DORR HOUSE

By  Mike Miller November 7, 2025

The Dorr House, also called the Clara Barkley Dorr House, is in Pensacola, Florida. The two-story structure is in the Greek Revival style and dates to 1871.

Its frame is built from yellow pine lumber and local bricks. The site faces Seville Square in the Historic Pensacola District. It now serves as a Victorian-era museum.

The rooms are filled with period furnishings. The house highlights post-Civil War family life.

Dorr House in Pensacola, Florida

Clara Barkley married Eben Walker Dorr in 1849. She was a young widow then. Eben worked in lumber at Bagdad, Florida. The couple raised five children.

Eben died in 1870, and the next year Clara commissioned the house during Pensacola's lumber boom. The architect and builder are unknown.

The home’s yellow pine lumber was locally sourced, and the bricks came from local kilns. The design echoed earlier Classical Revival trends.

By 1871, Gothic styles rose elsewhere and Greek Revival fell out of style. This house marked a holdover in style. Clara's descendants owned the house until the early 1900s when they sold it.

Over the years it changed hands several times, and by the 1960s its condition had deteriorated. The Pensacola Heritage Foundation bought it in 1965 and restored it.

The house opened to the public soon after. The site joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

A year later it was acquired by the Historic Pensacola Preservation Board. The Dorr House demonstrates middle-class recovery after the Civil War.

Dorr House is at 311 S. Adams Street, Pensacola, FL 32502. Reach it via U.S. 98 to Palafox Street, then south to Adams.

Tours run Tuesday through Saturday at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. It’s closed Sunday and Monday.

You’ll need to climb stairs to see the upper floors. Parking is in village lots from which you can walk the shaded paths to Seville Square.

The full tour covers four sites: the Dorr House, the Lavalle House, Old Christ Church, and the Lear/Rocheblave House.

• Clara managed the household alone after age 30. 

• The house stands in its original location. 

• Restoration used original yellow pine where possible. 

• Seville Square hosted markets just steps from the door. 

• The house survived three major hurricanes by 1926. 

HISTORIC PENSACOLA
DORR HOUSE WEBSITE

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