During your visit to this Saint Augustine, Florida attraction, explore relics that bring back America’s grand Gilded Age, a marvelous period in the 19th century, elegantly exhibited across the Lightner Museum’s three floors. Start or end your time at Lightner Museum in Café Alcazar. In the Museum Store you can shop for items unique to the Lightner Museum.
Lightner Museum Collection
The Lightner Museum boasts a collection of more than 20,000 individual items that link centuries past with the present. Within the collection is glass, both cut and press. Other artifacts include toys, salt shakers, large-scale figurines, miniatures, marbles, bottles, musical instruments, sea shells, animal trophies, lamps, paintings, large pieces of furniture, watches and candleholders. Highlights of the collection include a 19th century carved and gilded Neo-classical rocking chair from Europe; a marble statue Cleopatra sculpted by Italian artist Raffaello Romanelli; Columbia, a glass piston machine made from blown and drawn glass by Robert Howell in 1892; Maid at the Door, a 19th century French painting; period cut class from the late 19th century; the Curio cabinet made in the Art Nouveau style by the Mechanics Furniture Company; and Winged Victory, a gilded bronze statue made by Jules Leon Gerome in 1870.
A Tour of the Lightner Museum
First Floor
Enter the lobby of the Lightner Museum, restored to the opulence of its early days as the Alcazar Hotel, and be transported back in time. On the Museum’s first floor you will find a Victorian village with shop fronts that reflect emporia selling period wares. In the first floor’s Victorian Science and Industry Room shells, rocks, minerals and Native American artifacts are displayed in beautiful turn-of-the-20th-century cases. Other artifacts displayed in the Victorian Science and Industry Room are bird mounts, a small Egyptian mummy, model steam engines, a golden elephant bearing the world on its back and a shrunken head. Additional displays within the Victorian Science and Industry Room demonstrate the many steps and techniques of Victorian glassblowing. The Music Room is also located on the first floor of the Lightner Museum and is filled with mechanized musical instruments including player pianos, reproducing pianos and orchestrions from the 1870s through the 1920s.
Second Floor
Ascending to the second floor of the Lightner Museum you will find examples of cut glass and Victorian art glass. The stained glass work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, including the Tiffany Window of St. Augustine made between 1848 and 1933, is also displayed.
Third Floor
On the third floor, in the ballroom’s upper balcony, you can marvel at paintings, sculpture and furniture from the Gilded Age. Of great significance is the third floor’s grande escritoire made for Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, between 1806 and 1810.
Enjoy a snack or lunch at Café Alcazar, an elegant eatery located in the space of Lightner Museum originally designated for a swimming pool. Café Alcazar’s menu features hot and cold appetizers, entrées and desserts made from local and organic ingredients.
Shopping in the Museum Store
Be sure to stop by the Museum Store. An eclectic collection of books, jewelry, ornaments, notecards, reproduction antiques and toys related to the Lightner Museum are available to purchase.
Travel Tips
- The Lightner Museum is ADA complaint.
- Café Alcazar serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.