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Cox-Florida House

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1948–1951, Hanker and Heyer. 800 block W. Semmes Ave., between N. Ermen Ln. and N. Brickley St.
  • (Photograph by Claudia Shannon)
  • MS7 Cox-Florida, Staircase, original carpet (Photograph by Claudia Shannon)
  • Looking from entrance hall into Library (Photograph by Claudia Shannon)

Andrew J. Florida (see MS6), cotton farmer and banker and reportedly one of the richest men in Arkansas, and his wife commissioned a Memphis architectural firm to create this eclectic version of an English Tudor mansion on their fifteen-acre estate. The red brick house of twenty-four rooms is composed of a two-story section of three steeply gabled bays linked to a lower one-and-a-half-story section by a three-story, polygonal crenellated tower. Tall chimneys, a white stone door, and white window surrounds and quoins create a highly picturesque effect. The house sits well back from the street at the end of a long brick drive. Also on the grounds were a large swimming pool and a three-hole golf course. In the late 1950s, Florida experienced financial difficulties, and the house was seized by the federal government and put up for sale. New owners, Roy and Eloise Cox, purchased the house, and after their death their son, Gene, donated the house in 2011 to Arkansas Northeastern College.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors
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Data

What's Nearby

Municipal Building (U.S. Post Office)
Mississippi County Courthouse
Historic Planters Bank (Citizens Bank)

Citation

Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors, "Cox-Florida House", [Osceola, Arkansas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AR-01-MS8.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Arkansas

Buildings of Arkansas, Cyrus A. Sutherland and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018, 235-235.

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