Back in the 1870s Villa Alexandria rose here in San Marco as a winter plantation house. Built in the 1870s by Alexander Mitchell and his wife, Martha, this was a winter home born soon after the Civil War when Mrs. Mitchell found a spot she loved on the St. Johns River. They purchased a tract three miles from Jacksonville called the Alexandria, on grounds of 140 acres, 40 of them under cultivation.
The Mitchell home was known for hospitality and was described as one of the finest and best kept-up places in Florida. Picture the house surrounded by broad piazzas, its grounds studded with summer-houses and grottos, and on the riverfront a pier and boathouse. A beach road made of shells carried from the mouth of the river ran about 100 yards on each side of the pier, and just above that beach a Cherokee rose extended for roughly 300 yards.
A private road linked the estate to the King's Road, and, as the record notes, visitors' carriages were not allowed to pass beyond the two... In the 1920s the gardens became part of "The Arbors" residential property. The riverfront and shoreline still trace where the shell road and Cherokee rose once ran beside you.