Watching his brown-haired grand-daughter run barefoot on the Lodge's wraparound porch, trailing ropes of seaweed behind her, Tom Schmidt remembers his own childhood visits here in the 1940s. He and his little sister played on this porch every night at sunset while the adults sipped cocktails. "There was a feeling of tremendous security," Tom recalls. "It was our own little world."

Tom's family still finds shelter on this spot of Florida coastline just south of St. Augustine. This week, he and his wife, Susan, his three grown daughters, and two granddaughters have traveled from Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont to celebrate the birthday of his sister, Helen Claire, who's come from her home in Maryland.

The Lodge and a small companion house, the Hut (built in 1895 and 1882, respectively), nestle into a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and the Summer Haven River.  The two cottages are all that's left of the Mellon family compound in Summer Haven, a onetime fishing camp on Matanzas Inlet.

Tom and Helen's great-grandfather, Pittsburgh millionaire businessman Thomas A. Mellon, bought the Lodge in 1897 and began what is now a century-old family love affair with the place.  Though he died in 1899 at age 55, his son and daughter-in-law, T.A. and Helen Wightman Mellon, would honeymoon here that year and, over the next 40 years, introduce children and grandchildren.

"We'd come on the train from Pennsylvania' says Helen Claire. She remembers sliding down sand dunes on serving trays, navigating the river in a white rowboat, and going for daylong picnics.

Top, left: Tom and Susan Schmidt. Top, right: Helen Wightman Mellon, right, and husband T.A. on their 1899 honeymoon at the Lodge. With them is Helen's sister, Elizabeth Wightman. Bottom, right: Tula Campman enjoys a bath in the Hut's sink. In the black-and-white photo, dated 1942, her grand-father takes his turn at age 2.