Our Home – The River House

The River House is the home of your Space Coast Symphony Orchestra.

HISTORY

This concrete and stucco house is one of the first masonry residences to be built in this older neighborhood. It has Mediterranean revival style elements, notably the stucco exterior, columns and flat roofs on porches. It was a large house by the standards of the mid 1920s. This house is a copy (virtually a replica) of Evelyn Travis Osborn’s home in West Palm Beach.  Theodore had several children, and this house is one more than a few older locals remember fondly for the ‘child friendly’ hospitality.

This was not the first home The Gator Travises lived in. ‘That first house is one of the bungalows on Forrest Avenue at the west side of the Travis’ property. ‘This home, the second one the family lived in, reflects the thriving prosperity the Travis family acquired riding to the crest of the land boom. When it was built in 1929, it was one of only two Mediterranean revival homes on North Indian River Drive. (The other was the McGlaun house, north corner North Indian River Drive and Carmalt.) It was nestled between Florida vernacular frame homes between Mulberry and Mitchell Street, that were built decades before this one (and for the most part, have not survived.)

Theodore Travis, was the third of S.F. and Mamie Travis’ children. He was a partner with his brother in the Travis Company on Dellanoy Avenue. He also opened a Studebaker dealership in Cocoa in the 1920s. The Travis marriage ended in divorce. Subsequently, Mr. Travis moved to his grove property in Oak Hill, part of the Travis family’s extensive grove property in Brevard County. His Oak Hill grove including a ‘juice stand’ on US 1 became well known to tourists from the boom years to the space age. This was not the first house Theodore Travis and his wife lived in.

The Theodore Travis family owned this property until the Brevard County Library system purchased it. It is now home to the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra.