St. Augustine

The City of St. Augustine offers two different private club membership opportunities in Marsh Creek Country Club and The Palencia Club.

Marsh Creek Country Club

• Marsh Creek Country Club is a gated community located on the barrier island separating the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal Waterway. They provide membership opportunities to both residents and non residents through a large offering of membership categories designed to fit various lifestyles. The club features an 18-hole championship golf course designed by former PGA Tour professional Mark McCumber. The Tennis Center is comprised of 10 Har-Tru clay courts and the 2,500 square foot fitness center is filled with all new Cybex and Matrix equipment. A family pool is open year round for member enjoyment and the club features both casual and fine dining with deliciously innovative menus.

The Palencia Club

• The Palencia Club lies in the heart of the Palencia community but they offer memberships for both residents and non residents alike. Opened in 2002, it is a premier private club in the nation’s oldest city. Palencia features an 18-hole Arthur Hills-designed championship golf course which stretches 7,071 yards through centuries-old oak trees and along the Intracoastal Waterway. Its magnificent 33,000 square foot clubhouse hosts two separate dining areas and a grandiose banquet room where many special events take place.

If there is one thing St. Augustine has en masse, is restaurants. Every corner you turn on it’s old world cobblestone streets or beach front promenade, is jam packed with one of a kind eateries.

St. Augustine has one outlet mall and one indoor outlet mall. The area’s outlet mall is called St. Augustine Premium Outlets. This mall features stores such as Polo Ralf Lauren, Nike, kate spade New York, Coach, Banana Republic, and many others.

The indoor outlet mall is called St. Augustine Outlets and they are home to Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH, Nautica, Lucky Brand, Dooney & Bourke, Guess, Cole Haan, and other national retailers.

While there are no high end luxury goods represented in St. Augustine, a 30 mile drive north to the St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville, FL will have you perusing some of the most exclusive designer brands.

Downtown St. Augustine is a hub of activity filled with art galleries, boutiques, and small gift shops. St. George Street in particular is famous for its collection of cubby hole sized shops offering everything from medieval swords, the latest resort wear, local handmade art, cigars, and you name it.

No less than three farmers markets can be found across the city. All a gathering place for growers, artisans, and artists to sell their local products.

As a famous and historic tourist destination, there are a ton of things to do in St. Augustine. The city is multifaceted in that it is a combination of sleepy beach town, tourist destination, historical landmark, college town, European style village, and artist’s haven all rolled into one.

Possibly no one place embodies the many different facets of St. Augustine more than St. George Street. St. George Street is the epicenter of downtown St. Augustine with its cobblestone roads and old world European architecture. On this narrow avenue and its many side streets you will find hundreds of tiny storefronts made up of boutiques, eateries, galleries, and gift shops. Tourists, residents, college students, artists, and performers pack these streets on a typical day making for a vibrant hub of activity.

The St. Augustine Amphitheatre is best known as a state of the art performing arts venue. Many world class music icons have taken the stage here such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin, John Legend, and others. Every Saturday a farmers market moves in to the amphitheater grounds and a night market takes place twice a month featuring local handmade arts, goods, crafts, food trucks, and a full bar.

Housed in the former Alcazar Hotel, built by Henry Flagler in 1888, the Lightner Museum contains an immense collection of decorative fine arts, artifacts, and antiques. The museum’s four floors display paintings, Victorian art glass, furnishings, cut and blown glass, and natural history items.

Located in one of Henry Flaglers old East Coast Railway buildings, the San Sebastian Winery ranks as one of Florida’s premier wineries. Every year over 100,000 people visit the winery’s tasting room and tour the wine making facilities.

The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the United States and was designed by the Spanish in 1672 to protect the City of St. Augustine. It is open to the public and the park rangers do an excellent job of educating visitors and even perform a live cannon demonstration that can be heard clear across town.

Anastasia State Park is 1,600 acres of barrier island ecosystem consisting of pristine beach, estuarine tidal marsh, maritime hammock, and sand dunes. Activities at the park include hiking, swimming, bird watching, paddleboarding, kayaking, sail boating, and canoeing.

