...here was a curiosity, out of time and place, a fairytale creation.
Tucked away on three acres off High Road in the state’s capitol city is a fascinating property hidden from all traffic. A visitor walks down a wooded path and is greeted by a majestic live oak tree shading a soft lawn. This tree, a sapling in the time of Shakespeare, keeps company with something not seen in Florida, an English Tudor-style cottage, a cottage that looks as if it comes from the pages of a child’s book of fairy tales, with a steeply gabled roof, diamond-pattern leaded glass windows and stone foundation.
This is Lichgate.
Lichgate is the creation of a Tallahassee philanthropist, Dr. Laura Pauline Jepsen, a longtime professor of English at nearby Florida State University. Dr. Jepsen helped establish important groups in Tallahassee dedicated to preservation, education and the community welfare.
She envisioned and built an enchanting cottage and named it Lichgate to echo the idea of gates in a Medieval English church, gates that separated the world of the living from the world of the dead.
This is Lichgate.
Lichgate is the creation of a Tallahassee philanthropist, Dr. Laura Pauline Jepsen, a longtime professor of English at nearby Florida State University. Dr. Jepsen helped establish important groups in Tallahassee dedicated to preservation, education and the community welfare.
She envisioned and built an enchanting cottage and named it Lichgate to echo the idea of gates in a Medieval English church, gates that separated the world of the living from the world of the dead.
| In narrating the history of this house I am merely anticipating the explorations of that antiquary who, upon discovering relics, infers that foundations of the present are quite literally laid on the ashes of the past. The foundation of this house, however, was laid on the imaginary ashes of a previous civilization. Peace be with those ashes! |
Laura Jepsen |
