Rossetter House Museum in Melbourne, Florida

The Rossetter House Museum in Melbourne's Eau Gallie neighborhood is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10am to 4pm, and its guided tours cost $15 per person.

Rossetter House tours leave at 10am, 12pm and 2pm and last about an hour and a half, according to the museum's Visit page. Visits to the house interior are by guided tour, and the museum requires 24 hours notice for all tours. Its FAQ repeats the hours and the 10am, 12pm and 2pm schedule. The Florida Historical Society page for the museum says instead that tours are available daily during operating hours, so the museum's own Wednesday to Saturday schedule is the one to confirm by phone.

Two practical warnings come from the museum itself. Tour times can shift when special events are held on the property, and those changes are posted on the museum's welcome page and Facebook page. The garden portion depends on the weather; in rain the tour covers only the inside of the house and drops to $10.00 (Rossetter House Museum).

Rossetter House tours are booked by phone at 321-254-9855 or by email to the site manager, and visitors park in one of two museum lots.

The Visit page asks callers booking a Rossetter House tour to leave a name, the number in the party and the preferred tour time, and the FAQ states that a reservation by phone or email is required. Groups of 10 or more get the $10 rate when the tour is scheduled and paid in advance, and the FAQ adds that group payment is due a week ahead.

Every tour begins across the street in the Roesch House, then continues to the Rossetter House, the gardens, the garage and the Houston family cemetery; the cemetery stop can be skipped by anyone who would rather not make the walk (museum Visit page). For parking, the museum points to a lot at the corner of Highland Ave. and Old Oak street next to its offices and a second lot on Hector St. just north of the Rossetter House (museum FAQ). Photography is allowed on the tour.

The house sits in the residential blocks of old Eau Gallie, on the south side of State Road 518, known locally as Montreal Avenue, according to the National Register nomination, which describes the property as bounded by SR 518, Houston Street, Old Oak Street and Highland Avenue and set back 500 feet from the Indian River Lagoon.

The museum complex is three historic places in one: the 1908 Rossetter House with its gardens, the 1901 Roesch House and the 1865 Houston Family Memorial Cemetery.

That list of components comes from the Florida Historical Society, which describes the museum as a project of the society and the Rossetter House Foundation; the museum's management page confirms the Florida Historical Society runs it. Inside, the museum says everything in the house except the curtains was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Rossetter or collected by their daughters Caroline and Ella, who lived there through adulthood (museum FAQ).

The Rossetter House building itself is unusual. The nomination form describes a two-story wood frame vernacular building with Folk Victorian elements, made of three separate buildings built at different times and places and assembled into their final configuration in 1908. The two wings form an offset T, sit on concrete piers and are clad in wood clapboard under a metal shingle roof. Air conditioning ducts were reworked and exterior utilities buried during rehabilitation so the house would look as close as possible to its 1908 appearance.

James Wadsworth Rossetter was a fishing and fuel businessman who bought the property in 1904 and lived in the house from 1904 to 1921, and the house is historic for his role in the commerce of early Brevard County as well as for its architecture.

The state Florida Historical Marker placed in 2006 says Rossetter (1863 to 1921) was born in Hamilton County, Florida, arrived in Eau Gallie in 1902 and became a leader in the local fishing industry as a charter partner of the Indian River and Lake Worth Fish Company. He later formed his own wholesale fishing business and developed a fish pound at the Bight of Canaveral, a precursor of Port Canaveral. To enlarge the small house he bought in 1904, he purchased the winter home of New York industrialist John Aspinwall, built in 1890, and moved it to the site as the west wing, joined by open-air breezeways. The nomination records the move in more detail: the Aspinwall house stood on the bluff south of the Eau Gallie River and was disassembled, moved, rebuilt and attached to the existing home on the north side of the river.

The National Register nomination adds that he owned 20 percent of the fish company, built his operation at the Bight of Canaveral in 1907, and took on the Standard Oil distributorship in the central Brevard County area because, as the nomination puts it, he was the largest consumer of gasoline for his commercial fishing fleet. The two sources differ slightly in wording: the nomination calls the 1907 operation a fish pond, while the marker calls it a fish pound. His eldest and sole surviving child, Caroline Postell Rossetter, later set up an irrevocable endowment to the Florida Historical Society to keep the house as a museum named for her father.

Yes, the James Wadsworth Rossetter House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with a record published on July 27, 2005, and it is also locally designated by the City of Melbourne.

The National Park Service NPGallery record gives National Register Information System ID 05000734, applicable criteria of Person and Architecture/Engineering, a Late Victorian style, and significant years of 1908 and 1921, with William Roesch and James W. Rossetter named as architects. The nomination states it is significant at the local level in architecture and commerce.

Official records do not agree on a single street address. The federal record and nomination use 1328 Houston St.; the state marker and the museum use 1320 Highland Avenue; and the City of Melbourne historic preservation page lists the Rossetter House at 1328 Houston Street and 1365 Highland Avenue, while also naming 1320 Highland Avenue among the properties in the Eau Gallie Historic District. For a visit, the museum's 1320 Highland Ave address is the one to use. Because the house is a locally designated resource, exterior work that needs a building permit first needs a Certificate of Appropriateness, available at no cost, while ordinary maintenance that needs no permit does not; the Community Development Department answers at (321) 608-7500.

The Rossetter House grounds can be rented for weddings and small events, in three spaces sized for 100, 40 or 20 guests.

The museum's rentals page lists the Lawn and Gardens at the Rossetter House, two lawns surrounded by palm trees and gardens, the shaded patio and a private bride's room, for 100 guests or fewer; the Patio for 40 or fewer with tables and chairs for up to 28; and the air-conditioned Parlor for 20 or fewer. All rentals require a signed contract, and site visits are arranged through 321-254-9855. Special events on museum property can also move tour times, according to the Visit page.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by reading the National Park Service record and nomination for listing 05000734, the 2006 state marker text, the City of Melbourne historic preservation list and the museum's own Visit, FAQ, Management and Rentals pages.