Flamingo Magazine by Flamingo Magazine

No.

BONE VALLEY: THE UNLIKELY HISTORY OF STREAMSONG AND ITS NEWEST GOLF COURSE

THE OUTSIDE ISSUE

For Floridians. By Floridians.

Lauderdale Who? The unknown general who fought the Seminole leader Osceola

MY DOGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BETTER THAN YOUR DOG! C O M P ETITI O N & TRAD ITI O N O N A N O RTH FLO R I DA Q UAI L P LANTATI O N

PLUS

REVVIES CLASSIC CAR REVIVAL

Photographer

GRAY MALIN CRUSHING ON

PALM BEACH MADE IN FLA:

HIKING, HUNTING

& HOME

50 WAYS TO GET INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN

TRAI L H I KI NG, SCE N IC DRI V ES, CAM P I NG, GOLFI NG, FISH I NG, BOATI NG P MORE

Uniquely grown in its native forest environment, Guayaki Yerba Mate is cherished as a sacred beverage. Reach deep into yerba mate culture and you’ll discover people have long gathered to imbibe mate to awaken the mind, perform extraordinary feats and to exchange conﬁdences. Even Yari, the mythical goddess of mate decrees it the symbol of friendship. Guayakí’s vision holds that yerba mate culture will power our Market Driven Regeneration™ model to regenerate ecosystems and create vibrant communities.

Loose Leaf Guayaki Yerba Mate and Traditional Yerba Mate Gourd

— wi nter 2018 • 20 1 9 —

CONTENTS

F E AT U R E S

THE MEN, THE MYTHS, THE LEGENDS

FOR THE LOVE OF DOGS

START ME UP

A LAND REIMAGINED

BY ERIC BARTON

B Y LA U R A R E I L E Y

BY ERIC BARTON

BY BUCKY MCMAHON

Unravel the story of Maj. William Lauderdale, his battles with Osceola and why he became the namesake of the South Florida city.

Florida mining tycoon Ted Baker sustains a beloved tradition of competitive field trials on his quail plantation, Chinquapin Farm, where champion dogs run and wild bobwhites fly.

High school sweethearts Justin and Tammy Norwood jump-start their lives by leaving their corporate jobs to start a luxury classic-car chauffeur service service called Revvies.

Streamsong Resort in Central Florida attracts golfers from around the world with a modern yet untamed aesthetic, but there’s more to this story than greens and fairways.

Cover Photography by

CARLTON WARD JR.

On the cover: Moran Yates, 15, leads her horse Brownie through a favorite oak hammock on the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Brighton Reservation.

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On this spread: Annie Lee walks past the horse stables at Chinquapin Farm, a 7,000-acre private quail-hunting reserve outside Central Florida’s Lake City. Photography by Gabriel Hanway

D E PA R T M E N TS

WADING IN

COLUMNS

ON THE FLY

14 /// THE SPREAD: Kom-boozy cocktails with Florida-made kombucha for any season

51 /// C APITAL DAME: Diane Roberts on why no one should ever drain a swamp

106 /// F LEDGLINGS: Tallahassee native Rick Lollar carves out a name for himself as a gifted guitarist.

18 /// FLAMINGLE: Five of Florida’s captains of conservation

93 /// PANHANDLING: Prissy Elrod rides out Hurricane Michael from a hotel in Tallahassee.

108 /// G ROVE STAND: James Beard Award semifinalist Lauren Macellaro warms the kitchen with winter veg.

98 /// F LORIDA WILD: Trek 1,000 miles across the state with Carlton Ward Jr.

112 /// BIRD’S-EYE VIEW: Wander the shops and hot spots along our favorite drag in Siesta Key.

100 /// M Y FLORIDA: Photographer Douglas R. Clifford and writer Zachary T. Sampson of the Tampa Bay Times recount their journey documenting Hurricane Michael.

119 /// THE ROOST: Houses that celebrate the great wide open

20 /// M ADE IN FLA: These four makers will have you ready for the great outdoors. 32 /// O NE-ON-ONE: Fine-art photographer Gray Malin shares his favorite Miami memories. 38 /// T HE STUDIO: A Tallahassee lawyer paints native birds in watercolors. 41 /// JUST HATCHED: The coolest new places around the state

124 /// T HE TIDE: The must-see events and happenings to catch this season 128 /// FLORIDIANA: Photographer Nathan Benn takes us back to 1981 Miami.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

’m not going in the pool if you don’t get in … and get your hair wet. This was the ultimatum on a sunny fall day from 7-year-old Audrey. My daughter stood, arms crossed and tapping her foot, at the edge of the baroque pool at Hotel Victor, a modern, art deco building overlooking South Beach’s Ocean Drive. My plan had been to stay comfortable and dry, lounging poolside watching her splash around, rather than submerging myself in the crystal blue waters. But here we were, all suited up, and she was serious. She had talked a lot about swimming at the “fancy hotel” during the six-hour drive from Jacksonville to Miami, on our first mommy-daughter trip. I glanced back at the terrycloth-covered

cabana where my towel and magazine lay and then at Audrey. How could I deny her? That face … I dove in headfirst, and the tone of the weekend was set. We were in town to attend a benefit, and I had set up other meetings to make it a productive work weekend. Running Flamingo sends me all over the state, making it hard sometimes to spend the quality time I want to with my loved ones. But in preparation for this Outside issue, I had a chance to combine the worlds of Flamingo and family. With Audrey at my side, we tore up the dance floor at the Imagination Ball, which benefits the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts; meandered through the maze of painted murals at Wynwood Walls; waded into the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean; and dined at Gianni’s, a lush patio

restaurant inside the famed Versace mansion. It was a blast being present in the moment with her. “I’m the CEO,” she told our waiter at Gianni’s, where we sat by the mosaic-tiled pool eating pasta and writing a poem about our trip. The idea to write the poem (we took turns making up lines) came to me after a recent photoshoot for Flamingo at Chinquapin Farm, a quail plantation near Lake City with a long history of raising champion field trial dogs. Exploring the property, from the main house to the barn, it struck me that poems featured largely in the decor, with framed works by Tom Word and many others hanging on the walls. These odes to Chinquapin—love letters of a sort—are all gifts from visitors inspired by the camaraderie, tradition and the natural beauty of the place. Hopefully you too will fall in love with our feature story, a bit longer than those poems, on Chinquapin Farm. In this issue, we also cruise through Sarasota in a ’65 mustang named Sally, play the Black Course at Streamsong Resort, walk 1,000 miles with Carlton Ward Jr. and march through the Everglades with Maj. William Lauderdale and Osceola. Like the story of these two warriors, not all of life’s tales of adventure have happy endings. Three years running, devastating storms have hit our state as we’re in the midst of producing our Outside edition. Those impacted by Hurricane Michael tell their stories inside our pages. As you make your way through Flamingo, don’t be afraid to jump into something unexpected. Like me at the pool with Audrey. You’ll be glad you got your hair wet.

E d itor in Chief & P u blis h e r

let us know what you think. Email me at jamie@flamingomag.com

FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9

PHOTOGR APHY BY MARY BETH KOETH; MAKEUP BY JENNIFER COMEE WITH THE ROSY CHEEK

road trippin’ with audrey

ISSUE

CONTRIBUTORS

For Floridians. By Floridians.

• FOUNDED IN 2016 •

GABRIEL HANWAY has trained his eye through years of living abroad and traveling the globe. After studying at the International Center of Photography, Gabe worked with renowned celebrity portrait photographer Jason Bell, crisscrossing the Atlantic to shoot personalities from the arts and entertainment worlds. At home in North Florida, he combines his love of exploration with photography, capturing the unique qualities and characters of the places he visits and people he meets. Hanway photographed Chinquapin Farm for our feature story in this issue.

— w i n t e r 20 1 8 • 20 1 9 —

EDITORIAL Editor in Chief, Publisher, Founder JAMIE RICH jamie@flamingomag.com Consulting Creative Director Holly Keeperman holly@flamingomag.com Photo Editor and Senior Designer Ellen Patch ellen@flamingomag.com Contributing Designer Victor Maze

MEAGAN KLEMENTOWSKI is a food photographer who draws inspiration from the incredible culinary scene emerging in the Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater area. She works with a variety of commercial and editorial clients locally and nationally from her studio in Largo. She possesses a clean, natural shooting style, incorporating what she calls a “creative messiness” to keep her images accessible and real. For this edition of Flamingo, Klementowski photographed Lauren Macerello of the Reading Room in St. Petersburg and three fall dishes.

Contributing Editor Eric Barton Cont ributin g Writers Eric Barton, Christina Cush, Steve Dollar, Prissy Elrod, Kara Franker, Sean McCaughan, Bucky McMahon, Laura Reiley, Diane Roberts, Maddy Zollo Rusbosin, Rob Rushin, Carlton Ward Jr. Contributing Photographers & Illustrators Leslie Chalfont, Beth Gilbert, Gabriel Hanway, Meagan Klementowski, Mary Beth Koeth, Stephen Lomazzo, Chris Mathan, Jessie Pereza, Carlton Ward Jr. Copy Editors & Fact Checkers Brett Greene, Katherine Shy

SALES & MARKETING BUCKY McMAHON is a writer and visual artist based in Tallahassee. His journalism, exploring subjects from folklore to astrophysics, has appeared in many national magazines including Esquire, Outside, Men’s Journal, and GQ. His book, Night Diver, a collection of adventure travel stories, is available from Anhinga Press. In this issue of Flamingo, McMahon writes about mining tycoon Ted Baker, his champion dogs and the old tradition of field trials enduring on his longleaf pine plantation, Chinquapin Farm.

Marketing & Promotions Annie Lee Social Strategy Christina Clifford Global Director Partnership Marketing Neil Strickland neil@globetm.com Global Director Partnership Marketing Claudio Dasilva claudio@globetm.com Intern Maggie Martin Contact Us

DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD has worked as a photojournalist with the Tampa Bay Times for 20 years documenting day-to-day visuals, including still photography and video. During his career with The Times he has completed more than 10,000 assignments and is a member of the hurricane team. Clifford has covered more than a dozen major storms, including Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and most recently Hurricane Michael. In this edition of Flamingo, he recounts his journey to chronicle the devastation of Hurricane Michael.

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P: (904) 395-3272, E: info@flamingomag.com All content in this publication, including but not limited to text, photos and graphics, is the sole property of and copyrighted by JSR Media and Flamingo. Reproduction without permission from the publisher is prohibited. We take no responsibility for images or content provided by our advertisers.

JSR MEDIA

connoisseurs wanted

Shooters Waterfront, Fort Lauderdale

In Greater Fort Lauderdale, we welcome everyone who shares our taste for new discoveries. Explore a vibrant collection of cultures and activities. Find the GO-TO guide for before, during or after your trip at sunny.org/vacationplanner @VisitLauderdale | sunny.org

Beyond the Beach

Louie Bossi’s

A Guide to Greater Fort Lauderdale’s Thriving Food Scene Cravings are at the root of why people travel. Booking a trip stems from a strong desire to experience something new. While in Greater Fort Lauderdale, you can lounge on the beach and soak in the sun all you want, but the true way to satisfy your craving for discovery is to dive deep into the destination’s food scene. There’s no better time to be a foodie in Greater Fort Lauderdale. In a sea of chain restaurants and predictable franchises, the restaurants in this destination stand out. Every day more and more chefs are opening up shop in the area, each bringing their unique culinary flavor to the table. Local restaurants continue to challenge the conventional. Louie Bossi’s offers brunch with an Italian twist. The Foundry infuses the rich history of the Industrial Revolution into their cuisine. The Alchemist serves their one-of-a-kind coffee creations outside in a hip, tranquil garden. Wild Sea Oyster Bar & Grille turns the catch of the day into a “Mac-Stuffed Lobster” masterpiece. Each location adds ample zest and personality to the culture of the destination. Nothing goes better with a warm, sunny day than a cold beer. Luckily, like the foam off a freshly tapped keg, craft beer is

exploding in Greater Fort Lauderdale. It occupies a popular niche in the area’s social scene, so you won’t have to stray far to find that frosty glass you’ve been longing for. With nanobreweries, micro-breweries and taprooms popping up in local neighborhoods, your pint glass is overflowing with choices. Visitors and locals can even use the destination’s “Ale Trail” map at sunny.org/aletrail to navigate its booming beer scene. Each brewery offers something special. One of the stops on the trail is any sour beer-lovers dream come true. Residing in Old Pompano, Odd Breed Wild Ales made history as the first brewery in Florida to specialize in American wild ale. Odd Breed is quickly making a name for itself with an acclaimed core lineup, experiments in fruited sour ales and limited collaboration bottlings with other area breweries like Barrel of Monks, 26 Degrees and Bangin’ Banjo. From its five-star chefs to its 50 craft breweries, Greater Fort Lauderdale’s food scene will fulfill your urge for more. Start planning your adventure at sunny.org/letsgo.

| |

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THE SLICE P R O DUC TS + EVENTS + PROMOTIONS

WANT TO WINTERIZE? Shop J.McLaughlin’s winter collection at retail locations across Florida: cashmere Mirian sweater jacket, $498; Arlette turtleneck, $145; Lori legging, $165; and Lillie ankle boots in suede, $298. Coming this winter and spring: VIP Shopping Series in Jacksonville and Winter Park

@TheFlamingoMag @JmclaughlinNy

DECO DIGS This modern, Art Deco boutique hotel in South Beach has the right balance of quaint and swank. Hotel Victor, with A-plus views of Lummus Park and the Atlantic Ocean, is the perfect place to drop anchor for beach-side events like Art Basel or South Beach Food and Wine Festival. A dipping pool and cozy cabanas offer a luxurious haven to toast the New Year in the heart of the action. victorhotel.com.com

NEXT-LEVEL COCKTAIL Sip and serve something special at the next soiree. Bacardi.com

2 oz. BACARDÍ Añejo Cuatro Rum .75 oz. Martini & Rossi Rosso Sweet Vermouth .25 oz. Dry Curaçao 2 Dashes Angostura Bitters 1 Orange peel

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F O R T H E L AT E S T H A P P E N I N G S , P H O T O S & V I D E O S , F O L L O W @ T H E F L A M I N G O M A G

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KEN HAYDEN, BACARDI, J.MCL AUGHLIN

BACARDÍ CUATRO PRESIDENTE

M Y L A G O S M Y W AY

C AV I A R C O L L E C T I O N S

— Flor idians, far e, f inds —

WADING IN — The Spread —

K omb u cha -ins pi r e d c oc kt ai l s f or t he s e as on

— flamingle —

F ive con ser vat i oni s t s e f f e c t i ng c hange

— made in fla —

In to th e w oods wi t h t he s e i ns pi r e d Fl or i da de s i gns

— one-on-one —

High a b ove Mia mi Be ac h wi t h phot ogr aphe r Gr ay Mal i n

— the studio —

B ird-wa tch ing wi t h a Tal l ahas s e e wat e r c ol or i s t

— Just Hatched —

This page: Over Under outfitters creates lifestyle clothing for land and sea. Read the full story on page 21.

FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9

OVER UNDER

T h e cooles t ne w pl ac e s ar ound t he s t at e

D I S C OV E R H O W

GETTI NG AWAY C A N B R I NG YO U

TOGETHER.

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WADING IN :THE SPREAD FLO RIDA-F R ESH BITES & BEVS

By St e v e Do l l a r • P h o t o g ra p h y b y J essi e P rez a

Fizzy Lifting Drinks Kombucha brewers from Fort lauderdale to Panama City, and everywhere in between, aim to elevate health and the party

n the last three years, at least a dozen new Kombucha brewers have popped up around the state. “It’s just starting to become popular in Florida, and I think there’s a lot more that can happen,” says Nella Fusco, who, with her partner Noah Hebbe, launched Awaken Kombucha three years ago in Vero Beach. “That’s a lot for Florida, considering you can go left, right or down.” The popularity of the fizzy beverage, which packs a very low alcohol content, owes to its potential to support digestive health—the drink is loaded with probiotics—and its effervescent body, which makes it an appealing substitute for beer, bubbly and extrasweet fruit juices. It’s made with a community of organisms called a SCOBY (which stands for “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast”). “It looks like a pancake,” Fusco notes. Because kombucha is exposed to the air during fermentation, it incorporates environmental bacteria. Like honey, it reflects its immediate natural surroundings, which creates a distinctive flavor and could help fight allergies. Awaken, which expects to open its own Vero Beach taproom soon, distributes its brand to taps at 30-plus cafes and farmers markets across Central and South Florida. Like many other brewers, the company emphasizes organic ingredients sourced from local farmers. It is also exploring teas infused with cannabidiol, known as CBD, from hemp plants. Every brew Fusco and Hebbe make is unique, as Awaken offers the state’s only oak-aged kombucha, which is more commonly fermented in glass or stainless-steel. The wood barrels supply a higher air flow and don’t require wheat paste or gluten as a sealant. “Microbes love porous wood,” Fusco says. “It has a nice, round, bold flavor.”

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Wild Berry Mojito S e rv e s 2 cup strawberries 4 mint leaves 4 ounces vodka 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 8 ounces wild berry kombucha Ice Berries to garnish 1/2

PREPARATION: Puree strawberries in a food processor. Muddle mint in 2 serving glasses. Fill each glass with ice. Add pureed strawberries, vodka, lime juice and kombucha to a mixing glass, and stir well to combine. Pour into serving glasses, and garnish with mint and berries of choice.

Rejuvenation Kombucha Tonic Mocktail S e rv e s 1 1 cup blue lotus and vanilla kombucha (or any herbal kombucha) 1/2 cup watermelon juice 1/2 teaspoon pine pollen, such as Sun Potion

AWAKEN KOMBUCHA

PREPARATION: Combine ingredients in a glass, stir well and enjoy!

Roasted in Jacksonville, FL. Shipped to your Door. 15% off coffee orders with code: BOLDFLAMINGO www.boldbeancoffee.com Jax Beach 2400 South 3rd St.

Riverside 869 Stockton St.

San Marco 1905 Hendricks Ave.

W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 â&#x20AC;¢ 2 0 1 9 /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

WADING IN :THE SPREAD FLO R IDA-F R ESH BITES & BEVS

Boochmosa S e rv e s 1 1 part orange juice 1 part kombucha of your choice PREPARATION: Combine ingredients in a festive vessel and sip. If you want alcohol, replace the orange juice with an equivalent volume of champagne.

Bottoms-up Booch Local kombucha brewers around the state

Co-founded by South Florida’s largest grower of organic mushrooms and a well-traveled graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, this lively brand has developed more than 50 flavors— pineapple lime aloe coconut and acai clove pomegranate are among the year-round options. The website offers an extensive list of locations that offer booch in 12-ounce bottles and on tap.

