Marco's Forgotten Forefather?

W.D. “Captain Bill” Collier died on September 20, 1934, but his presence is still felt today, with his three landmark structures still operational on modern-day Marco Island, around 154 years after the Marco Lodge was built in 1869. The Old Marco Inn (1883) and Captain Bill Collier’s House (now Marek’s, 1882) were built by Captain Bill Collier and the Marco Lodge (now Paradise Found in Goodland), was built by his father, W.T. Collier, considered the founder of the Marco townsite (now Old Marco) in 1870. Eventually, Captain Bill Collier took over ownership of the lodge.

Captain Bill Collier also built two stores in the Marco townsite, the W.D. Collier store and the G & G Mercantile store, nicknamed the Big Store by Marco pioneers. Neither store is still standing, but the three landmark structures are part of 47 designated historic sites in Collier County, according to the Historic and Archaeological Preservation Board.

Faye Brown was born in the Marco townsite in 1942. Her family home was located, literally, at the back doors of the Old Marco Inn and the Marco Lodge. Brown now lives in the mountains of Georgia, but her memories of Marco Island remain vivid... though she has a different name for them.

“My memories are silly,” Faye Brown laughs. “I was between four and eight years old when my parents lived in our house between the rear entrances to the hotel and the lodge. Our front yard connected to a narrow lane between our house and the hotel. In between having babies, our mom worked part-time at both places of business. My older sister, Annette, and I carried our drinking water to our house in a galvanized water bucket from the hotel cistern at the rear entrance. 

"We had boundaries and were not allowed to go past the wooden fence between the G&G Mercantile store - the Big Store - and the hotel properties, except to walk the narrow-shelled lane from our house. I once disobeyed and was instructed to go out into our backyard to find a switch to be switched with, and it was made clear to me that if it broke while being switched that I would get it twice as hard. I tried to use good judgment in selecting a switch. I didn't want it to last too long, but I sure didn't want it to break while being switched.”

Brown remembers when the Marco Hotel changed its name to the Marco Island Inn.

“I remember Woodie Woodall, who came to manage the hotel,” Brown recalls. “I believe it was then that they changed the name to the Marco Island Inn. I believe that Woodall came about 1946. We lived there until 1949 when the four houses were moved to make the state road that’s now called Palm Street. Our house, along with Leslie and Beatrice Bronson’s house, was moved to what is now Bald Eagle Drive. It was called Lee Street at the time. Hurricane Donna (1960) got our old house. Bronson’s house is now part of Marek’s restaurant (Captain Bill Collier’s house)."

The Old Marco Inn wasn’t a big part of the local community during Brown’s childhood. Most pioneer-era folks couldn’t afford such luxury.

“The hotel was mainly for winter guests,” Brown said. “I was so young then, and we only had a backyard glimpse of it. I don’t think the local people could afford to eat out at the time. But I do know that in the late 50s there were a few locals that dined there. I believe a few came from Naples to dine.”

Brown remembers witnessing an unusual scene at the hotel’s cistern one day.

“I do remember seeing a man washing a woman’s hair at the cistern once,” Brown said. “I ran into our house and told my mama and she just laughed. I decided after I was older that the chef was most likely trying to sober up a waitress to work her shift.”

Brown recalls the lay of the land in Old Marco back in the late 1940s.

“There were two small cottages at the rear of the hotel,” she said, “one on each side. They were for the help. Woodie Woodall lived in one, and an employee lived in the other. One day, my two youngest sisters, about two and three years of age, walked into the employee’s one-room cottage and got into a box of bath powder. My mom was so embarrassed. She knew the lady and apologized.”

Brown’s grandpa, Dave Weeks, worked as a fishing guide at the hotel. 

“He was at Coconut Island with a Mr. Hutchinson and a friend,” Brown said, “he was first a guide for the Naples Hotel (located close to the Naples Pier), then moved back to Marco in 1910 to guide for the Marco Hotel.”

Brown said that Leslie and Beatrice Bronson lived in the house that is now part of Marek’s restaurant.

“Leslie Bronson was caretaker for the hotel after Albert “Judge” Addison had to retire,” Brown said. “Leslie also was a fishing guide at the hotel and collected the rent on the houses that we lived in on hotel property. His wife, Beatrice Helveston Bronson, went with Caroline Kipp Robinson to ask for donations of lumber from the Slater Sawmill, located north of Fort Myers. She taught my dad to read from the Bible.”

The church was a big part of Brown’s upbringing. What locals refer to as the “Little Church” was located in Old Marco at the time. Today, the Church of God is located at the Marco Island Cemetery and used for weddings.

“Mrs. Caroline Robinson’s work with the Little Church provided the community with a Christmas play, decorated tree and a bag of candy mixed with nuts and a tangerine from Mr. Kipp’s small citrus grove,” Brown said. "At Easter, Mrs. Caroline organized an egg hunt for the children. I would have to say that Elva Griffis took notice of a couple of children that needed a doctor’s attention. Everyone looked after and helped one another. I heard about the Collier family at home because we have family related several different ways to the Collier family.” 

