Marjorie Rawlings at Cross Creek from Florida Photographic Collection.
. . . as did Zora Neal Hurston, Dylan Thomas and Robert Frost. “Here” is the Crescent Beach home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Yearling. Sales of The Yearling provided her the money to buy a small beach house about 10 miles south of St. Augustine. Once she married Norton Baskin and he opened the Castle Warden Hotel in St. Augustine, she spent most of her time at the beach house. Cross Creek and Cross Creek Cookery were written here.
The house is for sale. The current owner’s mother spent years lovingly restoring the house. Since her death, the daughter has cared for the house. It can be rented for a week for $2,500. The $3.5 million asking price may seem steep, but who can put a price on one of the few surviving “Old Florida” beach homes with this kind of history?
Originally published at Moultrie Creek on August 10, 2009.
