Stranahan House Museum Visitor Guide 2026

The Historic Stranahan House Museum at 335 SE 6th Avenue opens 5 to 6 days a week for docent tours that start at $13, with the last tour of the day accepted at 3:15 p.m.

The museum does not publish fixed weekly hours. It says availability changes from week to week because of field trips, private tours and venue rentals, and it strongly suggests booking tickets in advance; anyone after a specific date or a private tour is asked to call the office at 954-524-4736 (Historic Stranahan House Museum).

The museum's ticket listings describe the standard tour two ways, as a self-paced visit where docents answer questions and as a guided tour in which docents share the story of the house, the founding family and the city; both are sold from $13 (Stranahan House home page; Victorian Christmas Tours page). Membership donations, the museum says, pay for its free and reduced-rate programs.

Stranahan House runs Victorian Christmas Tours from December 16 to 20, 2026 and Cookies with Santa on December 5, 2026, and the museum is taking bookings for both.

During Victorian Christmas the doors open for walkthroughs from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.; tours last about 40 minutes and a new one starts every 10 minutes for groups of six or fewer, while classic Christmas songs are played on the museum's 1900s piano. Larger groups are asked to call 954-524-4736. Cancelling at least 24 hours before the tour brings a refund, though processing fees are kept (Stranahan House, Victorian Christmas Tours). The museum suggests pairing the evening with the Water Taxi's Holiday Lights Tour.

Cookies with Santa runs from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on December 5, 2026, from $55. The museum calls it high demand with limited space, refunds only when a spot can be filled from the waitlist, makes every reservation nonrefundable within 7 days of the event, and allows no pets in the museum (Stranahan House, Cookies with Santa).

One older program is gone for good: the Stranahan House museum says it no longer offers ghost tours and will not offer them in the future (Stranahan House, Ghost Tours).

The Stranahan House museum tells drivers to navigate to the Riverside Hotel at 620 E Las Olas Blvd and walk from there to its black iron gate, or to skip downtown parking and arrive by Water Taxi.

The museum warns that parking is limited, as in many metropolitan areas, and that directions can be tricky, which is why it gives the hotel next door as the address for GPS (Historic Stranahan House Museum). It also offers a 20 percent hotel discount code for visitors staying over; that is the museum's own promotion.

The city's Las Olas Garage at 200 E. Las Olas Circle which charges $4.00 per hour, or $1.50 per hour at the city resident rate, has 649 spaces, is open 24 hours every day and allows a 10 hour stay. It takes bills and credit cards but no coins (City of Fort Lauderdale, Public Parking Garages). The city's Riverwalk Center garage at 150 SE 2 St charges $3.00 per hour, also $1.50 at the resident rate, and has 552 spaces.

Stranahan House is protected twice: it is on the National Register of Historic Places, with an NPS record dated October 2, 1973, and the City of Fort Lauderdale zoned it as its own H-1 historic district in 1982.

The National Park Service record lists the Stranahan House at 335 S.E. 6th Ave. as NRIS 73000569, listed under the person criterion with commerce and education as its areas of significance (NPS NPGallery, Stranahan House record). The record's architect field reads Unknown and its style field reads no style listed, and the museum describes the building as a wood-frame vernacular structure with wide porches and a view of the New River (Stranahan House museum).

Locally, the city says it rezoned the Stranahan House and property as an H-1 district in 1982 in order to protect the area from development (City of Fort Lauderdale, Historic Districts). Because of that designation, proposed work on the property goes to the city's Historic Preservation Board Liaison, and alterations, additions or new construction need a Certificate of Appropriateness (City of Fort Lauderdale, Historic Preservation). The Stranahan House district is one of three historic districts in a city that also counts 62 individually designated landmark sites and fifteen National Register sites.

The city's two other locally designated historic districts, the Himmarshee Street district downtown and Sailboat Bend, both reach the New River, the river Stranahan House faces.

The city describes the Himmarshee St./SW 2nd Ave. Historic District as the oldest section of the commercial downtown, bounded by the railroad tracks on the east and the New River on the south, with about 17 properties. They include the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society in the Hoch Heritage Center, the Philemon Bryan House, the King-Cromartie House and the restored New River Inn, which operates as an historical museum (City of Fort Lauderdale, Historic Districts).

Sailboat Bend, the city says, is the oldest neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale, built from the early 1900s until the 1950s, mostly small one-story vernacular houses with Bungalow, Mission or Mediterranean Revival details and some larger homes along the New River. The Swing Bridge, the West Side Fire Station and the West Side School there are also local individual landmarks (City historic districts page).

On weekends the free LauderGO! Las Olas Link shuttle, which the city pitches as serving the shopping, dining and museums of Fort Lauderdale's high street, runs Friday 10:00 a.m. to 8:05 p.m., Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 8:25 p.m. and Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (City of Fort Lauderdale, LauderGO! Community Shuttle).

The Stranahan House museum gives 1901 as the year the house was built, while the National Register nomination for the Fort Lauderdale landmark says it was built in 1902.

The museum's site says the house was built in 1901 (Historic Stranahan House Museum). The nomination's statement of significance says the Pioneer House was built in 1902 and was the Stranahans' home from 1902 (NPS, Stranahan House nomination), and the NPS record lists 1902 as its significant year (NPS NPGallery record). Neither page addresses the other date, so both are reported here. The trading post that came before the house is covered in the Fort Lauderdale history section's guide to Frank Stranahan's trading post.

The museum's own institutional facts are simpler: it says it opened to the public as a historic house museum in 1984, and it names the Broward County Cultural Division, the City of Fort Lauderdale and the Broward County Board of County Commissioners among its major supporters (Stranahan House museum).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, on the Stranahan House museum's tour, holiday and ghost tour pages, the NPS record and nomination form for NRIS 73000569, and the City of Fort Lauderdale historic preservation, historic district, shuttle and parking garage pages.