Saving History

When Marco Island Historical Museum manager Rebecca Mazeroski received word Tuesday, March 28, that the Collier County Commission had approved their half of $500,000 to restore three 1920s-era fishing cottages at Margood Harbor Park in Goodland, she could hardly wait to tell two special Goodland community leaders, Tara O’Neill and Sherri Morrison, the good news.

“When we finally got the word that, 'Hey, yeah, we're going to move forward with this,’” Mazeroski said, "I just went, ‘Let me go the obvious route and reach out to them.”

“About three days ago,” Tara O’Neill said, “Sherri Morrison and I got this email from Rebecca all excited that the county has approved the matching funds to state funds.”

“It's what we call a one-for-one grant,” Mazeroski said, "and that means we will put in half the money. It will come out of Parks and Recreation's funding. So it's loosely about $256,000 from them and the same from the state. So it's about a half million-dollar project total, all told."

While O’Neill, who has lived between Marco and Goodland since 1965, is thrilled with the news, it’s understandable that she also feels some trepidation. As leaders of the Goodland Arts Alliance (GAA), a 501c3, she and Morrison put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into those Goodland fishing cottages. In fact, it was the GAA's efforts that earned the cottage's historic designation in 2015.

“We got them to grant historic status, and that was exciting,” O’Neill said. “We got the endorsement of the Collier County Historical and Archaeological Preservation Board. On their recommendations, they granted historic status to those buildings. We had big dreams. And once we had that historic status, we thought we were on our way. Then something happened bureaucratically and things got bogged down.”

Burnt out from fighting the good fight, the GAA started losing officers and eventually folded around 2019, according to O’Neill.

“It just got beyond us,” O’Neill said, "so that's when we folded it into the Goodland Civic Association (GCA). Our goal was always to raise all the money we could in the hopes of restoring those cottages. We think they're a big part of our history, of our culture, of our village life.”

O’Neill has faith in Mazeroski and her counterparts at the Marco Island Historical Society. 

“She gave me a heads up,” O’Neill said, "I don't know, maybe about a year ago, that the county was getting back interested again. Rebecca's happy to see how much excitement it's caused in the Village of Goodland. And a lot of people are really excited in Goodland. And I'll say nobody's more excited than I am. Rebecca will be coming to our Goodland Civic Association meeting on Tuesday, April 18, at 6:30 at the Civic Center on Mango Avenue,” O’Neill said.

Mazeroski wants to get feedback from Goodland residents at that meeting. Goodland residents have never been shy about fighting to preserve their history.

"It all goes back to what does the community want,” Mazeroski said, "and how do they want to use that space? What does the community want it to become and how can we help them with that? I think also when I meet with the Goodland Civic Association, I want to hear from them, you know, what are the stories? Because I think the other opportunity here is that these are physical reminders and artifacts that then are placed to share the stories because the stories get lost easily. And for people to have some physical touchstone that can help tell the stories. This park is already a place for the community.”

"I am excited that the Marco history museum is involved,” O’Neill said. "I have great faith in their sensitivity and their sincerity of restoring something that is, you know, it's rare earth around this county. Anything historic, it's just easier to tear it down. There was a lot of history that disappeared in Margood Park. And that park has a lot of history. But so we are fortunate. It's going to be an interesting meeting on the 18th. It'll be important to hear what Rebecca has to say, what the process is. So what's in store? We're really glad that something is in store, you know, that says Goodland gets to keep talking.”

O’Neill hopes the fishing cottage restoration project is a springboard for more preservation efforts on Goodland.

“It's the first next step,” O’Neill said. “Actually, the GAA might have been the springboard."

Amanda Townsend, director of Collier County Museums, tabbed Mazeroski as the project manager for the restoration efforts. The project is an example of interdepartmental cooperation.

“For the most part,” Mazeroski said, "the maintenance is kind of part of the regular park maintenance. They're really good at maintaining parks. That's what they do. And this is a historic preservation project. That's something museums do regularly. Because we had the background, we had the experience, we had a pretty good idea what the Division of Historic Resources was going to be looking for. So Amanda, who was familiar with the project from her Parks and Rec days, was able to put things together. She asked me to be the project manager on the museum side to help this project. So I wrote the grant up and did a bunch of the research. And then, she forwarded it through the system. We coordinated with Parks and Recreation through the whole process. A division of historic resources grant is a process. We did this almost two years ago.”

“We're going to be focusing on the three cottages, we kind of call them fishermen's cottages or vernacular architecture, which is really just an interesting term,” said Mazeroski. “It's a fancy way of saying everyday architecture. We tend to focus on the grand things, the unique things. But this is you and me - 100 years ago, we moved down here. Probably would have been living in one of these. This is Florida's everyday history. The cottages were moved over here in 1949 to what we now call Margood Harbor Park. But prior to that, it was a tourist park, an RV place.”

"This is located pretty close to the community hall that Goodland has, which has served so many purposes over the years,” Mazeroski said. “You know, movie theater, live theatre, bar, just a general place for the community to meet. And so this also is connected to the park and connected to the community's sense of history and their pride in who they are and what's important to them. Restoring these cottages is also a lot about telling the Goodland history.”

"When we acquired the park, I think way back about 2005, we had done it through the Florida Communities Trust Forever Florida grants,” Mazeroski explained. “And that was part of fulfilling the requirements for the grant, which is historic preservation. So this is a long time coming. This is something that was always going to happen. It was just kind of getting the ducks lined up, so to speak."

“If you have these three fishing cottages preserved, they get to tell the story. When people are driving through the community, when they're using this park, they can kind of connect this cottage to one of those that people have restored or renovated or used and expanded because of today’s needs. Affordable housing is one of the things we’ve been struggling with for a little while now. One of those cottages is probably perfect for someone who works full-time but doesn't quite make the money to get the million-dollar home. You want them to have some place to live. You want people to have a community. But you also want something that touches on where we come from.”

The project should get started later in 2023.

“We have a rough schedule,” Mazeroski said. "That's part of what you have to put in for the grant. I would say work will start in probably about six months because we're going to get the architects on board. They're going to help us with a bid package that then we have to send out. We've got to follow all the guidelines that go with that. Then it's the work orders and notice to proceed and all that paperwork to get everyone going. So realistically, that's about six months to kind of get them out here and get them starting to do the work.”

The large 1950s-era cottage will be demolished. Overall, the project is expected to last a year and a half.

“They’ll probably do the demolition of the big cabin first,” Mazeroski said, "and then you'll start seeing the stabilization process and the restoration process on the three cottages. I will point out that they all had little showers added to them. Those are late additions. So we'll take them off and take it back to the sort of original building structure and footprint. So that's what you'll see. All of that, and then there'll be the sidewalks, and then we'll have some ADA ramps and the signage. So we kind of scheduled about 18 months for the whole process, just being realistic about what it takes for people to get on board. And then there's always the sort of punch list at the end and the reports and going back to the state and saying,' Hey, we're done. You think we're done? Okay, great.' The state's not just going to hand the money over and be like, 'Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's fine.' You know, they're going to want to make sure it's done the way we said it was going to be done."