Category: Kayak Adventures

Previously only for the Rich and Royal. Now, Princess Place makes for an Epic Adventure.

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Old Florida’s Hottest Vacation Destination

High Society and Royals from all over the world found respite at Cherokee Grove. Today, known as Princess Place Preserve. The grounds are manicured much as it was in the 1890’s.

An adventure with an estate fit for a princess as the backdrop. There are a handful of float plans you may take. Each with their own unique stories.

Tour in, around, and through this 1500 acre preserve embracing and restoring the precious wetlands. Cruise by the Adirondack-style hunting lodge on the shores of the Matanzas River. Built by Henry Cutter using local materials—pink coquina, cedar trunks, and cabbage palm trunks. He also built Florida’s first in-ground pool, fed by an artesian spring.

GeoTheme 

Defending against sea level rise. In one afternoon go from 150 feet of sea above our heads to the nearby beach falling 300 miles out to the east. Princess Place kayak tours go back in geologic time from the birth of DNA through the current 5000 year long global warming period. Geologic Core samples tell a wild tale of climate change. Environmental impacts are seen in the estuaries first. Encounter how they are our best defense from global warming.

A GeoWarrior asks; “Are the changes we are seeing something that has happened before?” The answer is yes! And you can see the phenomenon still in motion right before your eyes. Are the fears of global warming a chicken little cry? GeoWarrior’s never try to change someones mind, that’s impossible. But we can guide our guests to achieve new perspective. The Earth warms and it cools. Like we Inhale and Exhale. Like the seasons turn. From Night to Day.  How we view things depends on what scale and position in space-time we are perched.

Vacation Like a Yankee Socialite

Princess Place was a favorite Old Florida Adventure spot for the rich and famous.  New England’s High Society and Foreign Royals frequented the estate around the turn of the last century.

• Camping spaces are enormous, but there are only a few… Book in advance. 
• Full-service cabins can be reserved to spend the night in comfy luxury… Book well in advance. 

Overnight or just a half day trip. Take the time to wander the trails and you’re likely to encounter the real residents of Princess Place – herds of white-tailed deer, red fox, bobcats, opossums, raccoons, barred owls, armadillos and Florida panthers among them. 

Even More Adventure

From your base camp in the preserve, spend a week exploring around. All in paddle distance: Matanzas National Monument, Washington Oaks State Gardens, Faver Dykes State Park, Hellen Melon Schmidt Park, and the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory at Marineland. Adventure runs deep at the confluence of Pellicer Creek, Moody Creek, the Intracostal, and the Matanzas River. 

There is a Bald Eagles nest.

The ‘Nest Owners’ are currently rebuilding after 35 years. It reached 2000 pounds. A Christmas storm in 2018 knocked it down. What an unfortunate interesting thing. Now we have the opportunity to come back year after year to watch the life long mates regrow their nest bit by bit.

Viewing is best during Bald Eagle nesting season. In Florida it runs from October 1st until the eaglets fledge in May. Eagles mate for life and use the same nest year after year. In Florida, the eagles who migrate usually return in late September or early October.

Cherokee Grove became a popular stop for New England socialites. After Henry died, his widow Angela married an exiled Russian prince. Together, they lived in Cherokee Grove, entertaining royalty in a royal setting, leading to the name Princess Place. The homestead became a park in 1993.

Princess Place Preserve is very easy to find and offers a variety of activities. You can visit the historic landmarks, ride down the equestrian trails, go kayaking, etc. 

Place for a Princess

Cutting brought his bride Angela here – they married in 1888, the year the lodge was finished – and along with a home in St. Augustine, this place became their winter escape. She loved it and relished hosting their New York friends. After Cutting’s sudden death four years later and her remarriage to New York stockbroker J. Lorimer Worden in 1901, she continued coming to Cherokee Grove.

After a rancorous divorce from Worden in 1922, Angela met and married an exiled Russian prince, Boris Sherbatow, in 1924, gaining the title of Princess. Cherokee Grove was their home for 25 years, and as Angela became more royal than the prince, it soon became known as Princess Place.

The exhibit at the park says “Boris didn’t like it, He spent his time in St. Augustine.” No one seems to know what difference he thought such a minor change would make, but Prince Boris, feeling endangered by his claims to the Russian throne, transformed his name to Sherbatov. Meanwhile, he and Angela entertained other royals and the international society set in St. Augustine and at Princess Place.

He died in 1949 of natural causes, but the princess didn’t sell her beloved Princess Place until 1954. She died in St Augustine two years later at the age of 87.

More Princess Place History

There are so many exciting tales of trials and tribulations that transgressed here. Prior, starting in 1791, Princess Place Preserve had been named “Cherokee Grove”, the First Orange Groove in the Americas. A spanish plantation was quickly established after clearing out the indigenous residents from the area. You can visit the exhibits to learn lots more. On your kayak tour, you may paddle around the original lodge built by Henry Cutting. It still stands as Flagler County’s oldest intact structure. Also on-site is Florida’s very first in-ground swimming pool. 

We could literally bore you with tears if we tried to get it into one tour…. Not to mention your arms might fall off paddling the sprawling wetland preserves. JK, but seriously. Skipping over the Spanish, English, French, Dutch scrimage match over the area. The Americans laid claim to Florida in 1845.

Henry Cutting  purchased the property in 1886 and passed it on to his widow Angela Mills Cutting Worden. She eventually re-married and became a self proclaimed princess. What do you think? IS she a real princess? She did marry an exiled Russion Prince, Boris Scherbatoff. an exiled Russian prince who never got to see his empire ever again.

Before then, in 1788, a 1,105-acre plot was given as a Spanish land grant to Minorca-born Francisco Pellicer, part of a group that arrived as indentured servants in 1768 and thrived in the New World. Pellicer and his family lived here for 38 years, growing corn, cane and cotton until they were burned out during the Indian Wars, 1814-1819 and 1835-1842.

The plot became known as Cherokee Grove when H. C. Sloggett established one of Florida’s first orange groves here in the early 1800s, according to Ranger George O’Dell.

After Cutting bought Cherokee Grove and several adjacent  parcels to grow his holdings to 1,500 acres, he enlisted artisans already brought to St. Augustine by his friend, railroad magnate Henry Flagler, to construct his Adirondacks-style lodge between 1886 and 1888.

The artisans’ use of indigenous materials – cabbage palm and cedar trunks to support the wraparound porch and tabby (a mixture coquina shells and cement) and pink coquina mined from the nearby beach for its exterior – produced an excellent feat of adaptation.

The line of paired palm trees planted to welcome guests in 1888 now blends seamlessly with mammoth, centuries old and vine-draped live oaks.

Florida’s first in-ground pool, where the rich and royal frolicked in spring-fed 72-degree water, is a shadow of its former innovative glory, but O’Dell hopes that someday funds will be available to restore it.