The William Dean Howells House, circa 1941

Named after its most famous inhabitant, William Dean Howells, this house is a large Colonial Revival structure.

Mr. Howells, a famous American writer and editor, wintered here in 1916. While here, Howells wrote about the Prince Murat House nextdoor.

Today the Howells House contains the administrative offices, library, and volunteer center for the museum.

The William Dean Howells House

An excerpt from "A Confession of St. Augustine, Part II" by William Dean Howells, Harper's Magazine, May 1917, illustrates the early folklore surrounding the connection of Murat to the house.

"The spirit of the time lingers yet in a few half-dozen old coquina houses standing flush upon the streets. One of them stood next to our own, covered, roof and wall, with ivy and with roses and yellow begonia, where Prince Murat, the Bonapartist heir of the Neapolitan throne, lived and died in a long, unmolested exile.

The Prince Murat House, May 1941, showing the vine

Historic scholarship reveals that Murat did not live and die "in a long, unmolested exile" in the house. In fact, he may have only lived there for two months.

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