The mission of the World Golf Hall of Fame is to celebrate the game of golf and preserve the legacies of those who have made it great. The museum serves as a steward of the game through engaging, interactive storytelling, and exhibitions featuring artifacts, works of art, photography, audio, and video significant to the great game of golf.

What today is Flagler College was once the grand Hotel Ponce de Leon, a national landmark built by Henry Flagler in 1888. Historical tours of Flagler College highlight the architectural heritage of the college. The dining room where students casually eat lunch boasts the biggest collection of 79 large, Tiffany stained-glass windows.

St. Augustine beaches stretch some twenty miles from Vilano Beach in the north to Crescent Beach in the south. There are areas where you are allowed to drive your car out onto the beach, which is a nice option, especially for the mobility impaired. With so many miles of beach and similarly numerous access points, you will find there are places where the beach can get quite crowded such as at Ocean Pier Park, and other areas where it could be just you and birds. St. Augustine beaches are typically covered in powdery white sand that squeaks under your feet as you walk. One interesting feature of these wide beaches is you can find naturally occurring lazy rivers and pools that form as the tide goes out. The water color in this area of Florida is typically a turbid brown not uncommon to other shorelines up and down the east coast of the United States.

The Intracoastal Waterway that runs through St. Augustine is a serpentine body of water with expansive marsh shorelines and winding tidal creaks. The shorelines in this area are almost exclusively natural except for the epicenter of the city where very nice waterfront homes and protective sea wall can be found. Three bodies of water converge in east St. Augustine; the Matanzas River, Salt Run, and the Tolomato River providing ample boating opportunities. There is ocean access through the St. Augustine Inlet which is wide, well marked, and relatively safe.

There is a seemingly endless amount of shoreline to fish in the St. Augustine area. Small tidal creaks wind through the marsh grass and into the main bodies of water surrounding the city. The mouths of these creaks can be great places to find Flounder, Spotted Seatrout, Redfish, and Sheepshead. Similarly the docks, pilings, and sea walls also produce big Flounder. Out in the Atlantic Ocean, good catches of Cobia, Grouper, Snapper, Mahi Mahi, Wahoo, and more can be had. Long runs are necessary for targeting certain species and one 100 foot depths can be found around 32 miles offshore of St. Augustine Inlet. Similarly, the ledge is around 60 miles out from the coast as is the Gulf Stream Current.

St. Augustine schools are controlled by the St. Johns County School District. Niche.com gives the school district an A rating and has it as the number one best school district in the state. St. Johns County School District has 38,550 students in grades PK, K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 14 to 1. According to state test scores, 78% of students are at least proficient in math and 74% in reading. Several notable private schools include Turning Point Christian Academy (Christian), St. Joseph Academy (Roman Catholic), and Cathedral Parrish School (Roman Catholic).

The City of St. Augustine has a total of 8 golf courses. Within a short 20 mile drive you will find another 20 courses of which 10 are public and 3 municipal.

The crown jewel of golf courses in St. Augustine would have to be located at the World Golf Village. The King & Bear and Slammer & Squire courses at the World Golf Village feature design collaborations by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, and Gene Sarazen. The King & Bear designed by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus is a combination of an open, links style layout on the front nine. The back nine is more traditional Florida golf course lined by pine groves and 200 year-old oak trees. The Slammer & Squire course rewards good shot making and has an open layout with contoured greens.

Royal St. Augustine is a challenging 6,529 yard, 18-hole public course with moguled fairways and well placed bunkers. Water features mark a large presence on almost every hole.

St. Johns Golf and Country Club features a Clyde Johnson-designed 18-hole golf course. The course stretches 7,250 yards through pine forest which provides excellent wildlife viewing opportunities.

The St. Johns Golf Club offers an 18-hole championship layout set amongst towering pines. The club boasts the area’s largest practice facilities with an expansive grass tee driving range and two-tiered chipping green.

The Golf Club at South Hampton is home to a family owned and operated signature Mark McCumber design. This player friendly golf course features sixteen large lakes and over 60 contoured bunkers that test shot making abilities.