This Old House

WINDERMERE — The air is thick and sticky on the shores of Lake Butler as the late-afternoon sun begins its descent. Sara Luff sits at a picnic table in the middle of Palmer Park — named after Luff’s great-grandfather, John Calvin “Cal” Palmer. Palmer is one of the founding fathers of the West Orange town.

Just a few yards away, his original home — built in 1911 and 1912 with planks of wood from a sawmill on Lake Down — sits empty. Some of its glass has been shattered, and a previous tenant had torn out its kitchen. It’s rickety and tired, but it’s also thought to be one of the oldest homes in Windermere.

The home was moved into a trust after Sara’s grandfather, John Palmer Luff Sr., died in 2010. At that time, the family lost the homestead exemption, and the taxes were too high for any of the remaining family members to purchase it from the trust and continue to pay the taxes. Last August, Luff’s father, John Palmer Luff, and aunt, Katherine Yoder, sold the house and .9 acres at 306 Palm St. for $925,000. The new owner, Cory Shea, plans to tear it down soon to build a new home.

Tears well up in Sara’s eyes. It had been her dream to one day buy the home and restore it to match the treasured memories it holds.

“He (Cal Palmer) literally built it by hand,” Sara says. “He blew out the canals because he wanted to live on Lake Butler. That was how he got the wood from the sawmill to here.

“My grandfather … also raised my father in that home from the time he was born,” she says. “I remember it being our family home as a child, and my children and nephews will be the sixth generation of Palmer/Luffs that has called this home their family home.”

HOMESTEAD

Cal Palmer, a carpenter and builder, and two friends, Dr. J. Howard Johnson and Howard Lyon, traveled in 1910 from Waseon, Ohio, to Florida. They soon discovered the Butler Chain of Lakes and, along with the great fishing, fell in love with the area’s orange groves and tall trees.

The trio decided the area could become a winter retreat for their families, and for $10,000, Cal Palmer purchased 2,000 acres that included the entire area of the modern-day town of Windermere as well as area to the east and north.

Cal Palmer and Johnson founded the Windermere Improvement Company in 1911 to sell pieces of the property. Johnson opened a sales office in Toledo, Ohio, to market the property, while Cal Palmer stayed in Windermere and built the home at 306 Palm St. for his wife and daughter, Letha. He also built an office at 502 Main St., which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 1995 as the Cal Palmer Memorial Building. It is now the home of Ashley Interiors and Melvin's Garden.

Johnson brought his sawmill from Ohio to the shores of Lake Down at about First Avenue and Magnolia Street. By 1914, the company sold more than 30 lots, and as new residents began to move to the area, so did new stores, a school and Windermere Union Church.

As Windermere began to flourish, Cal Palmer wore many hats in the community he helped establish. He had served as its mayor, postmaster and Town Council member. He was a trustee of the Gotha-Windermere Special School Tax Sub-district, chairman of the Orange County School Board Budget Committee and helped found the Windermere Citrus Growers Association and the Windermere Club Company.

“I think if he were here today, to me, he would very much like what he’d see,” Sara says of her great-grandfather. “He was a visionary. He was sick of the cold. I think he’d be impressed with everything the town has, and he foresaw it — 70 years before anyone else did.”

MEMORY LANE

Although the structure soon will be gone, the memories that took place at the home at 306 Palm St. will live on.

The names of Sara, her sister, Sayler, and a cousin are etched into a concrete ramp along the walkway from the garage to the home. In the front, the same screen door that banged against its frame when the kids darted in and out (much to Sara’s grandmother, Ellie’s, dismay) still rests on its hinges. 

Sara also remembers her grandmother’s wedding dress hanging in the closet, and a few years ago, Sayler discovered her father’s old yearbooks stashed in a secret nook hidden in his former bedroom.

“This is where we’d have Christmas and celebrate holidays,” Sara says. “This is where I spent summers. … It’s the legacy of the family — for six generations. And it’s just a shame that that sixth generation — my kids — won’t be able to bring their wives here.”

As a child, Sara had an important job around the house.

“I got $5 for every garbage can of weeds I pulled,” she says, laughing. “And I’m not talking about a small garbage can. It was huge.”

Of course, Sara’s days at her grandparents’ house included plenty of fresh orange juice and time in the old treehouse. Below the first floor is an open-air basement, where John Palmer Luff Sr. cleaned fish.

“There was an old wooden swing hanging from a water oak tree, and my grandfather would push me on it for hours,” Sara says. “And I remember my grandparents sitting on the porch in their wrought-iron gliders looking at the Disney fireworks over the lake.”

As part of the sale, the Sheas, the new owners, agreed to let the family remove sentimental pieces of the home before demolition. First on Sara’s list were two windows from the family room.

“My grandmother would sit at one, and my grandfather at the other,” she says. “From the outside, you could see them in each of the windows.”

She also has claimed pieces of stained glass, the fireplace mantel, some of the doors and brass hardware. Once demolition begins, she wants to take some of the bricks and wood to reuse in her own home.

“When my fiance was taking out the windows, I thought, ‘How sad that, after 100 years of this being here, we are ripping it out,’” Sara says. 

The early-evening air pulls itself in tendrils through the open squares where the glass once stood. The floors creak under the weight of family footsteps. It doesn’t smell like it used to, Sara says, because of years of use as a rental property.

Her voice quivers at the thought of demolition day, but she hopes to muster up enough strength to be there when it happens.

“Somebody who remembers should be here when it goes down,” she says.

Contact Michael Eng at [email protected].

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Although the Windermere Historical Preservation Board had decided the home at 306 Palm St. was worthy of a historical designation, the proper paperwork was not filed with the state or nation to gain protection.

After they purchased the home, new owners Cory and Susan Shea met with the Windermere Town Council in January to discuss their plans for the property.

“The home was never on the national historic registry,” Windermere Mayor Gary Bruhn says. “It never went through the procedures required.”

Bruhn also says because of the modifications done to the home (including the removal of its kitchen by a former tenant), it never would have qualified under the historic-preservation parameters anyway.

“From my understanding, it was the very first home in Windermere,” Cory Shea says. “But the house itself had had so many additions and changes. There are a lot of family memories there, but the home had zero value.”

Cory Shea, currently a resident of the Reserve at Belmere in Windermere, says since he closed on the property, he has tried to work with the town and family to help facilitate any preservation they wished to make. Originally, the town discussed the potential of moving the home, but at an estimated $250,000, it proved to be too costly.

The Sheas also agreed to allow the city to come in and remove some of the hard pine wood to reuse in the 1887 Schoolhouse. 

However, with a demo permit issued last week and liability issues that surround an unsecured home, Cory Shea says demolition likely will take place within 10 days. And so far, the town has not coordinated the removal of the hard pine wood.

“They haven’t removed the pine, and it remains to be seen if that happens,” he says. “They have about a week to 10 days. After that, there won’t be any pine to talk about.”

The Sheas already have been busy renovating and improving the waterfront. They built a new seawall and a new boat dock, and Shea says he will clean and re-stain the nearby public boat dock.

The Sheas plan to build an 11,500-square-foot home on the property. The home currently is in the design phase, and Cory Shea says he plans to break ground before summer begins.