History 

of The conch house Marina Resort 

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For over 70 successful years, the Ponce family has owned and operated the Conch House Marina Resort. The Ponce family one of the oldest families in the United States and has been in St. Augustine for over 400 years. The property was purchased in 1946 by Jimmy Ponce and his wife Jackie, and was once the Coast Guard gunnery station.

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The business started as a 4 room hotel, called Ponces By The Sea in which the family lived in one room and rented the other rooms to guests. The Ponce family has been in the hospitality business for over 150 yrs, and it started with Ponces Sweet Shop  which used to be in town behind the old opera house.

 

The next venture was the Old Dutch Tavern, fashioned after a dutch windmill. (A picture of the Tavern can be seen inside the Captains room bar). The Tavern was located just west of the Conch House on Anastasia boulevard, just before the bridge of lions. If you ask any of the old timers, they would tell you this was the place to go. Originally opened as a gambling house, until gambling was outlawed, it became a restaurant and bar serving  fresh seafood and the best fried shrimp. We still use the fried shrimp recipe as my great grandfather did back then.

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Thanks for visiting the Conch House, a piece of St. Augustine history.

 

David Ponce Jr.

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