Hello

My name is Josie

I’m your host.

I’m sitting here twirling my pen, trying to think of what to say about what has happened here. I feel awkward and intimate and self-conscious.

So much of the inn is me. I chose it, I framed, electrical-ed, plumbed, drywalled, and tiled it. I designed every inch, chose every linen, and created all the content. I had a wonderful team and lots and lots of help, but every decision was left to me—and there were a lot more than I imagined!

If you like this place, it’s because you like the inside of my head, so I thought I would tell you a little about how I got this way.

My Story

The most interesting thing about me is probably that I have no risk assessment whatsoever.

I spent my twenties living aboard a small sailboat in the Bahamas and the Keys. I got shot at once, and almost sank us in the Gulf of Mexico another time.

Why do I have the picture of me swimming in a dress below?

Who knows! I was new to social media.

I then spent my thirties touring the country in an RV and dirt-biking the TransAmerica Trail – the latter being a mostly off-road motorcycle trail from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Port Orford, Oregon through backroads, forests, deserts, and mountains.

Having never driven a motorbike of any kind before setting off, I dropped it 43 times–once when my back wheel came off at 70 MPH, because a technician in Utah didn’t tighten my rear axle nut after a tune up.

I was not very good at driving a moto but lord did I love that time of my life.

But this story is about a little inn in historic St. Aug.

Growing Some Roots

After moving around so much and falling in love with the power of strangers, I wanted to nestle into a place and grow some roots.

I had driven through St. Augustine when I lived in the RV and I couldn’t get it out of my blood.

St. Augustine, Florida is such a unique and magical place and had so many things I love; boats, beaches that go on for miles, the most charming historic downtown I had ever seen and a small town feel I have been looking for my whole life.

When I was little, I began keeping bits of magazines in every corner of my room. If I saw a space that made me

feel something special, I stuffed it deep in my pockets and went and climbed a tree.

Once I was older it became a trapper keeper and now lives in a Pinterest board that is an

absolute nightmare organizationally but that I wouldn’t part with for anything.

I love, deeply and entirely, the way spaces change people and I love playing with every aspect of that.

I began looking for a place to buy in 2021, and in the spring I found the Old Saragossa Inn online.

I flew from my hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota to see it.

She was hanging on by a thread. A desk I pulled away from the wall collapsed as it was held up by three legs and a windowsill.

Two bathtubs and a sink drained straight into the dirt underneath the house. Some of the window trim was nothing more

than paint on drywall and the yard was one giant dreadlock that it took me four months to comb out and dig up –

to say nothing of the time it took putting it back together.

The inn felt…mournful somehow–old, dignified, stagnant and forgotten.

My business partner Adam (whom I have since bought out) and I bought and closed her as soon as we could. I climbed into the tree out front, hung some chandeliers and began the long, thrilling, terrifying, painful, creative, inspiring process of mindfully and respectfully taking her apart and putting her back together.

Though I had always had a pocketful of beautiful spaces, I had live in a boat, an RV and a tent, if there was furniture

in my life it was probably built into the wall.

I had never even designed anything for myself before I tore out eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

It was brutal, invigorating, terrifying, hopeful, fulfilling, and every other thing it could possibly be.

Building Community

Immediately neighbors began stoping by and would end up staying for hours–they too felt she needed and deserved a new heart.

Everyone had ideas and wanted to help. We started having Happy Hours and Classic Movie Nights in the garden sitting on pallets of wood or shingles or furniture waiting for the perfect spot to spend it’s life.

There were innumerable cases of beer, pizzas, playlists and deep belly laughs that lasted for hours.

The painting in Pax of Fiel (one of the lions on the bridge of Lions, downtown) was a custom paint by numbers I had sent out for. I stretched it on it’s frame and set it in the garden.

All of my neighbors and even some guests, grabbed a numbered paint color and we all went to work.

We told exaggerated stories, drank until late into the night and fell in love with each other and I’ll be damned if you can’t feel it when you look at that painting.

We got dirty, talked deeply and breathed new life into something venerable and extraordinary.

I expected it to be hard–and it was, I expected to cry myself to sleep a lot (a good and worthy part of

anything truly worth doing)–and I did, what I didn’t expect was for it to create a family and network

of people so supportive, generous, protective and joyful that I would never leave.

Everywhere I step around this inn that is what I see. The culmination of deep care and hard work and I love it so much that I could not begin to string enough words together to explain it in a way that would satisfy what is in my heart.

My Rescues

If we have met in person, you probably know that I rescue animals. In 2021 I had my first Florida rescues at the inn. six tiny orphaned kittens.

Here is a beautiful French guest with Q-Tip (2021), Georgie, (2025)–peep those insane eyeballs–and Fathead and Littlefoot (2024–by law all found baby animals go directly into ones bra).

The Kitties

Q-TIP

Georgie

Fathead & Littlefoot

Then there were the squirrels, whom you will remember well if you stay in early 2024.

If you’re sad you missed that one don’t worry, there will always be more babies.

If you ever thought to yourself, “boy I wish I could raise a baby deer, fox, raccoon, squirrel or bobcat,” I highly recommend calling your local wildlife rescue, they need fosters desperately.

The Squirrels

Peanut

My funny little rescue chihuahua

Last, but under no circumstances least, everyone’s reason for coming: my funny little rescue chihuahua Peanut, who is so beloved by guests that he is now a buzzword for the inn on Google Maps, which must confuse people very much and makes me giggle.

I met this gorgeous boy when he was 10 years old, Dec of 2020, and he and I have been best friends since the moment we laid eyes on each other.

He was surrendered because his owner couldn’t care for him anymore but he has Russian grandparents that insist on facetiming him once a year from Moscow. She still has the baby clothes she knit for him when he was born.

Come Visit Us!

Lions and Lanterns is a feeling you have to experience for yourself. As soon as I step into the garden it just wraps right around me and carries me through the day.

I love people. I always have. An inn owner in town told me once that inn keeping has a four year shelf life–well, I have been doing this for five years and I can not imagine anything in the world better than this place or this job or these people (my incredible team, guests and neighbors alike).

Whether I am picking you up because your husband got too drunk to walk back, proposing to your girlfriend, pulling weeds in the backyard or folding my 30th towel of the day, there is never a moment I am not grateful for this little piece of the world.

Everyone asks me what I am going to do next. What I am going to do next is enjoy what I have made, enjoy who I have made it for and to be happy.

My next thing is to play in the garden and rescue kittens and give them to you for a couple hours to snuggle if you request a late checkout.

I will be here ten, twenty, thirty years from now to meet your kids and your grandkids when they come to stay in this charming little town of mine.

See you soon

Lions and Lanterns Inn Saint Augustine, FL