From the time Sandra Roe Smith and Linda Roe Alexander gifted the property to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge) in 2011, Friends has looked forward to Vista being regularly open to visitors. Vista will tell the story of the Refuge’s role in protecting the river, restoring the trees, and being a keystone in the re-wilding of North Florida. It will be a place to spend a quiet time soaking in nature and wilderness that nurtures plants, animals, and people.
Friends Took the Lead
Although Vista is Refuge property, belonging to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends has taken the lead to pave the way to its future as a visitor destination and community asset. Given the staffing and funding challenges faced by the Refuge, it did not have the capacity that Friends had to initiate this work.
Soon after the gift was made, and while the life tenancy agreement was still in place, Friends began saving money annually from its small revenue base of about $5,000 a year to use for planning and other preparatory actions as they became appropriate. In 2016, with consulting assistance from experts at University of Florida, Friends developed the Vista planning statement, began gathering maps, documents, and historical records, and did a careful photographic survey of the property.
A Planning Charrette
In 2017, Friends held a charrette, a formal, moderator led gathering in which stakeholders discussed options for the eventual use of the land and buildings. The result was general agreement to use the gift as an information and interpretation station for visitors, telling the story of its history and the Refuge’s role in conserving and managing the surrounding lands
Friends' Funds Assessment Report
In 2018, Friends applied for and received a $50,000 grant from the State of Florida Division of Historical Resources to hire an architectural firm that conducted historical research and a structural assessment of the 12 buildings that existed on the property at that time.
The results documented that the modest structures at Vista were built in the 1930s and early 1940s, with relatively minor additions and upgrades made through the 1960s. The property still includes historic structures of relatively recent vintage. Among them is the Main House, a building in mostly good repair that served as a rustic but comfortable short-term lodging for guests. The only significant alterations to the Main House have been the installation of modern electric appliances and of window air conditioning units.
The Cook’s House, likely a company-owned lodging for workers, was used at Vista to house an onsite caretaker or cook. It may be older than the other structures. It may have been built on-site in the thirties following a standard pattern for worker dwellings or may have been moved from another lumber camp.
The site has a boathouse and dock that gave access to the river with its abundant fish and wildlife. They were rehabilitated after a 1948 flood but currently are again needing a major restoration to be safe or usable. A now ruined houseboat was repurposed as supplemental lodging decades ago, after being set on pilings when it was no longer seaworthy. Other structures are small and inconsequential and remain mostly as foundations. A short canal-like landing not far from the buildings served as an artificial backwater where steamboats could load and unload away from the current of the river.
In 2021, Friends again applied for and received a grant from the Division of Historical Resources. It provided $60,000 to restore the roof and windows of the Cook’s House, doing whatever else was needed to get the building out of the weather so it could later be fully restored.
That project included a gift-in-kind of $10,500 in professional services from Debbie Meeks, then-president of Friends and an expert in historical preservation. With help from some additional Friends’ volunteers, she removed, repaired, and reinstalled all the windows to historical-restoration standards at no cost to Friends or the grant funds. The Division of Historical Resources credited the gift-in-kind toward Friends’ $15,000 required matching gift on the grant.
While work has been going on at the Cook’s House, Friends’ board and other members pondered next steps. Short-term repairs recommended by the structural assessment for the Main House were considered. Artifacts in the Main House were inventoried and curated. Items from the garages and boat house were inventoried and stored. A conceptual plan for pollinator landscape was laid out by volunteers with guidance from native plant and pollinator experts.
Conceptual Master Site Plan
Friends’ former board member Mark Gluckman who has extensive professional experience in site planning prepared, for consideration by stakeholders, a conceptual master plan for the entire site, including a boardwalk past the former landing for steamboats and through the former cypress swamp.
Dividing Future Tasks
The roof and window restoration on the Cook’s House will be complete before the end of 2024. The project brought clearly into focus the size and complexity of restoring and conserving the historic buildings at Vista. It also made perfectly clear that, even with grant support, Friends is not an appropriate leader for the entirety, or perhaps even the next stages, of that historical preservation.
In spring 2024, Friends initiated meetings with the Refuge managers and the USFWS architect and engineers to discuss how to proceed. The discussions led to a three-part approach for the next steps toward having Vista regularly open to visitors.
The Refuge will work with others in USFWS to produce a comprehensive plan for the future of the historic structures and features of the property. The buildings will be closed to visitors until they are restored.
The Refuge will apply for multi-million-dollar funding from the Fish and Wildlife Foundation (funded by BP Oil Spill money) to underwrite the production of the comprehensive plan and full restoration of the entire Vista site including buildings, the dock, and other features.
The Friends will design and construct interpretive trails and other landscape features to make Vista a visitor destination in the relatively near term.
What Friends Will Do to Get Vista Open More Often
As an independent nonprofit organization with a formal partnership agreement with the USFWS, Friends can move ahead quickly with its stage of the restoration. Being a relatively small and all-volunteer organization, Friends’ capacity for Vista work is fully consumed currently in completing Cook’s House grant work. But, that work is almost complete. We are ready to take on the new work. We have the site plan already in hand, are in a strong position to move from the concepts to the specifics, and look forward with enthusiasm to putting Vista to work for the Refuge and the community.