About the Architecture
This 1886 frontier homestead in Brandon, Florida is a National Register of Historic Places site and is landmarked by Hillsborough County.
This house is associated with writer and artist, Julia Daniels Moseley and her watchmaker, engineer, and inventor husband Charles Scott Moseley, as well as their descendants. Today this frontier-era homestead is the last remnant of pioneer Florida tucked away and surrounded by the urbanized environment near east Tampa on the west coast of Florida.
The vernacular architecture includes a main house and numerous outbuildings on nearly 15 acres of lakefront land. Julia named all of the rooms and structures on the property, and called the land “The Timberly”, feeling that the environment was integral to life and part of the homestead. The eclectic mix of design extended to the interiors of the rooms, where artwork and a one-of-a-kind painted palmetto fiber wallcovering wraps the interior wall space of the main structure. This work of art is so unique that it was part of the Florida display at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
The Architecture
Julia Daniels Moseley and Charles Scott Moseley took to naming each room in their house, with the whole house being called The Nest. Their artist son, Karl Moseley would further brand each room with elaborate logo-type designs and portray the room names on signs that appear on doorways and on the exterior of structures. The home and the property together were named The Timberly, owing to the large tracts of trees- especially the long leaf pine areas in and around their homestead. The names were continued by the next generation of Moseley descendants, with signs noted on many of the structures even today that hint to their function and historical significance.
