Tag Archives: Rose Shepherd

The Old Fed; Or, How Henrietta Dozier Bent the Rules

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The Old Fed is as full of contradictions as was Henrietta Dozier, the Jax architect who sometimes went by “Mr. Dozier” and “Harry.” She didn’t break the rules but she bent them all. Recently I wandered with architect Brooke Robbins through Dozier’s Federal Reserve Bank Building, one of a dozen historic structures being restored within a couple blocks downtown. 

New Story: St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta House

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When the old man fired his gun over the boy’s head for stealing oranges, the future city commissioner said one day Armstrong’s house would be his. He bought it in 1911. St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta was arrested in 1924 on “false charges” of keeping a “disorderly house” and indicted in 1933 for giving away the city’s “sack of potatoes” and a mule. He made enemies easily, but always fought for urban “beautification.” After the Acostas donated the house in 1966, it became the artistic heart of Episcopal School of Jacksonville.

Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum

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David Karpeles understands what Mary Baker Eddy knew: that one sheet of paper can move a planet. A decade after the founding of the Mother Church in Boston, Jax had its own Christian Science congregation. It was supposed to be a “rational approach to spirituality,” but so was Spiritualism. Now this building’s spiritual acoustics soak up the city’s art and music. And that’s appropriate.