drowned to death.
The house was extensively renovated and modernized after 1910 by a widowed New Jersey heiress named Fanny Tiers. Renovations incorporated a modern kitchen, butler’s pantry, bathrooms, electricity, walk-in closets, and the stately columns across the width of the manor. (Does everyone in Tallahassee eventually add columns to a façade?) Considered one of the richest women in America and known for extravagant parties, Fanny always traveled with an entourage thus adding a tennis court, swimming pool, skating rink, “horseless carriage” house, and bowling alley for entertaining.
In Goodwood’s front Parlor, Victorian furniture by Meeks and Belter mix with a French Louis XVI table, center, brought from Versailles to Tallahassee by Napoleon’s nephew, Prince Murat; courtesy of Goodwood Museum
Restored as a 1920s country estate, Goodwood boasts fine art and antiques by luminaries such as Duncan Phyfe, John Henry Belter, William Meeks, and Prudence Mallard. While a purist might prefer to see a restoration to the 1840s, most of the furniture is actually original to the home. Through odd series of circumstances, former owners rarely removed contents from the home and sold Goodwood through the ages intact with furniture, china services, artworks, bed linens, and even clothing. Some of the furniture was brought from Versailles by Napoleon’s nephew, and one of my favorite colonial characters, Achille Murat. (Readers know that I’m fascinated with Prince Murat; see TroysArt Magnolia Mound Plantation July 29, 2014.)
As one story goes, in 1925 Senator William Hodges bought the most expensive bed in the world—while visiting a Tiers party at Goodwood, his wife Margaret admired one of the canopy beds. However, to acquire the antique he had to buy the entire estate.
Goodwood is loaded with history, has a solid collection of art and antiques, breathtaking gardens, and is undoubtedly the premier house museum in Tallahassee. Appreciation to director Beth Lewis for permission to use images of Goodwood from the website.
Arts and culture can always be found when one is resolved to explore. And Tallahassee, like any major southern city, has resources for those who seek. Tallahassee boasts a plethora of house museums such as the Knott House, Goodwood Museum & Gardens, the John G. Riley House , Bellevue, and McClay Gardens (McClay abuts the public grounds of Rose Hill). But after talking to residents of this charming city, I learned to my chagrin how few have even visited the aforementioned landmarks. As the city’s art assets are undiscovered by their locals, so too can they be easily overlooked by visitors.