Noli South

PANAMA CITY BEACH nolisouth.com The mom and pop operation advertises five flavors—including lemongrass lavender and hibiscus grape— made in small batches using organic ingredients. Noli South kombucha is available in bottles and on tap from about 20 restaurants and markets in the Panhandle.

Mother Kombucha

ST. PETERSBURG motherkombucha.com Billed as “local, fresh, raw, organic, fair trade,” this kombucha is made in a 13,000-square-foot facility and sold on tap in the Tampa Bay area and in bottles at Publix supermarkets. Flavors include hopped passion fruit and orange blossom switchel.

Moonbooch Kombucha

ST. AUGUSTINE facebook.com/ moonbooch

Founded by former California chef Stephen Mekoski, who also serves as brewmaster, the brand is sold “farm-to-tap” at various farmers markets and yoga studios in the Jacksonville area. Flavors include pineapple turmeric and strawberry limeade.

Recipes from Awaken Kombucha, awakenkombucha.com

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JESSIE PREZA

Kombulicious

Greater Fort Lauderdale kombulicious.com

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WADING IN :FLAMINGLE A FLO C K OF FASCINATING F LOR IDIANS

Captains of Conservation These five Floridians are the voices of florida’s vast ecosystems in dire need of preservation and restoration.

HOLLY PARKER CURRY Eco-Ripper

CARLTON WARD JR.

MARK WALTERS

TANIA GALLONI

Restoration Reeler

Wild One

Brainiac

Legal Eagle

Andrews, owner of Captain Daniel Andrews Charters in Southwest Florida, has spent a lifetime hunting and fishing, giving him a front-row seat to the watershed crisis in the Everglades destroying estuaries across the state. Daily exposure to the damage caused to our waterways by pollution and agricultural runoff inspired him to help found Captains for Clean Water. The nonprofit aims to protect “Florida’s most valuable resource: water.” As executive director, Andrews lobbies for legislation to help fisheries and coastal communities start taking steps toward full restoration.

Ward, an eighthgeneration Floridian and great-grandson of Florida’s 25th governor, has captured images for National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institute. He turned his focus to Florida in 2009 in response to the ecological issues he discovered while developing his book, Florida Cowboys. Ward twice hiked 1,000 miles across the state to prove that wildlife habitats are connected and should remain that way. The hikes are part and parcel to the Florida Wildlife Corridor campaign, which aims to protect, connect and restore the swaths of land where endangered species live and migrate.

Walters, a full-time brain and spinal researcher at the University of Miami and chairman of the Sierra Club Florida, spends his free time spreading his love for nature. His healthy obsession with wilderness began in 2012 when he started volunteering at the Sierra Club in a program called Inspiring Connections Outdoors, which introduces inner city kids and adults to the natural environment. Walters leads expeditions hiking, kayaking, canoeing and camping, while feeding his own passion for conservation. His primary goal is to inspire people to continue fighting for better environmental legislation in South Florida.

At a young age, Galloni noticed Floridians’ passion for their state’s ecosytems. This inspired her to advocate for environmental issues across the state. After graduating from Yale Law School, the Miami-based managing attorney of the Earthjustice Florida office dedicated her career to the field of environmental law. In a recent victory for Galloni, Earthjustice represented the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the League of Women Voters of Florida in a case against Gulf Power. The victory has encouraged the use of clean energy by stopping Gulf Power from dramatically raising fixed monthly charges.

ILLUSTR ATION BY STEPHEN LOMAZZO

Curry runs the 11 Florida branches of the Surfrider Foundation, an activist group that protects the world’s beaches. She has always loved the sea: growing up the daughter of a Coast Guardsman, she and her family lived near the coasts of Puerto Rico, Guam, Bolivia and Panama. Today, Curry has taken her love of the sea inland, to Tallahassee, where she is able to work closely with the Florida Legislature and elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Her current focus is combating nutrient pollution, which causes toxic algal blooms on our coasts and waterways, through regulations.

CAPT. DANIEL ANDREWS

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Reclaim Our Coasts s e a t u r t l e s fa c e m a n y t h r e a t s , i n c l u d i n g d e r e l i c t b a r r i e r s a n d o b s t a c l e s o n t h e i r n e s t i n g b e a c h e s a n d i n n e a r s h o r e wa t e r s w h e r e t h e y f e e d .

â&#x20AC;&#x153; r e c l a i m o u r c o a s t s â&#x20AC;? ( r o c ) was created to improve nesting beach and near shore habitats by removing the hazards to sea turtles throughout Florida. Please report any hazards to sea turtles such as failed armoring or concrete debris on beaches, and fisheries debris such as abandoned nets and traps. c o n t a c t : ReclaimOurCoasts@gmail.com

v i s i t u s o n fa c e b o o k at facebook.com/reclaimourcoasts or accstr.ufl.edu f o r d o n a t i o n s g o t o : accstr.ufl.edu/make-a-gift-to-the-accstr

WADING IN :MADE IN FLA HOM E

MAN OF THE WOODS

This Pensacola furniture company has serious roots NOT ONLY DOES FIFTH-GENERATION

Floridian Andrew Patterson have homestate pride running through his veins, but he also has carpentry in his blood. “Every man in my family was something and a carpenter, whether it was a farmer and a carpenter or a factory worker and a carpenter,” he explains. On his part, Patterson became a lawyer and took up carpentry as a hobby. This hobby became known to his coworkers when his office desk began to fall apart. After asking for approval to build a new one, he got the green light for his venture under one condition: that he build a desk for his manager as well. “From there, everyone else in the office began to want one, which propelled me to take a jump and think I could do this full time,” explains Patterson. “I never even got around to building my own since I quit.” His custom furniture business steadily grew. However, there was one thing he still didn’t have: a name for his endeavor. As a

tribute to his father, Patterson revived the name of the Pensacola-based furniture company his dad ran for two decades until his retirement in 1988. At Pensacraft, Patterson builds bespoke dining room tables, cabinets, chairs, loungers and more using woods like walnut, maple, birch and the African Kosso variety. “The more unique they are, the better, because I really love a challenge,” he says of his designs. pensacraft.com —MZR

Below: The San Carlos chair; woodworker master Andrew Patterson

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WADING IN :MADE IN FLA H U NT

From the top: Bourbon

best in show

and Boweties bangle and leather Marion tote; Lottie Grace, the lab who inspired the brand, wearing a Finest in the Field collar; the wax Sportsman duffel

WHY ISN’T THAT ON A SHIRT?

That’s what Bryan Horn asked himself one day when he saw his beloved chocolate lab, Lottie Grace, standing regally in the back of his truck. It was then the Jacksonville resident began sketching out the logo that would eventually become the face of Over Under, his sporting lifestyle brand. Even though Horn was working at a home building company at the time, his background was rooted in men’s apparel. He had spent nearly two years working at a haberdashery shop after he graduated from the University of Georgia. While working retail, Horn was educated on what constitutes upscale apparel and accessories. When he decided to start Over Under in 2010, he set out to create a high-quality line of American-made

products, offering everything from T-shirts and outerwear to leather goods like handbags, dog collars and wallets. Horn named his endeavor after his favorite style of shotgun: the overunder. “I wanted to incorporate all the same workmanship and qualities and art that go into those shotguns into our clothing,” he explains of his products, which he sells online and through more than 200 retail partners across the United States. The Over Under name also refers to the “over land, under sea” roles labs can perform while retrieving in hunting and fishing. “At the end of the day, we’re a niche brand, but we sell to so many different categories of consumers,” says Horn. overunderclothing.com —MZR

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OVERUNDER

This sporting brand’s Southern charm is designed to be man’s and (woman’s) best friend

The perfect alternative to a traditional cruise experience!

Explore over 260 destinations with Italy’s Finest. It’s easy to book a cruise; the hardest part is choosing where to travel to first! Our most popular itineraries are in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Northern Europe, and the Far East. Go on an adventure by enhancing your cruise with a shore excursion.* With over 2500 shore excursions offered, there is something for everyone. History Buffs: Walk through the heart of ancient Athens Foodies: Learn how to make traditional Mexican sauces in Costa Maya Wine Connoisseurs: Wine tasting in the Mediterranean The Art Lover: View the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona Volunteers: Volunteer in Amber Cove with workers that process and package organic chocolate Adventure Seeker: Take a night safari tour in Singapore And so much more! Beginning in January, for the first time in the World in the cruise sector, we will be offering group shore excursions for people with impaired mobility verified by AISM. Now That’s La Dolce Vita!

For more information and reservations, please contact your travel professional, visit costacruises.com or contact us at 1-800-GO-COSTA (1-800-462-6782). Mon - Fri 9 am - 8 pm ET *Shore excursions are available for an additional cost and not all shore excursions are available on all sailings. Ships’ Registry: Italy 7903

[ WADING IN :MADE IN FLA B y M a d d y Z o l l o R u sb o si n

true grit

Meet the Jacksonville Beach entrepreneur who’s causing quite a ruckus with his Army-inspired gear brand.

about one day making a product as tough as it was timeless. He had one problem, though. He knew nothing about sewing or manufacturing. McCarthy posted a simple ad for a backpack designer on Craigslist, a post that would eventually lead to the creation of the first prototypes and the beginnings of Goruck, a full-blown gear company that today offers over-the-top, American-made boots, apparel and rucksacks and hosts hundreds of rucking fitness events in locations around the world each year. “Rucking is the foundation of Special Forces training,” says McCarthy. “People don’t understand that. To move with weight on your

[

n 2008, Special Forces veteran Jason McCarthy had left the Army, split with his wife and found himself living on a couch in New York City with his chocolate lab Java. Though he felt like he had hit rock bottom, two things helped prop him back up again: his bond with Java and his idea for a military-grade backpack that looked good as streetwear but could endure battlefield conditions. He found no products on the market that met all his requirements: tough as nails, a smart design, a sleek aesthetic and comfortable for carrying a load of weight on your back while moving at top speed. He drew sketches on napkins and dreamed

FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9

Top: Goruck team members

competing in a 7-10 mile light challenge last summer in New York Above: Goruck’s original product and

one of its best sellers, the GR1

GORUCK

back, it’s what you do in Special Forces.” McCarthy joined the Army after 9/11, and in 2006, the Jacksonville native became a member of the Green Berets. He learned that rucking can be the difference between life and death, since his pack carried the gear he needed to survive the unpredictable nature of war. After he left the service in 2008, rucking stayed in the back of McCarthy’s mind. When he moved to Ivory Coast, where his wife Emily was stationed with the U.S. Foreign Service, he made her a special ruck just in case there was an emergency during her work in West Africa. “It’s like medics: they’re only as good as their equipment. You can be fantastic, but if you don’t have stuff, you can’t save lives. It’s kind of the same thing in an emergency situation. If you don’t have the things that you need, then you’re a lot less effective,” he says. Like many veterans, McCarthy grappled with what to do next in his life. This uncertainty was amplified when he and Emily split up, forcing him to return to the States jobless and heartbroken. Despite the turmoil, he kept coming back to the notion of creating that perfect ruck. Finally, he decided to turn his napkin sketches into an actual prototype. Using GI bill benefits, McCarthy enrolled at Georgetown University to get his MBA, so he was simultaneously studying and working to launch Goruck. After 2 ½ years of perfecting the design and finding the right manufacturer, Goruck’s first pack, the GR1, debuted online and in men’s stores in Clockwise from above: Tough the southeast. The GR1 half zip in black; is made with durable, Goruck Founder Jason McCarthy rainproof materials with and his dog military-grade features Monster; hoodie half zip in black; like a super-protective the bullet ruck in black laptop compartment. It

also features comfortable shoulder straps that prevent it from bouncing around by keeping it close to your back, making it practical for everyday use. After hitting the road to market Goruck, McCarthy decided to join his Green Beret friends at a Tough Mudder, an outdoor obstacle-course-style race. He soon realized that being part of an event was the easiest way to tell his story. After all, getting people to witness rucking or try it themselves was better than any advertising. This realization prompted McCarthy to host an event, the inaugural Goruck Challenge, in San Francisco in 2010. With the help of his Special Forces friends, he began hosting events throughout the country. “There are a few brands, if any, who build gear and run events,” he explains. While Goruck’s operations are now based in Jacksonville Beach, where he lives with his wife Emily (they got back together), their dog Monster and their kids, the brand’s reach is global. In this year alone, Goruck

has organized more than 900 events around the world. “Ultimately people wanted to be a part of a community. They wanted to do the Tough Mudder with us,” he says. “The more connected we are online, the more we really want to feel connected in the real world.”

W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9 /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

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H O M E G ROW N M A K E R S , D E S I G N E R S & S H O P S

JESSIE PREZA

This page: Lettermade,

Serena’ monogrammed dinner napkin shown in seafoam.

1. Underwood Jewelers As one of the best jewelers in the South, Underwood’s remains Jacksonville’s exclusive representative of many of the finest jewelry and watch brands in the world, including Rolex, David Yurman, Forevermark Diamonds, Lagos, Roberto Coin, Mikimoto, John Hardy, Ippolita, Erica Courtney, Dao Fournier and more. With locations throughout Greater Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra. Shown here: Michael Aram, Palace 5-piece placesetting $165 Simon Pearce, 5-piece Place Setting Silver flatware $85 underwoodjewelers.com

2. DeVoe Designs

Artist Claire DeVoe creates nature- and travel-inspired designs that she transfers to fabrics used to make her line of bags, clothing and swimsuits. In creating the patterns, DeVoe incorporates collages of photography and paint. Shown here is The Time of the End day bag. devoedesign.org

$45 3. South Florida

Clothiers Inspired by and created for Florida’s climate and lifestyle, these luxurious Peruvian Pima Cotton/Lycra blend pique polos are lightweight, come in an array of Florida-inspired colors, and sport a logo all our own: the Florida stone crab. southfloridaclothiers.com

3 2

$79 4. Congaree and Penn

The Fit Foodie Gift Box is power gifting with power foods in Congaree and Penn’s signature wooden packaging. It includes jupiter brown rice, seasonal shrub, purple rice grits and pecan oil. congareeandpenn.com $85 5. Lettermade

Lettermade linens serve up tradition with a wink. Founder Malia Palma set out to create a collection of linens for the modern traditionalist. Her holiday cocktail napkins give a nod to nostalgic Christmas motifs mixed with whimsical delight. shoplettermade.com

from $48 6. Gray Malin The fine-art photographer made a splash with his series À la Plage, featuring aerial photographs of beaches around the world including Miami’s own South Beach. Give the gift of Gray with an acrylic tray featuring a favorite print. graymalin.com from $295

7. Spadaro House of Fragrances

Alchemist and international fragrance designer Kim Spadaro combines her strong passions for design, travel and humanities to formulate an assembly of perfumes that are intimate and timeless. Capturing the serendipity of nostalgic moments in her journey, each fragrance has its own sensual and complex narrative, a combination of elegance and authenticity. Visit a 13th-century palace in Majorca, Spain. Capture the glowing sunset over Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy. Fall in love in Marrakech, Morocco. Feel the cool aromatic veil at Las Ventanas over the Sea of Cortez in San JosĂŠ del Cabo, Mexico. Incorporating some of the most prestigious touchstone scents, Spadaro perfume is exotic, spicy, irresistible and captivating. Fragrances for men and women: Noche Del Fuego, Sole Nero, Doux Amour and Beso Del Mar Spadaro.co

$95â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$135

8. The Magnolia

Company Harvested in Central Florida, where sunshine and rain showers blanket groves of Southern magnolia trees, each stem is selected by hand and crafted into a wreath that lasts for many seasons. themagnoliacompany.com

$69–$249

9. Case+Drift

An all-purpose, quick-drying travel companion, this Turkish towel combines style and versatility, making it perfect for globetrotting or wrapping up at home. Rock it as a towel, scarf, blanket and more.Towels come in a variety of colors and styles.They were dreamed up by a fellow explorer. caseanddrift.com

$40

10. Bold Bean Coffee Bold Bean Barista Package includes fresh-roasted beans, SIC Cup’s insulated tumbler and the best-in-class equipment from adjustable grinders and digital scales to kettles and brewers to re-create that perfect cup of coffee at home. boldbeancoffee.com starting at $420

11 11. IceMule

Coolers These highperformance, hands-free coolers are designed and manufactured to accommodate every outdoor excursion, from fishing the flats to relaxing on the beach or hiking trails.The Pro and Classic keep your goodies chilled for 24 hours+ and are equipped with padded straps. icemulecoolers.com

$45–139

12. Bimini-Me

The Bimini-me sunshade was created for every person under the sun whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interested in protecting their hair, neck, face and dĂŠcolletage. It has been perfectly designed to obstruct uncomfortable sun glares for absolute enjoyment of the sun. Our nautically inspired design reflects all the hardware found on a beautiful yacht. Made with sailcloth and nautical roping, each Bimini-me sunshade is presented in a keepsake box and accompanied by a sailcloth backpack Timeless in style, this is a relevant necessary accessory. biminime.com $195

WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE CO N VE RSATIONS, INTERVIEWS, STOR IES B y Ja m i e R i ch

Gray Days fine-art photographer Gray Malin on new babies, old Palm Beach and how Art basel miami helped launch it all

FIRST OF ALL, CONGRATULATIONS. YOU’RE EXPECTING TWINS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT THAT?

GM: Feeling actually really good, but of course, naturally also having anxiety. When you’re so lucky to be having a child, let alone two children, it’s kind of overwhelming happiness. I was literally just on a phone call with our amazing surrogate right before this. It’s been a long process, and we’re thrilled. And it’s an amazing Christmas present. Everyone keeps saying, “Hope they come before Christmas because it’s easier to have their birthday parties before that.” I don’t know. I guess that makes sense.

DO YOU THINK THAT HAVING KIDS WILL INFLUENCE YOUR CREATIVITY OR YOUR ART?

GM: I’m sure it will. Everything that I’ve done to date is sort of authentic to where I am in my life. And as I’ve grown, my work’s grown as well. So I imagine, very much, it will influence my vision and trickle into my work.

DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE POSTING PICTURES OF THE KIDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

ou’ve seen his work even if you don’t know it. Gray Malin’s wildly popular fine-art overhead photographs of beach scenes from Bora Bora to South Beach and images of balloon letters organized to spell cute messages like “I am Busy” have ignited global trends in art, photography and social media. Malin, 32, began his career as a photographer 10 years ago from a booth at a local flea market in West Hollywood, California, where he sold his black-and-white travel photos. But it was a short trip to Art Basel Miami in 2012 and a serendipitous rain storm that launched his signature series À la Plage, a collection of aerial photographs of shorelines and sunbathers around the world. These days, Malin says trips to Florida inspire new work, and he hopes eventually to create a project about the glamour of old Palm Beach, a town he admits he developed a “crush” on after visiting last year. With a few exciting firsts unfolding in his personal and professional life, including a fresh series with the Beverly Hills Hotel and the arrival of twins this December, the soon-to-be helicopter parent reflects on his picture-perfect journey in this interview with Flamingo Editor-in-Chief Jamie Rich.

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I GUESS WHEN YOU’RE A FINE-ART PHOTOGRAPHER AND INSTAGRAM IS A BIG VEHICLE OF DELIVERY OF THOSE IMAGES, IT HAS A DIFFERENT IMPACT. BUT NORMAL PEOPLE AREN’T ASKING THEMSELVES, “OH WELL, SHOULD I POST A PICTURE OF MY BABIES ON INSTAGRAM?” YEAH. OF COURSE, YOU ARE! GM: I know what you mean. We’ll see. I definitely will share their nurseries. That’s for sure.

ARE THE NURSERIES READY?

GM: They’re not ready, but this morning I was opening packages looking for wallpaper that was supposed to arrive, and it’s all being done. I’m actually really excited about the nursery. I feel

MIAMI BEACH SUNBATHERS © GR AY MALIN

Above: Miami Beach Sunbathers © Gray Malin

GM: We haven’t fully discussed that yet. I think we haven’t even researched it, to be honest. And a couple of friends have brought up that topic, and everyone I’ve chatted with about it [says] just that it’s a part of your life and it becomes natural to share family pictures. So I’d imagine it will just come naturally, but we have no hashtag or handle. It’s an interesting topic. People are very opinionated about it, so we just don’t know.

This page: Malin snapped the first images

that would become his A la Plage series during a 2012 trip to Art Basel Miami. graymalin.com @graymalin

W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 â&#x20AC;˘ 2 0 1 9 /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE and go explore. It’s gotten better since I was there. And in the beginning, I actually was taking classes and was primarily working on black and white photography. The majority of what I was selling there was black-and-white work from my travels. And while I was taking classes, I was shooting. Learning how to establish a series of work and the artist statement behind the work. And that led me to my first major successful series, which is the project Prada Marfa.

TELL ME ABOUT PRADA MARFA.

like somehow it becomes sort of therapeutic as I walk in and visualize everything. But just to have it all in place kind of makes it somehow feel a little bit more tangible.

WILL THE WALLPAPER BE GRAY MALIN WALLPAPER?

GM: It’s something else, but the theme is definitely a little bit more traditional. They’re going to share a nursery to start, which is highly recommended for twins. And then we just happen to have Jack-and-Jill bedrooms across the hall. So we’re going to decorate the additional room right across from the nursery as sort of the girl’s room, even though she won’t really move in there until it’s time, which can be anytime from a year, give or take, depending on how well they’re sleeping and everything. So there’ll be two nurseries, but they’ll be sharing one space, so it’s gender neutral and the other one’s a little more girly.

A LITTLE MORE PALM BEACH PINK AND GREEN?

GM: Yeah, a little bit more blush, so

it’s fun. And I look forward to sharing that with everybody.

TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE LATEST COLLECTION, THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL.

GM: It launched today! It’s been two years of discussion and meetings. We went in to shoot about six months ago. It was quite surreal because the Beverly Hills Hotel, just being an Angelino and living here in Los Angeles, it’s so iconic, and to get to walk around there with my camera and see these visions actually come to life in the frame of my lenses, I felt like I was just shooting a celebrity. I was like, “Oh my gosh, is this real?” To be the first photographer to get to shoot my project there, I’m very grateful but also really wanted to do a good job. So I went above and beyond to really nail this time period, and all of the hard work really paid off. So it’s a great day.

IT’S A LONG WAY FROM WHERE YOU STARTED SELLING YOUR IMAGES AT THE FLEA MARKET IN WEST HOLLYWOOD. GM: Yeah, the flea market, it’s so funny. I actually lived very close to the flea market. It’s one of the best things to do on a Sunday in LA. It’s the perfect place to meet friends

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I UNDERSTAND YOUR SUPER POPULAR AERIAL SERIES A LA PLAGE WAS AN IDEA THAT ORIGINATED IN LAS VEGAS, BUT THE FIRST IMAGES YOU TOOK FOR THE SERIES WERE OF MIAMI BEACH?

GM: Exactly. I had been planning on going to Miami during Art Basel. I was always [saying], “I should go and see what’s going on in the art world.” I was trying to figure out where to stay and that’s when I was like, “There’s so many amazing hotels in Miami, and what is art deco?” Ultimately the idea was to go to some of these hotels and see if I could go on the roof and take a picture of their pool. Of course, I get there thinking it will be no problem. But it was a huge problem and everyone was like, “Who are you?” and “No, you can’t go on the roof!” And “We’re sold out,” and “We’re busy!” I was just like, “Oh my gosh, sorry.” This was before drones and all of those shenanigans.

PR ADA MARFA © GR AY MALIN

Above: The first photograph Black and White Original © Gray Malin of his series Prada Marfa

GM: I didn’t grow up in a traditional Dallas, Texas, household. My parents transplanted from New York City. It was just a little bit more open-minded. So the Prada Marfa collection was just kind of second nature. I was like, “Oh, I love this cool town in West Texas.” I hung one of the Prada Marfa prints in my little flea market booth. (It’s actually still for sale on our website, the only black-and-white image, I think, for sale on our website.) I learned that people were drawn to conversational topics and that the print made people very happy. And it kind of laid the foundation for how I began to think about selling my work and creating work. Ultimately the flea market was a very valuable time because the direct feedback that I got from the community helped me determine how to move forward in my journey as a fine art photographer.

F RO M

CO T TAG E S

to Castles

WHEN WERE YOU DOWN THERE TRYING TO TAKE THESE FIRST IMAGES?

GM: It was 2012. What’s funny about it all is I was up there in the air, and I’d never been in a helicopter before. You take off from an airport that’s nowhere near Miami. It takes half an hour of flying time just to get over there, and a storm blew off the Atlantic. I’m circling the Raleigh swimming pool, and it had just been raining and the pool was empty and gray and it was just not what I was envisioning. In the moment I felt that feeling of defeat. Oh, you tried your best. You’re in the helicopter and this just isn’t going to work. I lowered my camera, and that’s when I looked out on the horizon and I saw South Beach. [I’m on] the microphone saying, “Do you mind? Can we go fly over there for a minute before we head back? I’d love to just see more of that big white space.” We start flying along, and there are those umbrellas and the chaise lounge chairs, and everyone had run off the beach because of the rain. So it was just this very simple white sand and geometric shapes, and I took probably all of three minutes of photographs along the beach before we headed back to the airport. When I got back to Los Angeles, I shared the images with the 12 students in this class I was taking, and everyone was like, “Gray, this is really very interesting. You should explore more of this beach work.” And then I started that project. But today you see it everywhere, which is so funny. And I’m so grateful that I was able to work on this project ahead of, I guess, the trend.

WELL, I THINK YOU HAD A BIG PART IN LAUNCHING THIS TREND REALLY.

GM: That’d be a huge compliment. I sometimes think about it. I’m like, “What? What happened there?” But I also feel like drones took off, and that’s part of it too. But regardless, everyone really enjoys the aerial perspective. I mean I’m literally looking at one right now where I’m sitting. It does not get old. It’s always pleasant and timeless on its own. And yeah, Florida is the original, the OG. I went back to Miami and shot, I think, two times after that. It’s one of those few places in America with the European beach club aesthetic with umbrellas and chairs. And from above, it’s one of their rarest spots where you’ve got fabulous patterns of not only color but also shapes and all that. I tell any aspiring aerial photographers, “Go shoot in Miami because there’s plenty of opportunity.”

(904) 553-2032 ELIZABETHHUDGINS.COM

ARE YOU GETTING INTO USING DRONES NOW THAT THEY’VE COME ALONG? OR ARE YOU STILL A HELICOPTER GUY?

GM: I’m not into drones, but I recently had a drone pilot come and shoot some behind the scenes [footage]. And I definitely have a total respect for that sort of work. I just don’t think there’s a comparison, at least for me, in terms of the experience of being up in the air with the wind literally blowing your face. And you’re communicating and directing the pilot. And you’re trying to go lower or higher and angle the lens to find the reflection of the sun off the water. It’s just a totally different experience from looking down on a screen that’s sort of going by GPS coordinates.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR CREATIVE INSPIRATION?

GM: As I’ve grown over the past 10 years as an artist, I learned. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience a lot of different

(904) 334-3104 SARAHALEXANDER.NET

Specializing in Florida’s

FIRST COAST W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9 /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE WHO WAS THE BOLIVIAN PHOTOGRAPHER?

GM: His name is Gastón Ugalde. They call him the Andy Warhol of Bolivia. He’s a real artist. I mean, very much when you think of an old-school artiste, he is that man. So when I met him and I explained, “I’m a photographer, and I’m very drawn to these images,” he and I just connected. And so I’ve actually been back a second time and worked with him. And he just sits there on set and is like, “Do it again, Gray. Do it again. Harder, work harder.” It pushes you to collaborate with another artist who is really creative. To think of things you weren’t thinking of. It’s a great series. I really personally love it because there’s no Photoshop involved. It’s all real.

AND THOSE BALLOON PHRASES HAVE ALSO BECOME A POP CULTURE MOVEMENT, LIKE THE AERIALS. NOW EVERYONE’S TAKING PHOTOS OF BALLOON WORDS AT EVERY ENGAGEMENT PARTY AND ONE-YEAR-OLD BIRTHDAY.

GM: Those balloons are so fun. J.Crew came to me, and I was really early on in my career, and they were like, “Jenna Lyons and Mickey Drexler are fans of your work, and they’d love for you to create a Valentine’s image and something that’s special and unique to you.” It was just for their Instagram. And I happened to be going to Hawaii with my family, and I took all these colorful heart balloons. And then it gets spun into words and flamingos and pineapples, and it was just so joyful. The most famous one is for sure “I am Busy,” which goes across the print table almost every other day. People love that print. I love that print. Everyone can relate to it. I haven’t shot any new balloon work. I need to get back on that. You’re inspiring me right now!

SPEAKING OF FLAMINGOS, WHAT INSPIRES YOU ABOUT THESE PINK BIRDS? I NOTICED THEY APPEAR THROUGHOUT YOUR WORK. GM: Oh gosh. You’re so funny because you’re Flamingo magazine. That is a great question. I’m drawn to them in the sense that they somehow make me happy. I associate flamingos with a good time. It’s just a symbol or a word that is associated with something joyful. So it resonates with me because I’m all about making every day a joyful getaway. It’s just a great animal and it’s a great word.

CHECK OUT MORE OF MALIN’S LATEST WORK AT FLAMINGOMAG.COM.

places. For example, when I went to Palm Beach last December, I was just incredibly inspired. I happened to be at Art Basel for a work commitment and I thought, “Hey, let’s drive up to Palm Beach.” And I was just so inspired. The aerials came from a weekend with friends in Las Vegas, and the Bolivian salt flat series, Far Far Away, actually came because I was at Art Basel that same time I was there for that helicopter. I just walked into the booth of a man, and I instantly recognized some of the work. He invited me to come to Bolivia and shoot with him, and I took him up on it. The more you put yourself out there, it’s interesting how you find things that inspire you, and then you take them home and research and develop ideas and build a good old-fashioned Pinterest board. And with time, they grow, and hopefully, you’re able to execute.

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THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER TREE © GR AY MALIN

Above: A recent work, The Rockefeller Center Tree © Gray Malin Below: Malin’s double-sided puzzles are a must-have this holiday season.

EVER SO SLIGHTLY

timeless

Maybe it’s the classic beauty of a vintage roadster. Maybe it’s the adventure of cruising through oak-lined back roads. Whatever it is, there’s something about the Amelia Island Concours Week. Something ever so slightly timeless.

MAR 7

Fer na ndina B e ach G ol f Club

J O I N US

MAR 8

Om ni A melia I sla nd Pla ntat ion Re sor t

FO R TH E

MAR 8

24 TH ANNUAL AMELIA ISLAND CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE

MAR 9

Om ni A melia I sla nd Pla ntat ion Re sor t

MAR 9

“ P re se nte d by H e aco c k Cla ssic I n su ra nce”

MARCH 7–10, 2019,

Bonhams Auc tion Gooding & Company Auction Werks Reunion Amelia Island Om ni A melia I sla nd Pla ntat ion Re sor t

Festival of Speed Cars & Coffee at the Concours T he R it z - C a rlton, A melia I sla nd

The Golf Club of Amelia Island & The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island

MAR 9

T he R it z - C a rlton, A melia I sla nd

RM Sotheby’s Auction

MAR 9

Fer na ndina Mu n icipa l A ir p or t

Russo and Steele Auction

F LO R I DA

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| AMELIACONCOURSWEEK.COM

WADING IN :THE STUDIO FLOR IDA ARTIST PR OF ILES B y C h ri st i n a C u sh

THE NATURAL

This bird lover trained as a lawyer, but a collection of avifauna watercolors took flight when she stretched own her artistic wings

Above from left: Kristen Summers’s Great Blue Heron in watercolor on paper; Summers at home in Tallahassee holding her

ucked away in the spare room of her Tallahassee home, watercolorist Kristen Summers is sprawled out on the floor in leggings and a T-shirt, surrounded by candles. She’s combing through her cherished old Audubon books, looking for inspiration and trying to channel whatever kind of mood she’s in. This is a ritual, meant to conjure creativity, that she practices a couple of nights a week after long days of working as a lawyer. Summers graduated from Florida State

University with a law degree and a dream of practicing environmental law for the state. Her love for biology, ecology and preservation began when she was a child growing up in the lush Miami suburbs, with a science teacher mom and a let’slook-under-rocks-and-find-creatures dad. Summers even earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Florida in natural resource conservation. Despite her plans to combine law and nature, she still felt something was missing. That all changed four years ago, when she picked

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up a paintbrush for the first time to create a watercolor of a quail to give to a friend. And just like that, she discovered a new passion. Summers, who has no formal art training, explains, “Birds, watercolors and I click, and I create things I never anticipated I could. We were meant to be.” The artist, 31, launched her online retail site Bourbon & Birdies four years ago to sell her watercolor paintings of Florida fowl. About 80 percent of her customers come from Florida, which is how she wants it. A percentage of sales go toward

EMILY BRUNO

Painted Bunting in watercolor on paper; Summers’s American Flamingo watercolor on paper

Above from left and below Summers’s Bald Eagle in watercolor on paper, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird in watercolor on paper and Roseate Spoonbill in watercolor on paper

organizations aimed at protecting Florida wildlife, such as Tampa Bay Watch, a nonprofit focused on protecting Tampa Bay’s estuary. But her work is also a love song to Florida’s riveting natural beauty. Part of her struggle in balancing being a business owner, full-time lawyer and artist is finding the time to relish the landscape that fuels her creativity. Last year, overwhelmed by her success at painting, she cut back on Florida art festival appearances to spend more moments in nature. Her favorite spots? “Kissimmee Prairie Preserve. You take a long dirt road to get there, and it’s a Dark Sky location in Florida—the light pollution is low, and the stars are outrageous,” she says. Summers also has choice bird-watching perches: “Corkscrew Swamp, an Audubon location in Collier County; St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge for black-necked stilts, avocets, and other long-legged birds; and Merritt Island on the eastern coast.” In 2019, she will show her work in several fairs, with the goal of catching the eye of a gallery owner. In the meantime, she’ll focus on creating birds’ eyes — the key, she says, to capturing a subject’s soul.

Artfully

INSPIRED Authentic. Intuitive. Elegant.

O ne O cean B ou l eva rd Atl anti c B each, FL 32233 904. 249. 7402 | www. oneocea nresort.c om

W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 • 2 0 1 9 /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

MADE FOR MUSIC. HARD ROCK HOTEL DAYTONA BEACH

FELLOW ROCK STARS GET 20% OFF RATES PLUS TWO COMPLIMENTARY WELCOME COCKTAILS*. The stage is set and it’s show time – 4 star luxury, world class cuisine, live entertainment and our signature rock star service. Be prepared to experience Hard Rock Hotel’s newest oceanfront resort. The beach will never sound the same. Use Promo Code ROCKER19 to book your stay online, or call 844-745-1502. Valid through April 30, 2019 *Not available over holidays or special events, must be 21 or over to make a reservation. Other restrictions may apply.

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (NORTH) TREYLOR PARK N O C AT E E

Located near Ponte Vedra Beach, Nocatee is a picturesque community that’s on the rise. And that is exactly what owners Rick Kunzi and Trey Wilder were looking for when searching for a location for their third outpost of Treylor Park. The restaurant flips the script on the typical menu by mixing up ingredients in a creative way. Led by executive chef Marvin Sterling, stand-out dishes include PB&J wings (voted best in Georgia for three years), shrimp and grits tacos, and the bacon brownie. If you have a sweet tooth with a Southern twang, then you’ll want to try the pecan bourbon or the “grapeful dead” with grape Kool Aid–infused vodka and gummy bears. It’s quite the treat! treylorpark.com/nocatee Above: The inside-out quinoa burger at True Food Kitchen’s latest location in Jacksonville

CHOP SHOP ARTISAN BUTCHER

TRUE FOOD KITCHEN

ST. AUGUSTINE

There’s nothing better than oldfashioned, melt-in-your-mouth BBQ. The new Chop Shop Artisan Butcher in St. Augustine is a full-scale butchery offering custom cuts. A spin-off by Chef Brian Whittington’s Strive Restaurant Group, the shop sources all its meat from local producers like Black Hog Farm. Omnivores can also browse for for high-quality fruits and vegetables and seafood items like scallops, shrimp and fish. Lead butcher Tony Philpott’s goal is to educate customers about where their food comes from, creating a major departure from the typical large supermarket experience. chopshopsta.com

(C E N T RA L )

MIMI’S TABLE

TRUE FOOD KITCHEN

Located in Tallahassee’s Old Town District, Mimi’s Table is a neighborhood bistro blending French, Italian and Southern influences. The brainchild of William Lawson, an executive chef with classical French training and more than 20 years of experience, the restaurant is named after his mother-inlaw, Mimi, who’s known for her warm, over-the-top hospitality. The ambience is exactly as she would want it: cheerful and elegant with white tablecloths and fresh flowers. As befits a chef-driven bistro, the menu changes on a daily basis and features homemade pastas as well as specialty dishes like smoked pork chops and braised short ribs. mimistabletally.com

Nutritionists and health aficionados rejoice! Jacksonville is the latest city to score an outpost of True Food Kitchen. The restaurant, which has developed a major following, is inspired by the philosophy that food should make you feel better rather than worse. Founder Dr. Andrew Weil launched the concept to cater to diners who want delicious, healthy dishes without sacrificing flavor or creativity. Think butternut squash pizza made with artisan dough and topped with roasted garlic, vegan almond ricotta, kale and caramelized onions. Wash it down with a citrus skinny margarita and you can walk away feeling guilt-free and great. truefoodkitchen.com

TA L LA H A S S E E

JACKSONVILLE

Á LA CART STREET FOOD & CRAFT BEER O R LA N D O

A street food concept with a twist, Á La Cart Street Food & Craft Beer introduces Orlando to its first food park. Here’s how it works: A rotating slate of food trucks lines a permanent pavilion that boasts covered indoor seating and an outdoor courtyard. Plus lawn games! The bar inside features a rotating list of craft brews. Former Oregonbased high school teachers April and Dustin Williams became inspired by the food truck parks in Portland. So they brought this new and improved version of the street food concept to their favorite neighborhood in their hometown: the trendy Milk District in Orlando. alacartorlando.com

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (C E N T RA L ) OSTERIA ITALIAN BAR & KITCHEN TA M PA

Osteria’s cockles and clams invite on a wintery night in Tampa.

