Gonzalezes’ bio, by Jean Parker Waterbury As some unknown family built the coquina house and enjoyed the thick walls and solid roof [of the ‘Oldest House’], two other people were growing up an ocean apart; they would become inhabitants of the house, the first to whom we can put names. Tomas Gonzalez y Hernandez, born in 1701 on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, followed other islanders to Florida about 1721.