Brown recalls a story of a large bear in Old Marco.

“The big story that I remember of the Marco Lodge was when George Lowe, who was keeping bees and was our next-door neighbor, killed a big bear that kept getting into his beehives. He skinned it and brought the meat home to his wife to can. Frances Lowe and my mama ordered cans from Sears & Roebuck and canned the meat right out of our kitchen. After sealing it, they placed it in a large caldron in our backyard and cooked it for a while. George then tanned the hide and Margie Wine hung it in the lobby of the Marco Lodge. It was a part of the decor for years to come. We lived a simple life back then.”

How simple? Rent was certainly reasonable.

“My parents paid five dollars a month for rent for our house,” Brown said, “it was built by W.D. Collier. The Lowe family was living in the house next to us when we first moved there. I believe they only paid $2 per month. Richard Addison’s family was next, traveling eastward. Up a short ways and across the lane, next door to the old skating rink building that had been turned into a garage for the hotel was the house rented by Leslie and Beatrice Helveston Bronson. These four houses were all moved in 1949 for the state road to come through. The Army barracks on hotel property were moved just before our houses were moved. A section of the Marco Lodge was also moved to the north side of the lodge building."

While the G&G Mercantile store was a big part of everyday life in Old Marco in the 1940s and 1950s, there was another store in Old Marco that was operated by a woman they called Marco Molly.

"I sure do remember her,” Brown exclaimed. "Actually, that building, called the Juke, had high walls with windows up near the top, and they had to be closed with a pole. I’ve seen pictures of the inside and it is a high ceiling. Lewis Hamilton at first built the building for a garage. I guess he thought that he could make more money selling beer and wine.

“I went inside a few times to get milk and bread after the G & G Mercantile had closed for the night. We weren’t allowed to go on weekends but could go during the week when only locals were there. My dad boarded at Miss Molly’s when he first came to Marco in 1933. He had a lot of respect for her.”

Brown said Molly used a lot of profanity.

“Everyone on the island just accepted it as her way,” Brown said. “I can’t remember her using it around kids. She and Preston Sawyer’s wife, Elvia, were sisters, but even I didn’t know that until I was in my early 40s. I never even thought about it because they were so different. Mrs. Elvia was a quiet person who stayed at home and Miss Molly had to run the store and Juke. If you went to the Juke during the week, you would find Miss Molly with her ironing board set up in the store, ironing clothes for the family. We didn’t have clothes dryers and the non-iron materials that we have today. She let you get what you wanted and she usually made change from her apron pocket. She only wore shoes when necessary, like cold days or going to Fort Myers, or town as we called Fort Myers.

“I had an uncle that lived in Delray Beach, and he would come with his brother-in-law to fish. Uncle Joe went fishing and Uncle Jesse would sit down at Molly’s on the bar stool visiting. He loved to visit with Miss Molly. My granddad from South Alabama had heard so much about Molly that he wanted to meet her when visiting Marco.

“Elizabeth Griffin told me that when she and her siblings were small, they lived in the tin house next to the Juke, also beside the Hamilton house. She would gather chicken eggs for Molly. She paid her .05 cents. That would buy a Coke, Pepsi, or candy bar at the time. Liz went on to tell me that Molly had a heart of gold and would do anything she could for anyone needing help. After Miss Molly was no longer able to cook like she had at one time, she would order a home-baked coconut pie from the church bake sale, and I hand-delivered a pie several times on a Saturday morning before the customers began arriving to drink!”

Dave Johnson and Craig Woodward were neighbors in Old Marco during the late 1960s into the 1970s. Johnson grew up to be a longtime Collier County sheriff’s deputy. Woodward followed his father’s lead and became an attorney on the island. He is also a respected Marco Island historian. Both boys grew up in the shadows of the Old Marco Inn.

"I worked there as a teenager,” Johnson said, "bussing tables. My dad took visitors fishing - he was a fishing guide. There used to be a board, dating back to the early 1900’s—with trophy Tarpon scales on it from all the Tarpon tournaments from way back when. It had one of the best restaurants on the island at that time. When I was a kid, Bob and Betty Whitaker managed it. Later, as a teenager, when I worked there, Wilhelm and Marion Blomeier owned it."

"I lived around the corner, you know,” said Woodward. "So you used to walk by it out to the school bus. It picked up Dave Johnson and I right on the corner there at Palm and Bald Eagle. The Doxsees lived right there. My dad was the attorney when Marion Blomeier and her husband Wilhelm bought it. They were restaurateurs in Maine. They bought the Old Marco Inn with a group of people. It wasn't just them, but they were the major shareholders in the company. But anyway, they bought it from a guy that ran it before them, Bob Whitaker. He was the manager of the place. And when we first moved here, he was running the Inn. And his son was kind of a troublemaker. And he ended up putting all this dye of some sort in the pool. And so the whole pool turned whatever color it was. That was the big news because they had to drain the whole pool and clean it and then put it all back together. They sold it, and my dad handled the closing, and we represented Mrs. Blomeier for all those years, and then I handled the sale of it when it got sold to the group that built those condos around it. They were from Minnesota.