OSTERIA BAR + KITCHEN

Above:

Downtown Tampa has a hot new Italian eatery with star power behind it. Top Chef alumnus Fabio Viviani dazzles diners with truffles, homemade pastas, slow-roasted meats and wild fish dishes crafted with the rustic Italian countryside in mind. A must-try menu item is the rigatoni in a jar, served drenched in parmesan creme alongside house-smoked bacon, Brussels sprouts and farmed egg yolk. It’s a secret recipe handed down through Viviani’s family for generations. Seating

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (C E N T RA L ) in the restaurant is by reservation only, so make sure to call ahead. osteriatampa.com

RUKUS CYCLING STUDIO W I N T E R PA R K

With locations now open in Winter Park and downtown Orlando, Rukus Cycling Studio attracts crowds of cardio enthusiasts by taking fitness to a whole new level. The moment you step inside the CycleArena, you realize that this isn’t your average spinning studio. Think stadium-style setup, low lights, LED TV screens and heart rate monitors that capture all the action. And when the class kicks off, the volume goes way up. It’s a high-energy ride that will make you burn, baby, burn. gocyclenow.com

FENWAY HOTEL DUNEDIN

Located just north of Clearwater, the picturesque waterfront village of Dunedin is having a moment. And the reimagination of the historic Fenway Hotel adds loads of pizzazz to the already charming destination. Originally opened in 1927, the hotel has a distinctive musical heritage. The rooftop served as the county’s first radio station, and the building, nicknamed the “Grand Lady of Dunedin,” hosted a bevy of traveling musicians and artists. Today, the new rooftop is home to a lively bar and features panoramic views of St. Joseph Sound, while the redesign of the rooms and public spaces channels the rhythm of the Jazz Age. fenwayhotel.com

Above:

À La Cart will feature 15 taps of craft creations.

Health-driven seasonal kitchen & bar Opens November 7 LINDSE Y THOMPSON

at St. Johns Town Center

Now you have a place to truly enjoy eating uniquely delicious dishes that help you on your quest to live well. That’s the refreshing difference of True Food Kitchen. TrueFoodKitchen.com/Jacksonville

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (SOUTH) like a smoked old-fashioned. speaksclambar.com

CADILLAC HOTEL & BEACH CLUB MIAMI

With the new edition of the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, living the cabana life just got sweeter in Miami Beach. Located on the waterfront boardwalk that runs through the glitzy Mid Beach neighborhood, the property overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and features prime beach access. Inspired by the French Riviera, interior design firm Bill Rooney Studio transformed the Art Deco gem into a new and improved luxury boutique hotel. It’s a rosé-all-day kind of vibe, with loads of class and Mediterranean style. cadillachotelmiami beach.com

ROOT & BONE MIAMI

You’ve seen them both on Bravo’s Top Chef. Now, celebrity chefs Jeffrey McInnis and Janine Booth have opened their second Root & Bone restaurant. While the flagship location is in Manhattan’s eclectic East Village neighborhood, the new outpost is in the heart of South Beach,

inside the art deco Shelborne hotel. Think classic Southern cooking with quality ingredients. Booth recommends the lemondusted, sweet tea–brined fried chicken, a play on an Arnold Palmer. She also highlights the eight-hour braised short rib meatloaf, a crowd favorite, which is served retro-style with fluffy mashed potatoes and house-made tomato sauce. True to the restaurant’s name, there are plenty of vegetable dishes where the chefs allow simple and fresh produce to shine. shelborne.com/dining

BOATHOUSE AT THE RIVERSIDE

F O R T LA U D E R D A L E

New to Fort Lauderdale’s leisure scene, this riverfront restaurant and bar offers one of the quintessential Florida experiences. Patrons can roll up from land or water and dive into the menu at this addition to the historic Riverside Hotel, also home to Wild Sea Oyster Bar & Grille and Indigo. Small plates emphasizing Mediterranean flavors are a major feature, and cocktails stir up tropical magic to accompany your octopus fritters and duck fat potatoes with chimichurri. boathouseriverside.com

Above: The gleaming Cadillac Hotel sits on the beach. Below: The Cadillac

SPEAKS CLAM BAR S A R A S O TA

St. Armands Circle, the crown jewel of Sarasota, is home to the newest outpost of Speaks Clam Bar, a speakeasy-style restaurant inspired by 19th-century Little Italy. Owner Natalia Levey, herself a classically trained chef, wants to welcome people and make them feel like part of a family. After frequent

world travels and dining with the best Italian chefs, the Levey family eventually longed to share their secret red sauce (available in sweet, medium and hot versions) with like-minded pasta lovers. Levey says the menu changes daily, but make sure to try the housemade corfu seafood linguine. There’s also a garden-to-glass cocktail menu with Prohibition-style favorites

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CADILL AC HOTEL & BEACH CLUB

Hotel showcases both Art Deco and modern design elements.

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he hip, urban heart of Florida’s Gulf Coast beats in Tampa Bay. Bask in the warm sun, exciting fun, and rich culture that make Tampa Bay Florida’s most diverse vacation destination. Experience everything from heart-pumping thrills to waterfront sunsets. Savor local flavors from the country’s most creative chefs in one of America’s top foodie communities. Stroll the Tampa Riverwalk, which links restaurants, parks and cultural centers like gems on a string. Step into the past in Ybor City, where Cuban artisans hand-roll cigars as they have since 1885. Revel in the spirit of Gasparilla, Tampa Bay’s annual pirate-themed party and all the festivals that follow. Treasure awaits.

On the Tampa Riverwalk, walk, bike (or water bike!), kayak or stand-up paddleboard along a two-mile pedestrian space linking parks, restaurants and attractions.

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FLORIDA’S MOST

WAYS TO PLAY With waterfront adventures, historic culture, and epic family fun, Tampa Bay is more than Florida sunshine. It’s a treasure.

VisitTampaBay.com

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DESTINATION

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TA M PA BAY SPOTLIGHT

T H E F LO R I DA AQUA R I U M Explore the wonders of the water at The Florida Aquarium. Experience sharks, alligators, penguins and more. Plus, immerse yourself in interactive programs like Dive with the Sharks, Shark Swim and Swim with the Fishes, or take a Wild Dolphin Tour on board the Bay Spirit II, a 72-foot powered catamaran. Then, be sure to visit the aquarium’s new water play area, The Splash Pad.

THE D ETA I LS : (813) 273-4000 • flaquarium.org

TA M PA M U S E U M OF A RT The Tampa Museum of Art houses a collection ranging from ancient Greek and Roman art to pop art legend Roy Lichtenstein. It also hosts traveling exhibits, such as the works of Christo, Andy Warhol and Norman Rockwell. At night, the museum becomes a work of art itself when its façade comes to life with thousands of shifting colors in Leo Villareal’s Sky (Tampa).

THE D ETA I LS : (813) 274-8130 • tampamuseum.org

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B U S C H GA R D E N S ® TA M PA BAY Ride world-class roller coasters at Busch Gardens® Tampa Bay. Plummet from great heights on the record-breaking, 60-mph dive coaster Falcon’s Fury, experience weightlessness on Kumba, and enjoy more than a dozen other thrill rides. Plus, take a safari in the park’s zoo, which houses more than 12,000 animals, including big cats, primates and more.

ZO O TA M PA AT LOW RY PA R K Explore exotic natural wonders in ZooTampa Lowry Park as you feed rhinos, touch stingrays, walk with wallabies, meet giant tortoises and more across 56 acres filled with wildlife. Then top it all off with a ride on Roaring Springs to take a gentle boat ride through a breathtaking natural Florida landscape ending with a three-story plunge and splash.

TH E D ETAILS : (813) 935-8552 • zootampa.org

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T H E GL AZE R CH I L DR E N ’ S M USEU M Named one of the top five children’s museums in America, The Glazer Children’s Museum is a place where children can experience 170 interactive exhibits and themed galleries where they can play, discover and connect to the world around them.

THE D ETA I LS : (813) 443-3861 • glazermuseum.org

The Tampa Bay History Center features three floors of exhibits exploring 12,000 years of Florida history. Hit the high seas with pirates, stroll the brick streets of Ybor City with Cuban cigar rollers or saddle up for a cattle drive with pioneers.

THE D ETA I LS : (813) 228-0097 • tampabayhistorycenter.org

Photo: Mary Beth Koeth

TA M PA BAY H I ST O RY C E N T E R

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THE FUN LASTS

TALLAHASSEE ALL YEAR

Tallahassee is more than college kids and politics. From towering live oaks and sparkling natural springs to standout restaurants and thriving craft breweries, Tallahassee brims with excitement. Plan your trip at VisitTallahassee.com.

VisitTallahassee.com

— Unf ilter ed Fodder —

Capital Dame By Di ane R o b ert s • I l l u st ra t i o n b y S t ep h en L o m a zzo

SWAMP SACRAMENTS Wading in with the ghosts and gifts of ancestral land

Some people have a family place on the beach; some people have a family house in the mountains. We have a family swamp. Our swamp is half land, half water, a tangle of bald cypress, sweet bay, possumhaw holly and three or four kinds of pines, a place of green shadows and owls conversing on hidden branches. It’s deep

in Wakulla County, just off Smith Creek Road, a little north of Vause Branch, a little east of Mack Slough. Can’t find it on the map? Good. We like it that way. When I was little, we used to drive down there from Tallahassee. Some of my uncles and cousins would be there. We’d stay for a few days in what was grandly referred to as my

grandfather’s hunting camp. It was actually a house trailer, single-wide, with a lot of bunk beds and a window unit air conditioner that sounded like an idling Chevy Nova with a bad muffler. In May, we’d fish in Mack Slough or take a johnboat to Mack Lake, where we’d watch ospreys swoop languidly while great blue

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Capital Dame UNF ILTER ED FODDER

herons stood impassively in the shallows. Come November, my uncles would hunt deer and wild hogs. The children would root around dead and lightning-struck longleaf pines for fragrant pieces of resin-rich heartwood to use in our fireplaces for the Thanksgiving and Christmas fires that, in our centrally heated houses, were more for atmosphere than for warmth. In the evenings, my grandfather, Edgar Lafayette Roberts, would tell stories about these two brothers who lived deep in the swamp. You had to pole a skiff to the cabin of the two “old boys” who wore overalls but never shirts underneath and kept a bear chained to their front porch. Or he’d tell about the two silent little girls in white dresses and big white hats who used to follow him on the path to the family burying ground, then disappear into the mist. My grandfather kept a pen of relatively civilized pigs in a pen on a bluff above the slough, destined to become holiday hams, chops and spicy sausage. The wild hogs were likely descendants of the porkers from the Iberian Peninsula, brought over by Hernando de Soto in 1539, bred to thrive

(or at least survive) in the indecent heat of southern Spain and Florida. My grandfather called them “conquistador hogs.” They mostly stayed in the deep woods, though sometimes they’d raid the camp, knocking over the metal drum full of feed corn meant for the penned pigs. My grandfather liked to scare us with stories of the viciousness of the conquistador hogs. He said their bite was worse than a bear’s, worse than a panther’s, worse than a mad dog’s. If you saw one coming, you’d best climb the nearest tree. I saw some conquistador hogs once, maybe 20 years ago. They were swimming the slough, six or seven of them, snouts held up out of the water, eyes dark and hard. I ran back to the road, locked myself in the car, and drove back to town. I find that people don’t, in general, love

pony-sized mosquitoes and some of the more irascible reptiles, you should never drain a swamp. You’ll wreck an important habitat. Plus, swamps act as filtration systems, cleaning the gunk before the water seeps down into the aquifer. When I was about 5, I fell off the bank into the slough. I’m told I was fishing. What I remember is the water churning with the writhing bodies and glittering eyes of water moccasins all around me. My father jumped down and pulled me out by my hair. Everybody was screaming—except the vipers. But even vipers belong at Smith Creek. They’ve been there far longer than we have. My great-great-grandfather, Richard Roberts, supposedly did not fear any snake crawling on the earth. He was a mysterious character, only appearing in official records in 1862, when he joined the Fifth Florida Infantry Company C. He fought at Antietam; he fought at Fredericksburg. He survived— barely—the Siege of Petersburg. He was wounded and, in 1864, went home to Florida. There’s no court-admissible evidence for this, but family legend tells that he convalesced with the family of his friend, Redden Smith, at Smith Creek. In September 1866, Richard Roberts married Redden’s sister, Ellen Jane Smith, whose daddy owned a fair bit of land along the Ochlockonee River, some of it high enough to farm. Three of Richard and Ellen’s six children lived past infancy, Theophilus, Edwin, and my grandfather’s father, Valerious Lafayette Roberts. Twin girls born in 1867, Sarah and Jane, died only a few months old. They’re buried in graves lined with oyster shells on high ground near a stand of longleaf

In Florida, selling swampland to Yankee rubes who thought they were getting beachfront property was once a nice little moneymaker.

swamps. In the popular imagination, swamps mean bugs. Snakes. Heat. Ravenous alligators people assume are longing for a taste of human flesh. In Florida, selling swampland to Yankee rubes who thought they were getting beachfront property was once a nice little moneymaker. Then there’s the image of the swamp as a self-dealing ecosystem full of critters secretly stealing from more deserving animals. The current occupant of the White House speaks of “draining the swamp,” which shows what he knows about swamps. Come on, you say, when Trump says “drain the swamp,” he means D.C. insiders. But even lobbyists are part of the food chain, just like gators and snakes. While it would be nice to expel the

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Arts, Festivals and the rest is History. pines. Sometimes, my grandfather thought Sarah and Jane were the ghost girls he used to see on the graveyard trail; other times he says it was his two young cousins who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. I’ve walked that trail myself, at dusk, looking hard. I’ve never managed to catch sight of the little girls in white. I’ve experienced other swamp mysteries. I’ve seen the white tupelo growing in the sloughs and creeks off the Ochlockonee River. “Tupelo” is a Creek word, which means something like “swamp tree.” In the spring, the trees are covered in tiny greenwhite blooms around a spheroid center, like exquisite little ringed planets, attracting clouds of delirious bees. Other kinds of tupelo trees grow in other parts of the world—China, Mexico, Central America—but this species, named for Ogeechee River in southeastern Georgia, is the only source of the famous honey. In the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram made a drawing of a white tupelo, its roots curling down into the water, as he explored the Southeast. It takes 2 million tupelo flowers to produce one pound of honey, a miracle of swamp transubstantiation. A third-generation Wakulla bee man, probably a distant cousin of ours (it’s hard to keep track), keeps his hives on our land and pays “rent” in honey. When the case of bright gold honey arrives, I take out a jar and dip up a spoonful. Unlike my grandfather, his grandfather, and beyond, beginning with a tight knot of families that formed in 1825 when my first ancestors traveled from what is now Nassau County to the brand new territorial capital in Tallahassee, then turned south to where the trees grew thickest, I have never lived off the land. My father left Wakulla County and became a civil engineer with a house on a hill far above the danger of rising rivers. Yet the sweetness of that honey transports me, as though I’m communing with all those Smiths and Vauses, Tuckers and Robertses who made their home deep in the watery woods—a sacrament of the swamp.

Diane Roberts is an eighth-generation Floridian, educated at Florida State University and at Oxford University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and the Tampa Bay Times. She has also authored four books, including Dream State, a historical memoir of Florida, and Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America.

Around here, nature isn’t our only attraction. Discover exciting sidewalk festivals, browse a fine art museum, enjoy live performances at a majestic theater or at our contemporary performing arts center. You can even explore Native American ruins, pioneer villages and the winter retreats of millionaires.

