‘Hub and heart’ of Cape Coral may beat no more

Two years ago, almost to the day, The Breeze published a special commemorative section marking the 60th anniversary of the Cape Coral Yacht and Racquet Club

Prepared in conjunction with the Cape Coral Museum of History and written by Cape Coral City Councilmember Tom Hayden, a member of the museum’s board, the section highlighted the facility built and dedicated by the community’s founders, Jack and Leonard Rosen, brothers who saw what others had not the potential for a waterfront wonderland

Let us share some of the history Councilmember Hayden provided for the anniversary edition:

The dedication for the complex on Driftwood Parkway was held on June 10, 1962, just four years after the first family moved into the community’s first house on Riverside Drive

Nearly 2,000 welcomed the opening of what those first residents came to call “the hub and the heart” of their fledgling community

As Councilmember Hayden pointed out, 2,000 was, well, pretty much everyone, and they were bedecked in their best to welcome a complex on par with a private country club

Clubhouse replete with grand ballroom with a wall of glass overlooking the pool Game and dining rooms Tennis courts

A fishing pier jutting well into the river for anglers A sandy riverfront beach

All with free membership for those who also saw the potential in a community with still just a scattering of new homes

“Many families spend small fortunes to attain similar Club benefits,” Gulf American Land Corporation President Leonard Rosen wrote in his letter welcoming club members “Yet, as a Cape Coral homesite owner, you and your family can now enjoy all the wonderful facilities of our Club without payment of membership fees or dues for three full years ”

The Cape’s population now has long crossed the 200,000 milestone

The waterfront that was indeed a wonderland to Cape “pioneers” and those who followed, enticed by the natural beauty of the riverfront and the manmade attraction of 400 miles of machined canals, has become, well, too valuable to waste on the lawn-chair-in-the-sand, towel-by-the-pool, enjoy-a-community-barbecue crowd.

Cape Coral City Council has decided that the old Ballroom where the Cape’s first clubs met, where many of the original churches held their first services will go the way of the Cape’s other historic landmarks that have fallen one by one as the times and their benefits vs cost equation changed

The Yacht Club, the city’s last-standing relic, will be demolished, Council decided by consensus Wednesday

Not due to damage from Hurricane Ian as the public has been led to believe for months

But from something as manmade as the canals that distinguished the Cape from all those other pre-platted, land-boom developments neglect

Millions and millions of dollars worth to bring the Ballroom back not to its former glory, but to repair the damage wrought by the city’s failure to maintain the “crown jewel” amenity it purchased from the developers in 1973

To be fair, city staff refers to the repairs needed from the roof above to the plumbing beneath as “deferred maintenance ”