"Mrs. Blomeier was quite a big force on the island,” Woodward said, "she was running it. She was big on charities and she was big on Christmas. The whole upstairs was full of Christmas supplies. The staircase going up had teddy bears on the stairs. She was quite an energetic woman and quite a big force on the island back in the day.

"The piano bar really became something. She had a lot of musicians and she would be talked into singing and she'd go and sing at the piano bar. That was the place to go. People loved to go there and hang out.” 

Barbara Minch-Rosenberg was a mover and a shaker on the island when Blomeier was the keeper of the Old Marco Inn. Minch-Rosenberg was the first woman president of the Marco Chamber of Commerce. She was also the first female fire commissioner on the island, appointed by Lawton Chiles, the famous Florida politician whose nickname was Walkin’ Lawton, for his unique style of campaigning.

“The Old Marco Inn became a focal point,” Minch-Rosenberg said. “We always ate there, and my family and I always had Christmas Eve dinner there under the chandelier. And Marion was so gracious. If she didn't like you, she was a witch. I mean, I had seen people complain about something she didn’t think was justified. She would escort them out of the restaurant." 

Minch-Rosenberg became a confidante of Blomeier.

"When I came to Marco in 1979, that was one of the first places that my friends took me,” Minch-Rosenberg said. "I met Marion Blomeier and Bobby Gideon, the great piano player and entertainer. 

"Marion Blomeier was a tough old bird. She really was. But she was very generous to people she liked. If she didn't like you, you were non-existent. And her husband was alive. Her husband Wilhelm was the chef. She would walk around and sing in the dining room and she always walked in her bare feet. She had hose on. But she would take off her shoes and walk around." 

 The piano bar was vibrant in those days.

"Oh, Bobby Gideon,” Minch-Rosenberg exclaims. "My favorite song was You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You. And every time I would walk in there - all the years I lived there, he would stop and play that song. It was very special. And I also got married there when my Harold died, I married again, and I had my wedding to Harley Rosenberg there. And Marion arranged it all for me. 

“Marion contributed a lot to the charities on the island. She traveled quite a bit. She hobnobbed with the rich and famous. She asked me to go with her to New York to see Yanni and Linda Evans. A big celebrity party. I think Donald Trump was sending a plane for her, and I was supposed to go with her. I said, 'Marion, that's not my bag. I wouldn't be comfortable around those people. I said, I really don't want to go. And I didn't go." 

Minch-Rosenberg stayed close with Blomeier as she aged.

"She would call me and say, 'Barbara, how are you?' Maybe I hadn't heard from her in two years. And she'd say, 'I can't get around too much. Now, could you come and get me and take me to Erin's Isle?' And we'd go there and listen to the music. Bobby would play. They had a falling out and then they made up. I'd go and take her and she was in a wheelchair then. She was a big woman. So I put her in my car with the wheelchair and someone would help me. And we'd sit and listen to the music, and then she'd want to go home. So we always kept in touch." 

But the piano bar at the Old Marco Inn holds the fondest memories.

“There was one of those disco balls in the bar area. Bobby would play and then people would sing. It was like a sing-along. There were a couple of people that sang regularly. He used to ask me to hum because I don't have a great singing voice. Everybody talked to everybody. It was like a club. More like a club than a restaurant. Everybody knew everybody. And when you walked in, you knew everybody that was there. It was a meeting place. It was like a private club. It wasn’t private, but for the people that lived there, it was like a private club.” 

Minch-Rosenberg said the dining room was another highlight of the Marco Island Inn in those days.

"The food was fabulous,” she said. "The service was good. She insisted on it. She went all around all the tables and talked to people that she liked. She was her own person. She really was. It was just a wonderful place to go and have a good meal, have a cocktail and sit around the piano bar and listen to people sing and talk. Marion would sing. Lili Marlene was one of her favorite songs. She also was an actress in Germany. I remember her telling me that.”

Blomeier was a big fan of the Christmas season.

"Oh, all the teddy bears,” Minch-Rosenberg said. “We went there every Christmas Eve, and she always reserved a table for us under the big chandelier. We always took pictures on the stairwell with the teddy bears. I have one of her teddy bears. It's in my guest bedroom on my dresser. So I have really good memories of her. She wasn't very well-liked by a lot of people because she could be very caustic, but she was always good to me, so I have nothing bad to say about her.”

Check back next week as we wrap up Marco’s Forgotten Forefather with Part Three - a look at the modern-day Old Marco Inn, Marco Lodge, and Captain Bill Collier’s Home.