Conveniently located between Daytona Beach and Orlando. Download a visitors guide at VisitWestVolusia.com

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THE MEN THE MYTHS THE LEGENDS The namesake of Fort Lauderdale, Maj. William Lauderdale, may have been largely lost to time, but his legacy lives on in Osceola, the famed leader of the Seminole tribe that the American soldier from Tennessee fought to destroy. By ERIC BARTON

Above: George Catlin’s

Os-ce-o-lá, The Black Drink, a Warrior of Great Distinction, 1838, oil on canvas hangs at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

CARLTON WARD JR ., LUIS MONTOYA AND LESLIE ORTIZ, JACKSON WALKER

illy Powell didn’t become a hero or a mass murderer—which version you hear depends on who’s telling his story—until he walked among all those dead bodies. Almost everyone he had ever known died that Saturday, July 27, 1816. Two hundred and seventy bodies lay strewn about—soldiers, babies, mothers, kids like Billy. He was 12 years old. The Americans had attacked the old Florida Panhandle fort that the English had abandoned a year earlier. The Americans called it the Negro Fort, since it had been taken over by escaped slaves along with Native Americans and a unit of the Colonial Marines, famed black soldiers who fought Below: Wearing in the War of 1812. A flaming cannonball shot from an American warship on traditional the Apalachicola River struck the fort’s weapons depot. The explosion killed Seminole dresses, Morgan nearly all of these inhabitants. and her mother Billy and the other survivors took to the woods, a stretch of cypress swamp so Louvella Yates pick fruits on inhospitable we now call it Tate’s Hell. He joined the survivors as they sloshed the Brighton Reservation. their way through grassland marsh and palmettos as sharp as knives. They

made it all the way to South Florida, where they would soon be among those called Seminoles. Billy had Creek, black, Scottish and English blood and was indisputably handsome, with a slender sloping nose and an upturned brow that gave even his smile a sense of sadness. It is speculated that he first became a leader because he was one of the few Seminoles who spoke English and Creek, but soon he would be known for rousing speeches that rallied the survivors. Out of the rubble of that old fort, as he rose from the piles of bodies left behind in the summer sun, Billy would become a mass murderer, by some accounts, bent on revenge for what he had seen. To be sure, others would say he was a hero, fighting for the right of his people to exist, striking back only in defense of their way of life and their land. Billy Powell abandoned the boy he had been. He called himself Osceola. That tale of the creation Above: of Osceola is one that’s well documented, The Captive an origin story recorded in textbooks Osceola oil painting by and recounted in the oral history of the Jackson Walker Seminoles. But what you might not know Right: The statue is the other part, the story about the of Maj. William Lauderdale in man whose actions had helped give rise progress at to Osceola. His name was Maj. William Luis Montoya’s sculpture studio Lauderdale, and aside from being the in 1992 in West Palm Beach. namesake of the South Florida city, he has

His name was Maj. William Lauderdale, and aside from being the namesake of the South Florida city, he has largely become lost to time, an irony that ought to be explained.

largely become lost to time, an irony that maybe ought to be explained. Like Billy’s father, Lauderdale claimed a Scottish heritage. Lauderdale’s people had a lineage going back to King Robert I and Sir William Wallace, liberators of Scotland. His family came to America and built plantations in Virginia and Tennessee, making fortunes with the labor of slaves.

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SEMINOLE INDIAN TRIBE

Lauderdale never intended to be a soldier. He likely would have spent his life overseeing his land. But just across Goose Creek in Hartsville, Tennessee, lived a Scotch-Irish statesman and plantation owner named Andrew Jackson. As colonel of the Tennessee militia, Jackson recruited his neighbor to fight in the War of 1812. Afterward, Jackson relied on Lauderdale to be one of his top officers in a campaign against the Native Americans. Lauderdale would chase the Seminole, Creek and Choctaw peoples out of Florida, outgunning their braves and overwhelming villages of families with cavalry. After the explosion at the fort on the Apalachicola River, Jackson’s men returned the African-American survivors to slavery. The Choctaw chief was scalped. And while the Americans saw the attack as a resounding victory, it angered the Native Americans I know of but one enough that they began three years of retaliatory man that I think attacks in what became the First Seminole War. can raise a But Lauderdale was battalion, and headed home by the time who can and will the Seminoles began beat the whole massing armies in 1816. He returned to Sumner Indian force in County, Tennessee, where Florida he married and had seven —Gen. Thomas Jesup children. Jackson, his former neighbor, became president in 1829, touting his success against Native Americans in a landslide victory. As the Seminoles got stronger and began to terrorize settlements in Florida, Maj. Gen. Thomas Jesup asked President Jackson for advice on how to win the Second Seminole War. According to Bob Davidsson, author of the book Indian River: A History of the Ais Indians in Spanish Florida, Jackson replied: “I know of but one man that I think can raise a battalion, and who can and will beat the whole Indian force in Florida.” In 1837, Jackson gave Lauderdale his own command of a battalion of volunteers and mounted infantry. They would travel far south into Florida with orders to hunt and kill the most feared Native American brave: Osceola, now 33. There were no roads leading into the Seminole territory, so Lauderdale blazed his own. Starting in Jupiter, he and his men slashed and burned their way through 63 miles of native Florida scrub. It’s still there, that route, now called Military Trail, a largely suburban road of strip malls. Lauderdale would never reach his destination, an army fort in Miami. The swamps would take him long before.

Above: Seminole

shootout reenactments take plance annually in Central Florida.

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Billy Powell had been an equal among his peers at the fort along the Apalachicola, where most everyone had a mixed heritage. But in the swamps of South Florida, he would always be something of an outsider among the Seminoles. Even though as Osceola he had proven himself a fighter, a hunter and a leader of the army he raised, he could never be chief, not with his mixed blood. So, instead, Osceola would become a leader among the natives who survived the attack on the fort. Most of the ones who refused to surrender were Creek Indians; they became known as the Seminoles. Legend has it that when the American government sent a treaty demanding that the Seminoles relocate to reservations in the West, Osceola returned it unsigned, a slice through the center of the document where he had stabbed it with his knife. Above Osceola and 72 of his men The tales of Osceola soon spread, were lured to St. and his reputation became someAugustine under the guise of a truce thing larger, according to Paul Backand then forced to surrender. house, director of the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki

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STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA , CARLTON WARD JR .

The outsiders

Museum on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, located dead center between Naples and Fort Lauderdale in the swamps north of Alligator Alley. Backhouse received a doctorate in archaeology from Bournemouth University in his native England and worked for the Museum of Texas Tech University before beginning work for the Seminole tribe in 2007. “In many ways, Osceola was always someone more important externally than he was inside the tribe,” Backhouse says. Osceola and the Seminoles ravaged the settlements in South Florida. The story goes that they destroyed all but one home in Miami-Dade and Broward counties during the Seminole Wars. Seminole warriors arrived at a settlement on the New River in what’s now Fort Lauderdale on the day its owner, William Cooley, was elsewhere. Cooley returned home to find his family and their teacher slaughtered, even Cooley’s infant boy. Only the tutor’s son would survive, according to lore, and later he would explain how the Seminoles shot Cooley’s wife in the back as she tried to run to the river, killing the child she clutched in her arms. It would be difficult to defend what Osceola and the others did, slaughtering thousands in dozens of settlements. Maybe you could argue that Billy Powell had learned it that day at the fort, where American soldiers left behind hundreds of bodies to rot in the wreckage. Or, some might say, Osceola and his fighters had been surrounded, forced into swampland, and simply wanted one final place to be theirs. Perhaps a piece of young Billy Powell remained in the heart of Osceola, leading the great warrior to do what he did next, one last act of goodwill. Osceola became so feared that Jesup offered him a truce. The general invited Osceola to St. Augustine, where a white flag of peace flew above Fort Peyton. Osceola and the others knew they might be walking into a trap, but Backhouse says they went because they wanted to believe in the idea of peace, to feel that they were doing the right thing. On October 21, 1837, Osceola brought 72 of his men within the fort’s walls. When the doors closed behind them, Jesup’s soldiers turned their guns on them and forced the surrender of Osceola and his men. This act destroyed the reputation of Jesup, the one who had summoned Lauderdale into the war, and the press would vilify him. Two centuries later, the deceit remains “one of the most disgraceful acts in American military history,” according to Thom Hatch’s book Osceola and the Great Seminole War:

A Struggle for Justice and Freedom. “Osceola was so upset by In many ways, Osceola was always someone more the deception that he couldn’t even speak through his anger,” important externally than he was inside THE TRIBE. Backhouse says. “It’s a really —PAUL BACKHOUSE tragic ending to Osceola’s story to have him captured by this awful deception under a false truce.” Seminoles again. It would be his death. Osceola ended up in an army prison outside Charleston, Two months after Osceola had become a martyr and and how he spent his final days is open to some interpretation, his death had become a cry to war for any Seminole Backhouse says. The army claims they allowed Osceola to considering surrender, Lauderdale took his men into the leave prison at night to attend parties and take in shows, interior of what’s now Broward County. Since his arrival always wearing the regalia of the Seminole chief he could in South Florida, Lauderdale had met never become. The Seminoles tell a different story, claiming nothing but failure. In wool uniforms, Below Andre he rotted in a cell, tortured nightly, refusing to break. He Lauderdale’s waterlogged men hauled Jumper lassos a cow at the at died of an infection on January 30, 1838. guns and equipment in canoes tied the Big Cypress Reservation. By then, Lauderdale was already on his way to fight the behind them. They slashed their

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lauderdale vs. osceola

At the time, U.S. military strategy involved lining up in columns to fight soldiers across a field of fire. Osceola and Jones, on the other hand, had taught their men using their hunting skills, passing quieter than a breeze through sawgrass. Jones had picked an ideal spot for his encampment. Pine Island was the tallest spot around, at 26 feet. Lauderdale’s men slogged through a knee-deep swamp during their noisy approach.

Left: A painting

depicting the American attack on Fort Negro, situated near Apalachicola, which took place when Billy Powell was only 12. Below: The skyline

of modern-day Fort Lauderdale, the namesake of Gen. William Lauderdale

JACKSON WALKER, ADOBE STOCK

way past dense brambles and suffered through clouds of mosquitoes as thick as wet campfire smoke. They’d arrive at Seminole villages that seemed like they had just emptied. On March 22, 1838, though, Lauderdale believed he had discovered the location of Seminoles on a spot the soldiers named Pine Island. The leader of the Seminoles’ encampment was Sam Jones, also known as Abiaki or sometimes simply “The Devil.” James E. Billie, a former Seminole chairman, wrote about the origin of the nickname in a 2014 article in the tribe’s newspaper. “You might say Abiaki brought that nickname upon himself,” Billie wrote. “I’m not sure the soldiers really knew what he looked like. There are stories of him walking right into the forts to sell fish directly to the soldiers. He’d walk around and see where everything was and then get his band together to attack the same fort that night. The legend grew, and so did the name. The soldiers knew The Devil was in his Garden, but they could never find him.”

As some tell it, Pine Island stood as empty as the other encampments when Lauderdale walked up on the ridge. From that spot, he could have looked out on land so flat it seemed ironed, wondering how The Devil could have escaped into it again. Lauderdale had helped create a scourge on his own people by attacking the Creek Indians, turning them into the fighters who became the Seminoles. Perhaps he stopped to wonder if The Devil was actually the ghost of Osceola, one fading after the other into the Glades like a sun shower. All that time Lauderdale spent trudging through muck is likely the reason that fever set in not long after. By the time he evacuated to Tampa two months later, he was coughing up blood from an illness nobody could diagnose. The Army called his expedition a victory just the same. The wooden stockade erected by the marching soldiers along the New River was named Fort Lauderdale. The soldiers abandoned it three months later. They built two more by the same name, and all three would be lost to history. On his way home, Lauderdale and his men spent the night in a Baton Rouge army barracks. Still suffering from his mysterious illness, Lauderdale died on May 11, 1838. He left his widow the plantation and 40 slaves. In the old movies, it was always the cowboy or the army soldier who was the good guy. And so you might think it was Lauderdale who would be remembered. Aside from

the city that bears his name, Maj. William Lauderdale has largely been forgotten, and it’s not easy to find references to him. The Library of Congress has more than 20,000 of Jackson’s documents, but few of them mention Lauderdale. Between those and others kept by The Tennessee State Library and Archives, just three letters Lauderdale wrote survive; hastily scribbled and near impossible to read, they appear to be about troop movements. It seems there has never been a textbook to mention Lauderdale’s name. In his hometown of Hartsville, there was no remembrance of Lauderdale until just recently. Earlier this year, local historian John Oliver requested that officials name a street or park or something after Lauderdale. They settled on a room in the county courthouse. “There’s just no one to keep the name alive here,” Oliver says. Perhaps it’s because of Lauderdale’s history as a slave owner and hunter of Native Americans, Oliver says. “It’s probably debatable whether he’s a hero or not.” In Fort Lauderdale, there’s little to mark the city’s namesake. Maj. William Lauderdale Park occupies seven-tenths of an acre in a neighborhood behind the police station. A historical plaque in Jupiter recognizes the trail Lauderdale’s men blazed on their way south. And there is just one monument to Lauderdale, in the town of Davie, inside a development where shades of khaki differentiate otherwise identical houses. A semicircle of hedges surrounds a stat-

ue that represents Lauderdale upon a horse, clutching a kepi-style hat with an ornate bauble. He’s bending down, his face near the horse’s neck, as if looking for something. The work stands on Pine Island Ridge, the very place where Lauderdale failed to find the Seminoles. Meanwhile, the death of Osceola turned him into a folk hero overnight. The story became a national source of shame, a symbol of how the United States had used trickery and savagery to fight Native Americans. Even those who had nothing to do with the treachery wanted to forget the shame by honoring Osceola, Backhouse says. “Americans wanted to expunge their own guilty conscience for what happened, so they named places and built statues for Osceola.” Though Osceola never rose to the rank of chief, he would still become one of the most widely known Native American leaders. Cities, counties and mountains from New Hampshire to Arkansas are named for Osceola. There is an outcrop on Mars bearing his name. Statues of him stand in Marion County, Florida; Osceola, Iowa; and Osceola, Wisconsin. Not far from where Billy Powell spent years of his life, a three-story statue in front of Florida State University’s football stadium depicts the warrior he would become. Osceola holds a feathered spear above his head, riding a horse rearing beneath him, with one word inscribed: “UNCONQUERED.”

FOR THE LOV A man’s passion for “big-going dogs” sustains the tradition of

VE OF DOGS By BUCKY McMAHON /// Photographs by GABRIEL HANWAY & CHRIS MATHAN

one of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toughest field trials on Florida prairie.

Above from top:

Slade Sykes has worked on the farm for 20 years, managing the land and handling the dogs and horses; riders head out on an early winter morning in search of wild quail on Chinquapin Farm near Lake City.

ou’d think it was electrified, the way the dog exits the box. Launched by a pure essence of bird-lust, distilled through decades of selective breeding, the big-boned, blackspotted English pointer hits the ground at a sprint and tears off down the trail, paws and claws kicking up rooster tails of white Florida sand. There goes Chinquapin Reward, alias “Pete,” clearly a dog with a lot of gumption, a big-goer, a dog that will “run off, but not quite,” as they say in the bird dog–handling trade. At once, Slade Sykes, manager of Chinquapin Farm, a 7,000-acre private quail-hunting reserve outside Lake City commences his “handler’s song.” “Hey ho! Hey ho! Come here, Pete! C’mere, Pete, m’Pete, m’Pete! Heyo!” His yodeling cries echo through the pines. But there’s no sign of Pete. For this demo of bird dog prowess, we have driven out a little way into the hunting grounds from the deluxe, if noisome, kennels, where some 60 English pointers clamored to be

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included in the mission. Sykes selected three: the 8-year-old veteran Pete, a two-time all-age champion at the field trials held here at Chinquapin Farm; a younger dog, Chinquapin Heir, not yet a “derby,” or 2 year old; and little Eve, an endearing, corkscrewing English cocker, just because she loves to ride. Sykes, a brawny, 40-year-old lifelong outdoorsman, deftly loads the beasts into what everyone here still calls “the old man’s

hunting truck,” remembering Thompson Baker, who made his fortune in the construction materials business and founded Chinquapin Farm. Custom-made for the late patriarch, the vehicle is an update of the old hunting plantation mule-drawn wagon: a Chevy 2500HD pickup rigged with safari-style seats atop the bed, gun racks alongside and 10 gleaming steel dog boxes below. Indeed, all the facilities here, from the highceilinged kennels cooled by overhead fans to the stables and tack, shine with quality and meticulous attention to detail. Where we stopped at the crest of a rolling hill provides a good long view of pristine Florida wire grass prairie. The early sun sends golden shafts through cathedral columns of 100-yearold longleaf pines that rise from a dense scrub of crotolaria and partridge pea and chinquapin, the farm’s namesake, with its spiny pods. It’s the first day of October, but summer growth still obscures the tufts of wire grass—the sine qua non of prime wild quail habitat—and just after dawn it’s already hot. The first frost, when it comes, will knock down the weeds and set the stage for some of the finest bobwhite quail hunting in the entire U.S. But shooting here is for guests of the family and for the second-tier dogs. For the best of the best, cooler weather

means field trial season and grueling tests of bird dog stamina and class. Since the early 1970s, holding the Florida Open AllAge Championship at Chinquapin Farm has been the singular passion of the elder scion, Ted Baker, and the raison d’etre for the dogs, the horses and the carefully conserved land itself. And here at last comes champion Pete, still at a gallop, tongue flung out like a jaunty pink scarf. He’s made a wide “cast,” foraging for the secretive little ground birds he was born to find but trained not to touch. We can watch and admire Pete now, bounding through the brush like a nuclear-powered jackrabbit. “It’s always amazed me how they do it,” Sykes says. “The air is full of pollen, their heads are off the ground, they’re moving fast, but somehow they still scent quail. It’s a God-given gift.” The gifts of the Baker clan have long been hard work and the shrewd business acumen that turned Florida sand and lime rock into gold. Thompson Baker founded his construction materials business in 1931, not a propitious time to start a company, and then had to suspend operations to enlist and fight in the Second World War. Returning a decorated vet, he partnered with his former business rival, Jim Shands, and rebuilt his company. With the national postwar boom and Florida’s dramatic growth

Above: Portraits of champion dogs line the walls of the “Big House,” while taxidermy trophies of shoots past tell the sporting story of the Baker family.

