Everglades defender’s home may be moving
A plan is in the works to move the historic home of Everglades icon Marjory Stoneman Douglas — but the question is where.
SUBHED
The cozy Coconut Grove cottage where the late Marjory Stoneman Douglas, guardian of the Everglades and American icon, lived for most of her life looks shabby these days.
A pile of cracked cedar shingles sits near the front steps. A shredded blue roof tarp exposes torn tar paper. Water stains run from the vaulted ceiling down the back wall of the interior great room. Douglas’ antique Spanish desk and most of the furniture is gone.
The 1926 bungalow has fallen into such sorry shape that the state has quietly moved to strip management from Sallye Jude, a prominent Miami preservationist. Her plan — to turn the house and an adjacent lot into a museum compound — ran afoul of neighbors.
Eva Armstrong, director of the Florida Division of State Lands, said her office is committed to preserving the home of Florida’s most celebrated environmentalist, who died in 1998 at age 108 — only not where Douglas built it in the south Grove.
‘’It’s just not right to treat this historic property this way,'’ Armstrong said.
‘We want to put it some place where it will be cherished the way we want this residence of Mrs. Douglas’ to be cherished.'’
Armstrong said a long, nasty, seemingly unresolvable feud — involving Jude, neighbors and the environmental group Douglas founded — has all but forced a transplant of the home where Douglas wrote The Everglades: River of Grass, the 1947 book that persuaded the country that a swamp called the Everglades was worth making a national park.
POSSIBLE SITES
One possibility is Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — though Armstrong said a possible request for a $2 million endowment appears too steep.
Another, which emerged only in the last weeks, is at a county park, probably in rural South Miami-Dade.
‘’It’s very unfortunate,'’ Armstrong said. “It’s always preferable to leave a historic structure where it is, but in this case it’s not looking tenable.'’
Moving the cottage, nestled in the shade of a mahogany tree off a winding narrow road lined with expensive homes, has received grudging support.
‘’I stood at Marjory’s front door one day and I thought this isn’t the neighborhood Marjory loved anymore,'’ said Jude, who first floated the Fairchild idea last year.
Juanita Greene, conservation chair of the Friends of the Everglades, Douglas’ environmental group, has mixed feelings.
She would prefer the house stay in its natural habitat, but also wants a place where the public can appreciate Douglas’ legacy — without being charged to do it, a problem she has with Fairchild.
‘Why should we get rid of a public treasure like Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ house and give it to a private entity?'’ she said.
DISPUTE RAGES ON
The probable move has not ended the bickering.
Neighbors and members of the Friends of the Everglades blame the home’s long years in limbo on both Jude, president of the Land Trust of Dade County, a nonprofit that has controlled the property under a state lease since 1999, and on the land managers in Tallahassee for lax oversight.
John Freud, an attorney who lives next door to the Douglas home and has been Jude’s most persistent neighborhood critic, declined to discuss the dispute.
But in a series of e-mails to the state Deparment of Environmental Regulation since 2005, he lambasted the state for ‘’turning a deaf ear and blind eye to the situation down here'’ and repeatedly pressed to have Jude’s control terminated.
Over the years, neighbors have complained about lousy landscaping, shoddy maintenance and infestations of bees and rats.
They’ve accused Jude of refusing to turn over financial forms or hold meetings ordered by the state and assorted other trangressions.
Mainly, they’re suspicious the trust never abandoned the original proposal to build a museum and two-story building with offices and lodging for researchers on property it purchased next door in 1993 — a plan neighbors say threatens the enclave’s quiet character.
FRUSTRATION
Last year, Freud wrote that Jude — who received a Florida Heritage Award for her decades of preservation efforts, from saving the Old Capitol in Tallahassee to restoring the Miami River Inn — “wants nothing more than to exploit Marjory’s iconic stature for her own personal gain and so-called reputation for historic preservation.'’
Members of The Friends of Everglades are less harsh, but equally frustrated.
Greene, a friend of Douglas’, said she was most upset with the state for letting the dispute fester and the home deteriorate.
In 2003, the group proposed taking over and coming up with a plan that would not disturb neighbors.
‘’We never heard a thing back,'’ Greene said.
David Reiner, a Miami attorney who is the group’s president, said he was drafting a lawsuit against the state and the trust for neglecting the structure and failing to open a historic site to the public.
Personality conflicts made mediation efforts over the years fruitless, he said. “We got absolutely nowhere. It was very bitter.'’
Jude said she found the ‘’inflammatory'’ accusations “very disturbing.'’
But she defended her efforts on behalf of a woman she considered a friend, saying Douglas had personally requested a small museum. The trust had pledged only limited access — no more than 20 visitors a day, four days a week, she said.
The controversy, she said, had only undermined fundraising efforts that might have sped up the work.
As for the home’s condition, she called critics clueless.
‘’These people know nothing about what they’re talking about,'’ she said. “They just talk. Maybe they need to get some facts.'’
The home underwent a $25,000 facelift in 2001, including inserting steel beams to shore up its sagging floor, replacing rotting wood and making other fixes. Douglas’ furniture, she said, was moved to air-conditioned storage for protection until the home was eventually opened to visitors.
Jude acknowledged that hurricanes Katrina and Wilma damaged the roof, but said the trust was holding off on repairs because of a possible move.
‘’When you’re going to move a house, you don’t put a new roof on it,'’ she said. “Once that patch is on the roof, the house is as sound as it ever was.'’
Thomas Matkov, a Miami attorney who is vice president of the land trust, echoed Jude, saying conflicts with neighbors have hamstrung efforts and the home, until last year’s hurricanes, was in better shape than when Douglas lived in it.
Armstrong, the state lands director, said the trust had made earnest efforts, but failed to keep the place up in the end.
‘’I believe the management of that very old, quite frankly delicate historic structure was more than they bargained for,'’ Armstrong said.
The trust’s lease will be terminated soon, said DEP spokeswoman Sarah Williams.
When and where the home might be transplanted remains uncertain — as does the cost of moving and repairing it.
That could easily run into the hundreds of thousands and given the narrow Grove streets, require cutting up the cottage and moving it in pieces.
‘’I've heard estimates that you couldn’t move it unless you disassembled it,'’ said Fairchild board chairman Bruce Greer. “I’ve heard it could only be moved by helicopters. I’ve heard it would have to be moved on a barge.'’
PIECE OF HISTORY
Greer said he agreed to consider a request from Jude to accept the house for Fairchild because it is an important piece of history at risk, one that could become a valuable educational tool for children.
He said he was unaware of any $2 million endowment request and expected the garden would have to raise funds to support it. But Greer said he did not want Fairchild to be drawn into the long dispute.
‘’So long as everyone is happy and we can be the solution, fine,'’ he said. “Otherwise, count me out.'’
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