ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A historic St. Augustine house with ties to civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was loaded on a trailer and relocated to its new home in West Augustine Sunday morning.
“It’s not every day you see a house come down the street," said Leslee Keys, a St Augustine resident.
The historic Canright house traveled nearly 11 miles from Butler Beach, down A1A, over a bridge, past shopping plazas and to its new home, Collier-Blocker-Puryear Park in West St. Augustine.
“Anything like this will attract attention in a positive way, it’s way more than symbolic, it’s also bringing together two chapters in St. Augustine’s history. So yes, very exciting," Keys said.
Built in the 1950s and originally located at 5480 Atlantic View, King rented the beach cottage in 1964 during his campaign in St. Augustine to highlight the racism within the city.
According to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, King hoped that media attention would garner national support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The house was set on fire and shot up when segregationists believed that King was staying there. He was not home at the time.
In 1965, Kathleen Welborn and her husband bought the shell of a house and repaired it all, except for one bullet hole that is still in the frame of the sliding glass door. At that time, it was the only house in the area, Welborn's daughter Nancy Fortier told First Coast News.
Welborn put the house up for sale in 2021 and it was bought by Patti Berry and her husband, David Manaute. Initially, the couple wanted to build around it, but their requests for a variance were ultimately denied. After trying multiple times to get their designs approved, their options were to either demolish the house or move it.
"We wanted to build a new structure around it but preserve the current house," Manaute told First Coast News in 2022.
Eventually, the house was donated to St. Johns County and the St. Johns County Park Foundation secured state funds to relocate the historic house.
“This will serve as an exhibit to give us a reason to talk about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dr. King and Dr. Robert B. Hayling," Troy Blevins, the Project Manager for St. Johns County Park Foundation, said. “It tells the story of that time.”
Dozens came out to watch as the house made its way to its forever home.
“It’s just nice to see that everything went smooth and that the house arrived and just an exciting piece of history being brought to this park," said Jamie Baccari, the assistant director of the county's Parks and Recreation Department.
The house will remain on stilts at the park as builders secure the foundation where it will eventually sit.