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in population and construction, Baker, along with sons Ted and John, stewarded Florida Rock Industries Inc. into a juggernaut, mining raw materials at 23 locations from Florida to Maryland and spinning off multiple subsidiary businesses. The Jacksonville-based Bakers, avid hunters, were drawn to the piney woods west of Lake City by the promise of good quail shooting. Ted Baker, now 83, recalls hunting on the land that would become Chinquapin Farm with his dad and his brother John when they were just kids. In those simpler times, they would stay in motels in Lake City and hunt on foot rather than horseback. But Thompson Baker saw the potential of the land, which was owned by absentee timber companies and small woodland cattle operations (activities detrimental to quail), both as a quail-hunting reserve and a business tool, and began leasing and then buying sections as they became available. By the time Ted and John were adults and helping run the business, the Bakers were hosting quail shooting weekends with Wall Street masters of the universe and prominent politicians. As Ted Baker likes to tell it, the land became “the company’s best salesman.” “You can learn a lot about a person when you spend a couple of days hunting with them,” Ted Baker said. “You learn who you can trust.” He recalled with a jovial growl some of the luminaries who came to shoot during the schmoozing heydays. Governor Bob Graham arrived, rather too ceremoniously, with full security detail in tow, losing style points. “And he couldn’t hit a bird to save his life.” By contrast, Lawton Chiles drove himself to the shoot in an old pickup. “He was hours late. Said he got pulled over by the police in Georgia,” Baker remembered with a chuckle. “Had to call for reinforcements.” I’d met up with Ted Baker at the Big House, located on a rise at the end of a two-mile gravel driveway. It’s not really all that “big,” but it is impressive all the same: a four-bedroom modernist concrete and pine structure worthy of an Architectural Digest feature, overlooking a man-made fishing pond. On the paneled walls of the main living area hang fifteen portraits of Chinquapin’s champion bird dogs, all major field trial winners. Baker sometimes uses a cane, which sports another portrait,

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the carved likeness of Rocky, or “the Rock,” a favorite retriever. “Just a sweet little dog, rode in a special box on the truck,” Baker said of his beloved Brittany, who may have been pampered but was very good at his quail-retrieving job. The mining tycoon used to cook the Rock a hamburger for lunch every day; the loyal retriever lies now in a well-maintained gravesite behind the Big House. We took a four-wheel-drive tour of the backcountry, Baker at the wheel, jouncing along sand tracks and firebreaks, dodging gopher tortoises and flushing quail as we followed some of the field trial courses. Occasionally, we passed a watering trough strategically placed so that an overheated pointer, running hard in unseasonable weather, can plunge in and out like an otter, barely breaking stride. Baker’s seen it 6 degrees here on the day of a trial, he said, and he’s seen it 90 degrees. That’s Florida. As we passed tall pines lightly charred from the base to about a man’s height, and swaths of mowed area beside the scraggly wild, Baker described the constant care the land requires to keep it from turning into an impenetrable jungle. Every spring, some 60 percent of the acreage is burned, the prescribed fires mimicking unfettered lightning strikes and Native American land management practices dating back to ancient times. The pines and the wire grass thrive with fire, while the upstart hardwoods perish. Some areas are mowed, others disked, the soil broken up to encourage new growth, which attracts insects—quail food. Supplemental feed, in the form of both planted crops and scattered seed, is provided for the quail year-round. The bobwhite quail is one of the most thoroughly studied wildlife species in the U.S., and the science of managing land for wild quail is well established, though the results remain unpredictable—quail populations continue to decline. There are some 80 quail hunting plantations in North Florida and southern Georgia, totaling around 300,000 acres. Some date back to the Reconstruction Era, when the legendary robber barons from the North claimed the spoils of King Cotton for their winter shooting preserves; other large spreads, like Ted Turner’s Avalon, and the Bakers’ Chinquapin Farm, represent fresh infusions of fortunes into the

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heels for “big-going dogs” and the competitions that prove them. He’d first caught the field trial fever back in the late 1960s. Though“Dad and John didn’t care a bit about it,” he was impressed by the professional dog trainers and handlers he’d met in the quail shooting milieu. Baker joined the Marines, following in his father’s footsteps, and after his honorable discharge he began a small enterprise with a local trainer named Earl Weems. He and Weems would choose a young dog—“just a puppy without the sense to get in out of the rain”—and, in a matter of eight or 10 months, coax a fine hunting dog from the raw material. Then they’d sell it to Baker’s father, “the old man,” for $500, good money in those days. The Baker family’s string of hunting dogs had pedigrees dating back to the 1930s, and Ted took great pleasure in developing the line and entering its best in competitions. “‘My dog’s better than your dog!’ Well, you could argue that all day. That’s how it started.” A field trial for pointers is a simulated bird hunt with plenty of distractions to bedevil even the most disciplined dogs: In addition to 40 or so spectators on horseback, there are the rival handlers, scouts and a competing dog scouring the same course for coveys of quail. As they dash and leap over brush and briar, the dogs are judged not only on their ability to find birds but also on style and enthusiasm. “It’s a class act,” Ray Warren, Chinquapin Farm’s head dog trainer, told me. “It’s not just dog vs. dog but also handler vs. handler. Whoever puts on the best show takes the money and the trophy.” Once the dog locates “My dog’s better than your dog!” Well, you could argue that the birds, it must hold its point, tail erect, statue-still, until the handler all day. That’s how it started. has flushed the birds and fired a —Ted Baker blank shot (“steady to wing and shot,” in the lingo). genteel hunting lifestyle. Collectively, these properties create A pointer will point instinctively, Warren explained to me. what writer T. Edward Nickens calls “accidental reserves of But a dog’s psychology isn’t so different from a person’s. “That biodiversity.” What’s good for quail, it turns out, is good for dog is thinking, ‘How can I rush in there and get those birds many native species. And what bobwhite quail prefer is the and eat ’em?’” The indignities pile on, as the pointer has to past—the perennial landscape of the South, the pine wood and watch shooters shoot them, and another dog—a Labrador or wire grass savannas that once covered 150,000 square miles. other retriever—fetch them. There’s nothing natural about that. The trick, then, is turning back the clock to a time before the land was divvied into bits by agriculture and development. Turning back the clock—and holding it there. In 2007, the Bakers sold Florida Rock Industries to Vulcan Materials Company for $4.6 billion. “That’s billion,” Ted Baker repeated, and he was right to do so; I’d heard million. “For that amount of money, we had to sell; the shareholders would’ve sued us if we didn’t,” he told me. The sale marked Above: Ray Warren is the the end of one era for Chinquapin Farm—the farm as head dog trainer at Chinquapin Farm. business tool—but by then Baker had long been head over

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The Plantation stories of Tom Word When I told Slade Sykes I’d just finished The Ninth Pup, he said, “Oh, yeah, Tommy Word. I’ve read all his books.” Well, sure: Word’s stories are fictionalized accounts of the dog trainer, dog handler and land manager’s own North Florida experiences. Sykes told me, half joking, that he’d been hired by the Bakers to keep him from poaching. That’s right out of a Tom Word story. So are the upper- and the underhanded tricks of the field trial handler trying to outwit a competitor and outguess a judge. As a sportsman and a lawyer with more than 50 years’ experience in estate law—“advising individuals about their wealth and how to protect it from taxes and greedy spouses of children,” as he writes on his website—Word is the quail plantation insider’s insider. In his story collections, None Held Back, A Little Competition, The Ninth Pup and The Curmudgeons, Word explores the cultural tensions of class and race, especially how the local folk strive and strategize to mesh their inherited knowledge of the land and its denizens with the grand schemes of the gentry, all seen through the focusing lens of field trial competition and the love of dogs. Part Turgenev, part O’Henry, his tales tug on your heartstrings while slipping you a painless, even tasty, lesson in Florida history.

Above from left:

A 5-week-old English pointer squealed for attention in the kennels, which house about 60 dogs; in the clubhouse, an extension of the horse stables, drinks are savored and stories passed down; the farm’s namesake chinquapin shrub grows wild throughout the property; Sykes had a custom weathervane made to top off the barn.

“It takes a steady hand to make a steady dog,” Warren as dogs or sell a few puppies on the side, cobbling together a said. A well-broke dog will hold point for up to 15 minutes, living, and holding on to an old, old lifestyle, at the heart of which must seem an eternity in dog time. Besides freezing at which is the animal–human bond. point, winning the trial often comes down to that indefinable “When you’re in the field trial business, you’re in the horse quality: class. “All I can tell you is you know it when you see business, too,” Baker explained. After driving through some of it,” Warren said. “The hair stands up on the back of your the rugged field trial courses, we toured the 18-horse stable— neck. That’s what makes it so exciting.” with adjoining heart-of-pine paneled clubhouse—admiring When I visited Chinquapin Farm, some of the young the Tennessee walkers and inhaling the good smells of horse dogs had just come back from and hay. Then back through the summering in South Dakota. kennels, where each dog stood It’s a tradition in the rarefied to greet us with a resounding It takes a steady hand world of field trialing for the welcome. Dogs, horses, and land: to make a steady dog. dogs to escape the Southern Combining them all in a field humidity so that they can train trial is more complicated than — Ray Warren year-round and build their just shooting birds. There was, stamina. During a trial, dogs naturally, a learning curve. are on the move throughout Baker’s first experience as an hour-long heat—“I’m talking about flat-out running, too,” a field trial organizer got off to shaky start: A participating Baker said. The trainers themselves are often on the move. dog owner complained about the lack of coherent courses at Baker compared them to golf pros, traveling tourney to Chinquapin. Offended at first, Baker soon cooled down, took tourney, gambling that their dog will win back the $1,000 the man’s advice and began to refine the testing grounds. entry fee ten times over. Sometimes they train horses as well He laid out six courses along hog-back ridges where judges

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and observers could easily see the dogs as they made their sweeping casts in search of quail. By 1979, after several years of apprenticeship and holding qualifying meets, Baker advanced to the big leagues, hosting the Florida Open AllAge Championship biannually (in November and March), contributing his own money to supplement the purse and keep the entry fees reasonable, and throwing an oyster roast bash at the Big House as a joyful send-off for all participants. He’s been praised by the sport’s periodical of note, American Field Sporting Dog & Field Trial News, for his “devotion to excellence in preparing the grounds and inviting sound judges.” And his dogs have proved they have the stuff of champions. A wild quail lives scarcely a year; a high-strung hunting dog a little over a decade. The longer-lived generations of men may outlast the values and culture they were born to. Environmentalists of the plantation belt fear that the shooting life and the vast tracts of land that foster it, with all its expensive appurtenances—the horses, the dogs, the festivities that center around the quest for the little wild birds—may not survive into the next generation. Baker knows that change will come to Chinquapin Farm. His younger brother, John, co-owner, isn’t a field trial man. Ted’s late wife, Ann, liked the

social aspects of it, visiting with folks—“You know how girls are”—during both the shooting parties and the field trials, but didn’t care much about the breeding and training of pointers. He recognizes his passion as an eccentricity he has no wish to impose on his heirs. No doubt Chinquapin Farm will go on into the next generation as a shooting reserve, the land preserved for pine and wire grass and quail. As for the field trials, he’s not so sure. “Well, you have to be crazy!” is how he put it. Crazy enough to hear music in the sound of 60 kenneled hounds baying, to see the special beauty, the glory, of a dog performing at the peak of its potential. Like Chinquapin Reward—big ol’ Pete—who is showing us his stuff, his stamina, in the stifling heat, in the smothering humidity of not-quite autumn. He’s answered Slade Sykes’s song, come back to the shrill of the handler’s whistle. And now, like a divining rod, he’s homing in, making quick dashes back and forth. The birds are here. No, here. Here. Right here. Pete freezes. His tail stands stiff with hardly a quiver, like an inverted comma, holding the moment in quotes. The quail burst into the sky; Slade Sykes fires the shotgun. Pete holds firm.

Clockwise from left:

Ted Baker, far left, with the winning teams at the Florida Open AllAge Championship in 2013; English pointer Chinquapin Sue steady and on point earlier this year. Slade Sykes and a Baker family member walk through the longleaf pine forest on a recent fall morning.

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CHEVROLET BEL AIR CONVERTIBLE — MODEL YEAR — 1955

— BACKSTORY — This creamsicle-colored, orange-and-ivory Chevy Bel Air is drenched in fifties-era nostalgia and instantly transports you to Havana, Cuba, where cars like this one still roam the streets. Sticking with the Cuban theme, this Bel Air was named Camilla, and she is most often found being used as a photo prop at Havana Nights– themed events around the Sarasota area.

FAITH DANIELLE PHOTOGR APHY

— NICKNAME — CAMILLA

Start Me Up Using lessons from the millennial generation, a couple from Sarasota wants to rethink how people get into classic cars By ERIC BARTON

t was the moment Justin Norwood met Tammy, one day in church, that he knew he wanted to marry her. He was 14. But it was two years later, when she sat in the driver’s seat of his Mazda RX-7, that he was sure it was true love. “I knew it was serious from day one, but letting her drive my baby, that was a big deal,” he recalls of that afternoon driving around Bradenton. They’ve been married for 20 years now. Earlier this year, they took a leap of faith. The couple left their successful corporate jobs to start Revvies Classics, a classic-car chauffeur service in Sarasota. The idea behind the company actually came to Justin at a

classic car show on St. Armands Circle in Bradenton, back when he was 10 or 12. “I remember walking around looking at these amazing cars and thinking it would be great if everyone had a chance to experience driving one of them,” he says. Justin, 39, grew up in an entrepreneurial family—his parents own a boat trailer parts business in Sarasota, and, long before anybody used the word startup, they were always dreaming up ideas for new projects. This idea stuck with him. He pondered it for decades, wondering if he could build a business on chauffeured classic cars. The idea stayed in the back of his mind as he climbed up the ranks of IBM management. Justin really got serious about automotive entrepreneurship

He started slowly, buying a 1964 Corvette convertible in May 2016. He believes his was the first classic listed on Turo. It was the first classic car he’d ever bought, and Norwood learned quickly what he needed to do to improve his idea. Every time he rented out the ’Vette, he’d give the renter a long, detailed lesson on how to drive it, especially on how to handle the brakes. Classics, he learned, typically have drum brakes that aren’t power-assisted, meaning something as mundane as stopping at a red light requires planning in advance and maybe also stomping the pedal to the floor. So Justin scrapped the idea of having the renters drive. He instead hired chauffeurs,

JODY LYNN JACKSON, JUSTIN NORWOOD

two years ago. It was about that time that the sharing economy was taking off. He had been closely tracking the quickly rising value of the peer-to-peer car rental service Turo, and he wondered how he could combine his idea with it. More and more, he realized, people have an aversion to owning things, eschewing car ownership for Uber and Lyft, renting a bicycle instead of keeping one in the garage, booking on Airbnb instead of owning a vacation home. At the same time, there’s also a longing for things from the past. “In the millennial generation, there’s this real draw for anything nostalgic,” Justin says. “But that said, they want vintage on their terms.”

CORVETTE — MODEL YEAR — 1964 — NICKNAME — SADIE — BACKSTORY — Rumor has it that this ’Vette has over 300,000 miles on her original, “numbers-matching” engine. But don’t let that stat fool you. Sadie still looks like she just rolled off the showroom floor. Earlier this year, this Corvette was featured alongside supermodel Georgia Fowler in Vince Camuto’s spring 2018 campaign.

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JODY LYNN JACKSON, STONE MALICK

Above: Sarasotabased Justin and Tammy Norwood are high school sweethearts and founding partners of Revvies Classics.

giving his customers the experience of riding in the back of a four-seater, with a driver at the wheel in a throwback black suit and white gloves. Part of the thrill, according to Justin, is the hunt. He personally tracks down exceptional vintage cars from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, the golden age of automotive design. “Those decades are our sweet spot,” says Justin. “The design from that era is fantastic, and the cars are just modern enough so that we can add all the necessary technological advancements to make the experience enjoyable.” The fleet now includes four chauffeured cars: a 1947 Cadillac Series 62 sedan; a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible; and two RollsRoyce Silver Clouds, from 1959 and 1965. Revvies also has four cars available for commercial photo shoots, including a reproduction 1959 Porsche 356. Prices run from $799 per day for the Mustang to $1,499 a day for a Silver Cloud. Then they name them something with meaning that’ll give the car a bit more personality. The Cadillac is called Mable, after the Sarasota socialite and wife of John Ringling. The Mustang is Sally, which seems to fit a classic convertible. The ’59 Rolls goes by Catherine, named for Kate Middleton, because they’re both royalty in their own right, Justin says. As he expanded his fleet, he also realized the experience would need to be completely rethought. Instead of restoring his cars to showroom quality, he updated them with safety and performance upgrades: power disc brakes, fuel injection and improved suspensions. He also added tech, like Bluetooth connectivity for phones and modern sound systems. Tammy, 40, has a background in hospitality—she worked as the guest services manager at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay—so the couple also knew they needed to create a better experience sitting in the cars. They did research and found that owners of ultra-luxury cars complain that the interiors smell no different than Toyotas. Tammy and Justin added scents including wood and tobacco, like what you would find in a stately sitting room of old, to the cars. While they both gave up their careers to start Revvies,

CADILLAC SERIES 62 TOURING SEDAN — MODEL YEAR — 1947 — NICKNAME — MABLE — BACKSTORY — This gorgeous ’47 Cadillac is available for chauffeured trips and is named after Mable Ringling, wife to John Ringling of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. While John was intimately involved in the circus that bore his name, Mable’s fingerprints were left on the grounds and architecture of what we know today as The Ringling Art Museum and the Ca d’Zan. Since this Cadillac is the getaway car of choice at luxury weddings at The Ringling, it seemed appropriate to name the Caddy after Mable.

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FORD MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE — MODEL YEAR — 1965 — NICK NAME — SALLY — BACKSTORY — Mustang Sally is dressed in red exterior and black vinyl interior. This classic, red Mustang epitomizes Americana. Having spent many years in the Motor City before retiring to the Sunshine State, this ’Stang is powered by a 302-cubic-inch V8 motor that is sure to capture everyone’s attention.

