The Porcher House, 1916: a citrus grower's coquina house on the river
Edward Postell Porcher and his wife Byrnina moved into their coquina-faced house on the Indian River in Cocoa on October 31, 1916. It became Cocoa's city hall in 1945 and was listed on the National Register in 1986. What the nomination and the state marker record.
On October 31, 1916, the citrus grower and inventor Edward Postell Porcher and his wife, Byrnina Peck Porcher, moved into a new house on the Indian River at the south edge of downtown Cocoa. The state’s historical marker calls it “the grandest house in Cocoa.” Its National Register nomination calls it “a unique example of twentieth century classic revival influence interpreted in local coquina rock.”
A coquina house
The Porcher House is faced in coquina, the shell rock of Florida’s east coast, laid in a random pattern with flat arches over the windows. According to the 1985 nomination, the same local stone went into the interior fireplaces and the original garden wall. The front, facing west onto Delannoy Avenue, has seven bays. The builder and architect are unknown.
The house was built for the climate. The nomination points to its broad verandahs, cross ventilation and wide overhangs, and credits Porcher’s own ingenuity for them. The state marker lists ten bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, a partial basement and an attic.
The best-known detail came from Mrs. Porcher. Family history, the nomination says, holds that she worked closely with the contractor, and the club, diamond, heart and spade shapes set into the coquina around the entry are a nod to her love of card games.
Built between two maps
The nomination dates the house from fire-insurance maps and Porcher’s own diary. The 1915 Sanborn map of Cocoa shows a vacant lot; the 1919 map shows the house. Porcher’s diary records that on October 31, 1916, he “moved in to sleep.” The marker lists what is gone: a porte-cochere on the north side, a swimming pool, and a large packinghouse on the riverbank behind the house that processed fruit brought by boat from the family’s groves on Merritt Island.
After the Porchers
The family’s time in the house ended suddenly. Edward Porcher died in June 1939, at 78. His estate passed to his son, Arthur, who died the next month in an automobile accident, and the house stood vacant for two years until Gordon Chipman bought it and ran it as a hotel. In 1945 the City of Cocoa bought the house and the property next to it and made it city hall. From 1969 to 1972, the nomination says, it was a home for orphaned boys called Aquarius Hall; after that it stood empty until it was nominated to the National Register, where it was listed in 1986.
The state marker records what came next: the house was restored with city and state historic preservation grants and has since been used as event space and offices. The man who built it is on our Edward Porcher page.
Further Reading
- A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith
- Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon
Sources
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