Ximenez Fatio House

In 1798, merchant Andrés Ximénez built a coquina house on St. Augustine’s Aviles Street for his family. Its rooms were arranged for a household and a business: a general store and billiards room occupied the ground floor, while the family lived above. Warehouses, a detached kitchen, and washroom filled out the property. The building was not designed as a museum or a boarding house; those uses came later.

The house’s early history also includes people whose lives were constrained by slavery. Historical records identify Rosa, a biracial woman enslaved by Ximénez. After his death in 1806, she was leased to other households; her later fate is unknown. Naming her is not the same as recovering her full story, but leaving her out would make the merchant household appear to have existed without the labor and coercion that supported it.