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RINA K AY PHOTOGR APHY, ALYSSA SHROCK PHOTOGR APHY, JODY LYNN JACKSON

Tammy says it was Justin who really pushed it forward. “Justin’s courage inspires me,” she says. “It took a big leap of faith to go after this dream, and it continues to take courage to learn from each experience and make necessary changes.” Justin says things have gone well in their first few months, with customers from Tampa to Naples renting out their rides for anniversaries, weddings, birthdays and commercial photo shoots. That quick growth has Justin and Tammy eyeing new markets for expansion. They plan to open a location in South Florida by 2020. Someday, they see Revvies rolling out nationally. “You can bet I didn’t leave my job in IBM management just to have a local classic car rental company,” he says. —Kara Franker contributed to this piece

1965 ROLLS-ROYCE SILVER CLOUD III

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This page: The vision

for Streamsong sprung from plans for a land reclamation project some 50 years after Mosaic’s phosphate mining operation had ended on the site. /// FLAMINGOMAG.COM

WINTER 2018 • 2019

A Land

Reimagined A SWATH OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, KNOWN AS BONE VALLEY, WHERE PHOSPHATE WAS MINED FOR 100 YEARS, HAS NEW LIFE AS THE MODERN GOLF HAVEN, STREAMSONG By LAURA REILEY

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and elevation changes. Streamsong Golf Resort and Spa is set on 16,000 acres of land formerly utilized as a phosphate strip mine. The land was mined for nearly 100 years, most recently by Mosaic Company, a leading global producer of phosphate and potash fertilizer components. Strip mining typically removes 15 to 50 feet of the surface of an area to get to the pebble phosphate, moving the “overburden” (the sandy layer above the phosphate) hither and yon. Companies pulled more than a million tons of phosphate rock out of the area, in the process stockpiling 15 million cubic yards of sand, changing the topography, water flows, animals, plants and entire ecosystem. And then the phosphate was gone. Nature took over and redecorated. Blown by decades of wind and Florida’s fierce rain storms, the land gained rolling hills and oddly appealing geographic anomalies. This swath of rural Bowling Green is at once a manmade piece of Florida and something ruggedly, lushly natural. In a way, A Land Remembered is a book about pride of place and land preservation, topics which conservationists always bring up when talking about Central Florida’s phosphate mining region, approximately 1.3 million acres of land known as the “Bone Valley.” Phosphate mine operators are required by the state to provide conceptual reclamation plans that focus on the preservation of wildlife habitats and resources. In this particular case, out of that requirement, a kooky idea emerged. A lifelong golfer and general counsel for Mosaic at the time

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(he left the company abruptly earlier this year), Richard Mack came up with an alternative to trying to revert the property to its original form. He wondered: What if we develop a memorable golf resort that makes use of all that sand and water, all those dunes and contours? Mosaic began talking to some of the world’s great golf course architects, many of whom said something along the lines of, “Florida needs more high-end courses like it needs a hole in the head.” A few big names took note—this was the

STREAMSONG RESORT ALL SPREADS

’M DRIVING BUT STARTING to squint skeptically at my GPS lady. This can’t be right. I’m about an hour southeast of my home in Tampa and about ninety minutes southwest of Orlando International Airport. I pass Fort Lonesome, a Florida ghost town that had a brief heyday in the 1930s when a sawmill and two stores, now long gone, gave it a fleeting townlike vim. The surrounding terrain begins to change, looking more rugged and grim as I pass the Hardee Correctional Institution. Fewer and fewer buildings populate the roadside. The Central Florida scrub, with its meager soils and fierce wildlife, reminds me of Patrick Smith’s historical novel A Land Remembered. The book’s main character, Tobias MacIvey, moves his wife Emma and infant son Zechariah to land like this. The MacIveys eke out a living in this inhospitable landscape, each successive generation pushing back against starvation, mosquitos and hurricanes. My mind drifts away from the classic required reading for every Florida student and back to this thought: Who puts a world-class golf resort way out here in rural Central Florida? But then I see it, a demure sign off Fort Green Road. Streamsong Drive. I’ve almost arrived, on assignment to check out the luxury resort and its restaurants, and all of a sudden nothing about this looks like Central Florida. The terrain could be the wind-swept hills of Ireland or Great Britain, or the dunes of New England’s swankiest coastal communities. Finger lakes appear, along with 100-foot-tall grass-fringed dunes, swales

Opposite from top:

Streamsongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Black course opened last year and was created by Olympic golf course designers Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. This page from top: The large dunes around the Streamsong property resulted from 100 years of phosphate mining; the natural setting and the luxurious amenities like the outdoor pool promote a sense of serenity.

peak of the financial crisis, near the end of the aughts. The first two Streamsong golf courses opened in late 2012. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed the Red course, and Tom Doak was responsible for the Blue course, with both creations immediately wrangling key spots in Golfweek’s “Top 100 Modern Courses.” Streamsong’s Black course opened in September 2017 and was designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who designed the Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro. But first, let’s back up. Millions of years ago, this area was a shelter for humpless camels, mastodons and hornless rhinos, whose bones sifted downward and created the phosphate rock deposits discovered in the 19th century. Folks call it Bone Valley because of the richness of those ancient creatures’ remains. If you read Mosaic’s literature about land use, you’ll see the region discussed as a prototype for post-mining economic and environmental sustainability. That’s all well and good, but once you pull up on the property and see the lodge, which was designed by Alfonso Architects in Ybor City and opened its doors in 2014, sustainability and mastodon bones may slip your mind. This place is gorgeous. Its main Leaf Lounge, mirrored to reflect Florida’s sherbet-colored sunsets, is

This page from top:

Inside the spa, “petrified tree” columns surround the seven pools; caprese salad from the Bone Valley Tavern Opposite page: Guided

bass fishing is just one of many outdoor pursuits available to guests.

segmented with yellow louvers that read like ribs on a huge prehistoric creature. The whole building is study in glass, steel and reclaimed timber. At once modern but sinuously organic, it’s an extension of the land around it, or maybe even something excavated from its depths. The 300,000-square-foot resort boasts 216 rooms in the main lodge, plus 12 rooms in the golf clubhouse, a world-class spa, five restaurants and generous conference center space. But maybe architect Alberto Alfonso had those millions of years of sifting bones in mind the whole time. The lodge’s design has four layers: dubbed Submersion, Bank, Canopy and Sky. I took a walk, first wandering through the

Submersion level, home to the AcquaPietra spa. With more staff than patrons around on that day, the spa resembled a serene 7,000-squarefoot grotto. I saw six indoor pools set to a range of temperatures from 42 degrees to 104, steam, sauna, private rooms for massage and a salon, all of it with organic curved walls and massive concrete “petrified tree” columns, motifs echoed in SottoTerra, the resort’s intimate finedining restaurant. SottoTerra seats up to 40 amidst a muted grey-and-marble color scheme that focuses attention on the views of Little Payne Creek outside, a lake with guided bass fishing for when golfing has lost its luster. Those treelike columns separate the attractive lounge from the dining room, which is dinner-only,

meaning that I had to keep moving in search of my lunch. But first I had to ascend to the Sky area, where there’s a patio and a lounge named “Fragmentary Blue” after the Robert Frost poem of the same title. At the entrance is a lapis-colored wall and a painting of a single bird in a tree with the deep cerulean sky behind it. Outside on the patio, a giant blue mosaic tile wall echoes the theme. From the lounge, which serves cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the evening, there is a 360-degree view of the property: The clay shooting and archery are to one side, then the tennis courts and the 1.7-mile walking loop around the lake. But on this day, all was quiet on the courts, on the path and in the lakeside

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infinity pool. Golf may not be everything, but it’s surely top dog at Streamsong, where gaggles of polo-shirted gentlemen are eager to cross Red, Blue and Black off their bucket lists. Back down inside the Bank, the area that houses the public spaces and main lobby, plus a little history room, where you can see mining memorabilia and an enormous megalodon jaw unearthed by Mosaic workers. I hopped in my car and took a quick ride over to Bone Valley Tavern at the Black course’s clubhouse. Sleek and modern, the clubhouse has a casual vibe with a long rectangular bar ringed by dozens of high seats and a huge patio with tables and low-slung chairs, all protected from the elements by a sleek wooden overhang. The manicured greens are just beyond the floorto-ceiling windows, juxtaposed with poufs of native grasses, live oaks fringing the sand traps and little herds of golf carts convening like animals on the savanna. I ordered a caprese salad—tiny heirlooms with plush, cherry-sized fresh mozzarella balls and a tangle of nicely dressed mesclun mix— while I perused the rest of the menu. At lunch, the tavern serves spins on classic American fare

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like a short rib grilled cheese, truffle steak fries and a smokehouse club sandwich. At dinner, the culinary philosophy hews to sophisticated comfort foods: roast chicken in salsa verde, lemongrass snapper accompanied by the sweetand-bitter combo of curried sweet potatoes and charred broccolini. How about lunch No. 2? I zipped back in the car and drove over to Restaurant Fifty-Nine, a clubby, more old-school space where huge sand dunes largely occlude the view of the legendary golf courses outside. Brown leather upholstered

GOLF MAY NOT BE EVERYTHING, BUT IT’S SURELY TOP DOG AT STREAMSONG.

Opposite from top: The

clubhouse overlooking the Black course, as well as the entire resort, was designed by architect Alberto Alfonso of Ybor City. This page: Guests can

take aim at more than golf balls with clay shooting and archery.

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This page: Streamsong was

errected on land known as Bone Valley for all the prehistoric fossils found in the soil; the windmill is a holdover from Mosaic’s mining business and also serves as a feature of the ninth hole.

booths and chairs were largely taken up with men in polo shirts; eavesdropping, I heard conversations evenly split between rehashes of each hole and business machinations. The restaurant’s menu seemed fitting: wet- and dryaged prime steaks with suitable sauces and accompaniments (lobster beurre monte and roasted mushrooms, but in lieu of creamed spinach, how about a nice saute of greens dotted with crispy lardons?) and other composed dishes that say “luxe” without being fussy. Oh, I see my prey: It’s sumptuous but oh-soFlorida. A butter-poached lobster roll on crisp, toasted brioche, a little Florida citrus aioli moistening and heightening the plush seafood. At once messy and sophisticated, it was a sandwich I was almost glad to eat alone for the purpose of sheer focus. The gaggle of golfers dwindled as time went on, and I took in the scrubby, shrubby Florida native plants outside,

Opposite page: The resort has

216 guest rooms and a mirrored facade to reflect the sunsets.

HOLE 9

in the S black

How to play an awardwinning firm-and-fast 18-hole, par-73 course

ince Central Florida’s Streamsong Resort opened the course in September 2017, almost 50,000 players, according to Matt Jordan, PGA head golf professional for Streamsong Black, have journeyed from around the world to see it. They wanted to know if Gil Hanse, the recently hyped Rio Olympic golf course designer and a rising star in his field, deserves his world-class accolades. Palm Beach resident and PGA Tour pro Dustin Johnson played Hanse’s masterpiece the month it opened and declared “the greens were awesome,” says Jordan. The course is known for wide fairways and huge greens with undulating perimeters and relatively flat centers. Black requires low drives, away from the wind, Jordan says, and challenges the short game, too. “Use lower lofted clubs to bump and run,” Jordan advises. Rough lessons to learn? According to Jordan, the average player figures it out by the fourth hole. —Christina Cush

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HOLE 5

kissed by the golden-hour sun. It’s clear that the central draw at Streamsong is the three must-play golf courses sculpted out of this wild terrain. They are built into the sandscape and inform the buildings’ orientation and the meandering roads that crisscross the property. I didn’t see the guest rooms and suites in the Canopy area, where Alberto Alfonso created paintings for each room that follow a schematic of the seasons. But I’m told each room contains a copy of A Land Remembered after Alfonso himself insisted that visitors be encouraged to dive into the hard-knock tale of the MacIvey family’s relationship with the land. A fictional account that feels like Florida history, it’s worth rereading. In a way, this is what Mosaic has done with Streamsong, recasting and repurposing 16,000 acres in the center of the state to tell a new story, with Bone Valley palpable just beneath the surface.

THO UG H E AC H H O L E P R E S E N TS A C H ALLE NG E , JO RDAN O FFE RS FIVE STANDO U TS :

HOLE 5

The hardest hole for me, visually, is this par 3. I draw the ball left, and that’s the worst play to make. If I go right, there’s a huge bunker. Best to keep your ball down the middle.

HOLE 9

This is the fun punchbowl green, with a flag in the middle that you can’t always see. There’s a windmill behind it. So, the caddies say aim left or right of it.

HOLE 13

For this unpredictable double green, with two holes and two flagsticks, players are told from the tee box which pin they are aiming for that round.

HOLE 17

Considered one for the camera, this beautiful par 3 is very “linksy,” according to Jordan, and adorned by pine trees and a sparkling lake.

HOLE 18

A treat awaits after taking a second or third shot on this par 5. At the lake, behind the green, is a huge dune overlook, a perfect perch for watching golfers finish up.

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— sunny dispatches from NW FLA —

Panhandling B y P ri ssy E l ro d

The beaten path

It’s never good to be wrong, especially when it comes to a hurricane

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y sister Gina and I loaded up the car with presents and a homemade pound cake for a Sunday day trip to Lake City. We were going there to celebrate the 96th birthday of Mazelle, the saint who raised us. There was no way she was having a birthday without the two of us worming our way in. After all, she awaited us when we arrived home from the hospital as newborns. She also helped with our babies. Truth be told, she’s still working on all of us—even decades later. Bless her heart. When we were growing up, my parents gave Mazelle free reign to discipline my sisters and me. And she did. She used a wet cloth to swat our legs and fannies if we sassed, fought or tattled. Deborah, the oldest, was bad and got the swats. “You were always the sweetest, Prissy,” she tells me often. We pulled onto I-10 heading east for the 100-mile drive from Tallahassee. I turned on the radio and got comfortable as Gina drove my car. Unlike me, she enjoys driving on interstates. “I’m driving, Miss Prissy, now turn on that weather station,” she said. I should tell you: my sisters are weather nerds. Both can tell you when thunder and lightning are coming to town before the clouds

even know it. And if that isn’t enough, we have first responders in our tribe, too. The band radios are always screeching weather, wrecks and havoc. “I’m not listening to weather,” I said. “There’s a huge storm coming. Don’t you even watch the news?” “Stop watching that stuff. Nothing’s coming.” I swatted her hand as she reached

for my radio buttons. “I’ve been through two hurricanes in two years. There’s no way another one would come.” That was my first mistake. Running my mouth saying that. “I’m telling you, it’s coming,” she scolded. My late husband worried about everything. But the weather was his most popular theme. More than once, he pulled me off a plane when

he spied black clouds before takeoff. After he died, I decided worrying contributed to his death. There is no scientific basis for my theory. But in the aftermath of his death, I seldom watch the weather or the news. It’s far too depressing for an optimistic person to listen to people talk doom and gloom. Besides, I stay plenty informed from my nervous kinfolk. We arrived and found Mazelle sitting on the front porch reading her Bible. After a kiss and hug, Gina rushed to find the television and check the weather. “Ridiculous,” I tell Mazelle. “Six stations—that’s all you get. Where’s the weather station?” Gina was back out on the porch with a frown crowding her forehead. “Why do I need more than that?” Mazelle asked. “Exactly.” I patted her knee. “Gina, forget about it,” I said. That was my second big-mouth mistake. We enjoyed our day sharing tales with all her family: daughter, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchild. It was an afternoon of greatness. Five hours later, we were on the road heading west. By the time we arrived in Tallahassee, everything had changed.

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Panhandling

Hurricane Michael looked like a dangerous boyfriend with no restraining order. This optimist gal took notice as an eerie feeling took hold. The Weather Channel became my guiding light. I reflected on Hurricane Kate, which hit in 1985. It left our family without power and water for weeks. Hurricane Dennis was another. It wreaked havoc on our lives and

our property on St. George Island. Hermine came aboard in 2016. It littered our town with downed trees and power lines. Only then we had a sound house with concrete walls and a generator. We invited family and friends to stay with us, and they did. For days. It was like one big hurricane party. Then Irma came in 2017. My second husband and I were in Jacksonville, where he was undergoing a complicated back surgery. The worst possible time to be operating. But who knew? Irma did, that’s who. She started moving towards Jacksonville as my husband lay on the table. Everything went downhill from there. He had a dural puncture during the six-hour surgery. After that, he had to lie flat on his back for the next 24 hours without moving. I heard rumors of evacuation but ignored them and listened to headphones, meditating. I know. La

la land. That’s me. Irma cared little about what I was going through. Thirty hours after his surgery, we were evacuated from the hospital. His catheter was taken out 30 minutes before we slammed our car doors to flee, with me behind the wheel. Not only the hospital but also the Hyatt Hotel where I was staying was evacuated. His scheduled hospital stay was nay. We fled back to Tallahassee as fast as my sporty car could go: 20 miles per hour. The interstate was a noodle nest, the highway from hell and on the road to hell. We didn’t know until it was too late. A 2.5-hour trip took 7.5 hours. My patient held his barf bag the entire trip. I came unglued. I pondered that event as we watched Michael gaining momentum. It had become a Category 3 storm by the time I believed it was really coming. I flashed back to Hurricane Katrina crashing into New Orleans in 2005. It destroyed my grandparents’ house with my 82-year-old uncle inside. When the levee was breached, the water rushed in, filling the house in seconds. The floating television slammed his stomach, but he still managed to pull himself inside the attic with one bottle of water and a carton of Camel cigarettes. It was four days before he was rescued by a search boat. And that happened only after he kicked out the gable vent and someone saw his foot. Later, he was interviewed by a CNN crew member. “How’d you fare in that hot attic all those days?” the interviewer asked, with his microphone shoved against Uncle Charles’s mouth. “Well, it was bad, but got a lot worse when I was down to my last cigarette.” Could Michael be another Katrina? I wondered, then worried.

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Michael felt different to me, and I always follow my instincts. I knew we should be leaving town but didn’t want to leave without family. They all live in Tallahassee. I started packing and stopped to call my daughters. “We need to get out of here,” I said. They insisted on staying and cranking up the generators. I hung up and was weighing options when the phone rang. “Come to the DoubleTree—they have generators.” It was Gayle, my best friend. Everyone needs a Gayle in life. She and her husband Spider had booked rooms for three nights. I called the hotel and booked a room. I called my girls and begged them to come with us. No luck. Husbands! We were living adrift in a rental house with no generator for the first time in years. Closing on our purchased house happened to be not happening the week Michael was coming to town. Gina called first thing Monday morning. “I told you—didn’t I?” I could feel her smile through the phone. Both my sisters love to be right. Come on, Prissy. She was right. She told you. Now she’s the one with the generator. Not you. No sir. Get your head out of the blue sky and look at the clouds occasionally. Monday night, I broke out in shingles. Then it was Tuesday, only two days after our Lake City visit, and so much was happening. We were on the run and pulled out of our driveway. As my second husband drove to the DoubleTree, I counted the gorgeous, moss-draped live oak trees dotting both sides of Thomasville Road. They numbered in the hundreds. I shuddered with fear. I was checking in at the registry as my husband unloaded the car. “I’m so thankful you had a room left. And you have the generators, thank heavens,” I said to the girl with two dimples working the desk. “Generators? No, we don’t have those,” she said. “But we haven’t lost power.” Her calm voice mattered little to me. A fresh shingle erupted on my waist within seconds. Both my girls lost power hours after we

ISTOCK

sunny dispatches from NW FLA

Experience and compassion you can trust.

checked in. One lost water, too. But, as life has it, there were no more rooms at the inn by then. Especially for nine folks with three dogs. My husband and I stayed on the 12th floor of the DoubleTree for three days. When the worst of the storm passed through Tallahassee, I never knew. I was asleep with black-out drapes hung and my sound machine set to play white noise. The aftermath was my reality. The hotel was filled with news teams from CBS, NBC and the Weather Channel. They were like hungry dogs waiting for a treat. Only later would they discover the treat wasn’t in Tallahassee but further west. They had followed the wrong scent and were still hungry for feed. I eavesdropped as they talked on cell phones, trying to escape: Mexico Beach, Panama City … anywhere west of Tallahassee. Our news was gusty winds, downed trees and power loss. It was lame for them, though not for us. After four days with no power, albeit lucky to have our homes and lives still intact, we fled Tallahassee for Jacksonville Beach. We were a party of 11, with three dogs. We stayed until we couldn’t be gone any longer. We needed to come back to clean up our mess: yards, freezers, refrigerators and more. We knew we were lucky compared to our friends to the west, but by then we were out of clothes, hope and energy. As we traveled back to Tallahassee I witnessed the power of people helping people. It came in the form of, well … power trucks. They streamed down the interstate from all over the country to assist Panhandle victims. The sighting validated a truth—joy and sadness can share the same heartbeat. The Florida Panhandle suffered catastrophic damage. I don’t need to quote statistics. Everyone around the world has seen, read and heard. The footage of Mexico Beach and Panama City is heart-wrenching. But I have also witnessed such benevolence, love and profound empathy bestowed by strangers to those who have lost everything. There is no division in class, politics or color

when despair is slammed on the innocent. We are called to give to those in need because we can, we should and we must. They need everything, so nothing is too small. As I write this story, I am humbled by the goodness of so many. The temperatures are still record-high 90s daily. Many of my friends remain without power in this beautiful treelined city. But we are the lucky ones. Line crews are working sunup to sundown. Tallahassee isn’t big news because it shouldn’t be. Smaller communities affected so viciously have become big news: Bristol, Blountstown and Quincy to name a few. So should our farmers who lost crops, machinery, homes and livelihood. They are big news. Patience. Strength. Dedication. Funding. Personnel. Time. These are things that will resurrect the Florida Panhandle and bring it back to its majestic magnificence. A tent city has been erected at the Tallahassee International Airport and will house close to a thousand soldiers from the National Guard, FEMA and other recovery agencies. They will be working tirelessly on the rebuild. As it happened, Hurricane Irma drove us from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, then one year later Hurricane Michael drove us from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. That irony should be funny. Except it isn’t. What happened to innocent beings after Hurricane Michael is unfathomable. There but by the grace of God go I. Rather, we. I’ve learned my lesson. The saying “hope for the best but expect the worst” is my new mantra. Trust me, it beats hearing “I told you so” one more time.

