Historic Farms Series

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Citrus Farm
Cross Creek, Florida

The “small place of enchantment” that was writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Cracker-style home at Cross Creek for many years still has the power to enchant.

(Cracker refers to an open, airy style of house built by the pioneer people who cracked their whips to move cattle around Florida.) This was true even in the brisk cold of a Florida winter when we stopped by and were greeted by Park Ranger Sheila Barnes, clad in 1930's style cold weather leggings, and her amiable black and white dog, “Sugah.”

Ms. Barnes is the kind of laconic guide ol' Marge, as she called Rawlings, would have loved. One suspects that in the deep heat of midsummer, however, she may well get tetchy with some of Rawlings' more swooning acolytes.

Marjorie Rawlings today is known most readily as the author of The Yearling, the book about that dear little fawn that garnered Rawlings a Pulitzer Prize in 1939. But we are not visiting to talk fawns. We're hot to inspect the table where Rawlings did her sensuous food writing, the orange grove she hoped might support her, the backyard vegetable garden, the kitchen where she and her succession of black cooks turned out remarkable dishes and the dining room in which such offerings were enjoyed, usually five or six courses with wine. ( OK ,we did look in at the guestroom where notables of the era stayed over. According to Ranger Barnes, “ Hemingway was invited but was too chicken to come.”)

Having read Cross Creek and Cross Creek Cookery with relish, I had imagined what Rawlings' place and the area around it might have looked like. This now National Historic Landmark looks exactly the way it should, from the fancy cabbage rose-slathered linoleum in the bathroom, a place of pride for Marge, who used an outhouse for years at Cross Creek, to the breezy veranda facing the road.

Her 3000 tree citrus grove is down to about 100, all derived from Rawlings' original rootstock, and contented chickens still saunter and squawk among the palms.

You can walk around the grounds and snoop in the restored barn at will. To enter the house you need to join a tour, available Thursday through Sunday. October through July.

Rawlings did much of her writing here, keeping an eye out to life along the dirt road.

Pickings from the winter garden.

The ice box was heavily worked, especially when champagne was on the menu.

Her lively dinner parties started out here.

The typical Florida barn, small because it was used to protect machinery, not to house animals, has been reconstructed.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park

The park is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Guided walks through the Rawlings' home are offered on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00 p.m. from October through July. Group tours can be scheduled, in advance, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Reservations are required for group tours. To make reservations or for more information, call 352-466-3672.