St. Augustine, Florida
Florida may not be the first state that comes to mind when it comes to historic places, but in fact, it’s home to two cities with the largest number of homes on the National Register of Historic Places.
St. Augustine landed the No. 1 spot on the list from homes.com, which analyzed 50 of the oldest or most historic cities in the country and ranked them based on the total number of registered historical homes per capita and where the percentage of historical homes was highest
Founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, St. Augustine has 11,231 registered homes per capita, nearly 22% of all homes in this historic town.
Ernest Hemingway House
America’s oldest city, St. Augustine is known for its Spanish Colonial architecture, including The Castillo de San Marcos, a 17th century Spanish stone fortress with views of the St. Augustine inlet, the Spanish Renaissance masterpiece Hotel Ponce de Leon (now Flagler College) and the Spanish-Moorish style Casa Monica Resort & Spa, among others.
No. 2 on the list, with 19.5% of its homes on the National Register of Historic Places, was Key West. Founded in 1521, the Florida city has long been a place where creative people have flourished, including Robert Frost, Tennessee Williams, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Judy Blume, Annie Dillard and more.
Key West was also famously home to Ernest Hemingway during the 1930s, where he lived in a Spanish colonial home and wrote A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon and a number of short stories.