Prissy Elrod is a professional speaker, artist and humorist and the author of Far Outside the Ordinary. She was born and raised in Lake City and now lives in Tallahassee with her husband, Dale. Chasing Ordinary, the sequel to Far Outside the Ordinary, will be released in 2018.

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Wh a t to do and whe r e t o go t hi s wi nt e r

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ON THE FLY: FLORIDA WILD P H OTOGR APHS & F IELD NOTES B y C ar lton War d Jr.

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Day 47 I

n 2015, two friends and I trekked 1,000 miles from the Everglades Headwaters near Orlando to Gulf Islands National Seashore near the Alabama border. We traversed a network of public and private lands to show that the statewide Florida Wildlife Corridor is still connected and can still be saved. At times, we had to find our own path, especially when navigating private lands that lie between protected lands. But when we hiked through public conservation lands, such as Apalachicola National Forest and St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, we enjoyed the well-maintained and clearly marked Florida Trail, one of 11 National Scenic Trails in the United States. The 1,300-mile-long Florida Trail makes NOTES it possible for anyone to hike the length and width of the state, from Big Cypress — HABITAT— ECONFINA CREEK, WITHIN National Preserve in the south to Fort ECONFINA CREEK WATER Pickens near Pensacola Beach in the MANAGEMENT AREA FLORIDA northwest. My favorite sections of the NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL: Florida Trail are in the Florida Panhandle, SCOTT ROAD TO SR 20 west of Apalachicola. Along the north side of Eglin Air Force Base, the trail — SEASON — descends into deep ravines that felt more WINTER like the Appalachian Mountains than what I’d known from peninsular Florida. — TIME OF DAY— Frequent descents and climbs led us from 5:44 P.M. one surprising valley to the next, and the exhilarating topography continued eastward to places like Econfina Creek, — SUBJECT— pictured here on Day 47 of our expedition. CARLTON’S PERSPECTIVE HIKING ON DAY 47 OF THE With us under the full weight of our 2015 FLORIDA WILDLIFE packs and wet from rain, the rocky slopes CORRIDOR EXPEDITION became somewhat hazardous. I fell in the creek on more than one occasion that day and drowned my camera. Wooden bridges constructed by Florida Trail Association volunteers provided welcome relief and solid footing, while adding character to the journey. When we exited public lands, long stretches of the Florida Trail were relegated to the sides of highways. But when we crossed Nokuse Plantation, a private property recently protected by a conservation easement, we were able to enjoy 20 miles of new trail through beautiful habitat rather than walk down the road. When more funds are invested into land protection through conservation easements, more of the Florida Trail will be able to move off the roadside and into the woods. Eventually, the path of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and the Florida Scenic Trail could be one and the same.

30°32’16.582” N

85°27’22.634” W

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ON THE FLY: MY FLORIDA SUNSHINE STATE STOR IES

By Do ug l as R. Cl i f f o rd a n d Z a ch a ry T. S a m p so n , Ta m p a B a y Ti m es

CIRCLING UNCERTAINTY

A first-person account of how Tampa Bay Times photographer Douglas Clifford and writer Zachary Sampson documented the aftermath of Hurricane Michael

n a back road in Wewahitchka, we pulled over and reached the short, frustrating conclusion we could no longer avoid. We didn’t know exactly where we were, and we certainly didn’t know where we were going. The neighborhood was pitch black, silent and strange. It felt like defeat. Late on the

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day that Hurricane Michael hit Florida, we tried for hours to reach Mexico Beach, the small coastal city just east of the storm’s landfall. We identified three possible routes while studying a map under the cabin light of our rented Chevy Tahoe. One way took us through Panama City, also destroyed and filled with reporters. That was out. A second route wound from the north through

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a heavily timbered stretch that would dump us directly into the landfall zone. It covered about 20 miles; we made it one mile before weary residents passed us in a truck, headed the other way. They said downed trees blocked the road.The last option was scenic U.S. 98, which hugged the shoreline. It seemed foolish to expect the highway had survived the storm. Flooding already

blocked the lanes north out of downtown Port St. Joe. We had asked deputies, first south of White City and then in Wewahitchka, how to get to Mexico Beach. Cellphone service was nonexistent, and even their internal radios didn’t work. As far as they knew, they told us, Mexico Beach didn’t exist anymore. Yes, we said. We understood. But we needed to get there. The goal is simple but the decisions are tortuous. We’re a team—a writer and photographer—in an SUV, loaded with gear, trying to cover a hurricane as best we can. To do that, we want to reach the disaster zone as soon after the storm as possible. It’s important to share images and descriptions of the area, for people to know what happened—to their homes or relatives

or favorite restaurants and vacation places overtakes us. We thought about sleeping in or to a stretch of land that, were it not for our SUV in Wewahitchka, trying to assess some differences in geography or climate the route better in daylight. It was already or economy, could be their own. 9 p.m. or maybe 10—we had Opposite page: Fascination with storm coverage been bouncing between Eastern Tampa Bay Times is widespread. We are part of it. and Central time zones—and staff photographer Douglas R. Clifford The work starts days before, when adrenaline was dissolving into documents damage we try to book a hotel as close to exhaustion. We tried an old paper in the coastal township of Mexico the spot where the hurricane will mill road through the woods, but Beach, Florida, come ashore as possible, weighing it was dirt and blocked by a gate. population 1200, which lay devastated safety against proximity and the We tried another route marked on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018. Photo by unpredictability of a tropical on our maps, through high pines. Zachary T. Sampson, weather system. It continues in It was dirt too, and a young man Tampa Bay Times the hours after the storm, when in a pickup said we wouldn’t Above: Scattered debris and damage we look at each other and make make it far. A deputy earlier had can be seen after weighty choices: Has the weather told us of a back road north of Hurricane Michael, a Category 4, eased enough to go outside? Can downtown Port St. Joe that might slammed into homes we drive through the flood? Is cut out the flooding on U.S. 98, in Shell Point Beach on Thursday, Oct. that wire live or dead? Of course, but we missed it on a first pass. 11, 2018. Photo by we want to be first. National news We decided to try again and Bronte Wittpenn, Tampa Bay Times coverage is competitive, and we drove south once more, pausing feel a special responsibility to at the top of a high bridge over share Florida’s story. Sometimes we circle the Intracoastal, where there was limited uncertainty, unwilling to accept it, even cell service to call our editors and families as the stomach-clench of not knowing to let them know we were okay. The wind

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ON THE FLY: MY FLORIDA SUNSHINE STATE STOR IES

These, we later learned, were the first images many people saw of that area after the storm. A red truck had smashed into a row of apartments where the exterior siding was ripped apart, revealing a line of brightly painted living rooms. Stilt houses, set back from the water, loomed over berms of splintered wood, remnants of neighboring properties. An RV rested on its side, the

was still gusty, and it was too black to see of Hurricane Michael’s fierce eyewall. the water or homes below. Beyond the The plan was to drive until we reached headlights of the truck, even the bridge itself a washout. We still didn’t believe U.S. 98 was obscured. The darkness left us with a could have withstood the storm, unbroken, disoriented feeling, like we were standing in 10 miles to Mexico Beach. But the collapse space. The clouds had passed. We never came. Parts of the asphalt could see every star in the sky. We bordering the sand and Gulf of Above: drove until we hit the side road, Mexico were gone. The other Hurricane Michael turning right into a wall of downed lane was fine. It was slow-going, made landfall near Mexico Beach on trees. It couldn’t be passable. But high-beams shining to reveal the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 10, debris. If we drove too fast we as we drew close, a zig-zag path 2018, devastating revealed itself, carved like a 4-mile might plummet into a chasm. We the coastal town as it lashed the Florida stopped frequently, beginning in zipper through the wreckage. panhandle. Photo We’re not sure who made the by Bronte Wittpenn, the neighborhoods southeast of Tampa Bay Times route, with what tools, or if it Mexico Beach—Highland View was just cyclonic serendipity. But and Beacon Hill—uncertain if we got through. We turned right we were there yet and already onto U.S. 98 and went over another bridge, awed by the devastation.We pulled over or descending into the western stretches of negotiated three-point turns on the highway, Port St. Joe, where we began to see downed pointing our headlights to illuminate scenes homes, mangled cars and furniture tossed for photographs. We supplemented with like flotsam—markers of the apparent edge a high-powered flashlight from Walmart.

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top wall shorn off, a window into a torn-up interior. And then we reached it. The edge of Mexico Beach, marked with the city’s sign, cracked and thrown back by waves and wind: “Welcome!” it said. “Share the beauty we enjoy everyday!” The seaside town smelled overwhelmingly of natural gas, catching at the back of our nostrils and throats. Soon we smelled smoke.

We rolled up to the fire. It smoldered, the building reduced to orange coals like the bottom of a campfire. It was the only brightness. With the windows open, we heard a stereo soundscape of destruction. To the left, waves rumbled as they rolled ashore. To the right, flames sizzled and popped. We left when we saw what looked like a flashlight blinking down the road. A

couple of people were desperate to get a car deep into the wreckage, where an older woman needed a cigarette lighter to power up a machine for her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There was no connectivity in Mexico Beach, so to file our work, we had to return to the bridge. That meant risking running into police who might try to block us from the landfall zone

Top right:

Robert Baker Jr., 51, stands on a pile of building materials which lay piled against the home of his parents. Photo by Douglas R. Clifford, Tampa Bay Times Center:

Florida Army National Guard Lt. Matt Wagner walks along what is left of Alligator Drive in Alligator Point, one day after Hurricane Michael hit the area. Photo by Tailyr Irvine, Tampa Bay Times Bottom right:

A Miami firefighter searches for survivors or the deceased. Photo by Douglas R. Clifford, Tampa Bay Times

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ON THE FLY: MY FLORIDA SUNSHINE STATE STOR IES

for the next few days. We decided the story across the street, a backdrop to ruin, we was too important to wait, and we hurried awoke to see the owners of those vehicles back to transmit. surveying the damage and looking to light After roughly 20 minutes atop a cigarette. They were the first the bridge, about 1 a.m., we sent people we spoke to, learning of Below: all of our work. It comprised a their harrowing flight as the dark Rescue workers use a cadaver dog to handful of tweets and several water surged across the road. We search the coastal township of Mexico photo galleries. We turned back offered them coffee, boiled with Beach, population and—seeing no deputies—drove a camp burner, and drove deeper 1,200, which lay devastated. again to Mexico Beach, parking into Mexico Beach. Photo by Douglas behind a heavily damaged home, The northwestern part of the R. Clifford, Tampa Bay Times slightly up a small hill. Just below, city was most heavily damaged. a truck lay with two Mazda Miatas The mayor’s wife didn’t want to be amid a mess of two-by-fours. quoted, but she pointed us to a side street We reclined our seats and went to sleep. that allowed us to get there, dodging an At sunrise, with the Gulf of Mexico just impassable stretch of U.S. 98. We reported

This photo:

Rescue workers use a cadaver dog to sears the coastal township of Mexico Beach, population 1,200, which lay devastated on Friday after Hurricane Michael made landfall on Wednesday in the Florida Panhandle.

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This photo:

Emergency workers Dr. Patricia Cantrell, left, and Ana Kaufmann, with the South Florida Search and Rescue Task Force 2, survey damage at the western edge of town at Mexico Beach. Photo by Douglas R. Clifford, Tampa Bay Times Opposite top:

Scattered debris and damage can be seen after Hurricane Michael, a Category 4, slammed into homes in Shell Point Beach. Photo by Bronte Wittpenn, Tampa Bay Times

over the course of two days in Mexico Beach. The damage in stark daylight was even more extensive than we imagined at night. Soon the bureaucracy of destruction set in, with federal officials and local authorities restricting access to the landfall zone. Just before we left, we pulled close to the water, in a leveled neighborhood we had not yet visited. There were no residents left. There wasn’t much of anything. Walking around the slabs, we looked down to see unbroken bottles of beer and an intact

tile floor. We seemed to be in someone’s kitchen, blocks from the beach in what used to be a pleasant retreat, “The Mayberry of the Coast.” We hiked to one house, sturdy and upright, and climbed over some wires to ascend the stairs to a second-floor deck. The view was a panorama of catastrophe, shards of paradise everywhere we looked. We hopped back in the SUV to file another story, with more photographs and more video. As we drove out, search teams combed the

wreckage with dogs, looking for survivors or the dead. We left Mexico Beach, for now, uneasy but grateful that we could drive away from disaster, a privilege that also carries shame. The people of another Florida community are left behind to sort through fractured lives, while others watch, knowing a different storm, at a different time, might spin their way. This article first appeared online on Tampabay.com on 10/18/18

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ON THE FLY:FLEDGLINGS FLO RIDA MUSICIANS ON THE R ISE B y R o b R u sh i n

Guitar HERO

A Tallahassee native carves out a name for himself as a lead guitarist sharing the stage with some of music’s biggest acts.

ehind every American Idol—style success story, consider that army of gigging musicians (on keys, drums, bass, lead guitar) making the person in the spotlight sound great. Success looks a little different for those folks, who play on as many dates and projects as time will allow. After 10 years in Atlanta— including a transformative stint with the legendary Colonel Bruce Hampton—Tallahasseebred Rick Lollar has established himself as a first-call guitarist for hire in one of America’s most competitive music scenes. Lollar brings his A-game to any style, with sophisticated melodic and harmonic concepts,

deep feeling and tone galore. Catch him with Kenosha Kid or proto-folkies Larkin Poe. You might have seen him working with Elvis freaking Costello or Dianne Reeves. He pops up regularly in the Atlanta Collective, delivering note perfect performances of classic albums like Thriller and Synchronicity. Maybe you saw him playing a lower-profile gig, inspiring Aunt Agnes to get her groove on at your cousin’s wedding? Rule #1 for the gigging musician: You. Got. To. Work. On the eve of a European tour supporting Grammy nominee Jamison Ross, Lollar spoke to us from his home in Decatur, Georgia, to tell us how he does it.

FOR YEARS YOU WERE THE “TEEN BLUES PHENOM” AROUND TALLAHASSEE, PROTEGE OF GUITAR GURU MISSISSIPPI JAMES STANTON. HOW DID YOU SHIFT INTO JAZZ?

RL: Senior year of high school, I played in the Florida State High School Honors Jazz Band, directed by Rodney Jordan. That was my first contact with the FSU jazz program and it blew my mind. That really solidified my wanting to go to FSU to study with people like Rodney, Marcus Roberts and Leon Anderson.

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This page: Rick Lollar grew up in

Tallahassee but now makes a living playing guitar for big-name acts.

TOP SONGS

by Rick Lollar and company

1 2 3

I’VE BEEN DRIVIN’” “ Soulful Hang by Rick Lollar Band “TWO GOOD PEOPLE” The Big Galoot by King Baby “BUDDY” The Big Galoot by King Baby

4 5

“GIRL LIKE YOU” More Of Us by Weisshund

“KEEP ON” All For One by Jamison Ross

occ.you.pa.tion coder designer strategician triathlete

YOU HAVE A TALLAHASSEE HOMECOMING SCHEDULED SOON?

RL: Rodney Jordan invited me to come lead the FSU Jazz Ensemble in their annual concert. I’ll be doing all the arrangements and playing with the kids. I was in their shoes, and I know how important it is for them. I really want to bring them something challenging and memorable. It’s really an honor.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SUCCEED AS A WORKING PLAYER?

RL: Being able to play anything people throw at me. I can hang in most situations because I love all kinds of music. I feel incredibly lucky to play music 100 percent of the time. Getting away with it essentially [laughing]. The real challenge is to push as much creative work as I can while maintaining a living. I’m really lucky. Not everybody gets to do this.

We see who • you • are. Whether you’re looking for a job, or in need of a staffing partner — you’ve come to the right place. For more information, please contact our Orlando office at 407-803-5111.

BRIAN HALL PHOTOGR APHY

WHAT IS THE MASTER PLAN?

RL: I don’t have the luxury of being able to chart a grand plan because I am a working musician. This is my living, my livelihood, so that governs a lot of the choices I make. I’m known for playing guitar in a flashy way sometimes, but that isn’t really what drives my love of music. I’m on the verge of figuring out the next move. It’s got to combine my voice and my songwriting and guitar playing in a way that doesn’t feel extraneous. I don’t know when that’s gonna happen, but sometime in the next year or two.

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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS

By Laur a Re i ley • P h o t o g ra p h y b y M ea g a n K l em en t o w sk i

WELL READ

What began with a Cornish hen nuked for her dad has evolved into a lauded career for James Beard semifinalist Lauren Macellaro of St. Petersburg’s Reading Room.

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auren Macellaro is tiny and pixieish with a short in Philadelphia from there: Fork, Silk City Diner, an Indian shock of dark hair, a wide grin and those big-gauge concept called Bindi, Mémé—this last a tiny 36-seater that ear plugs. Her right forearm is extravagantly made her fall in love with intimate dining rooms where tattooed. She looks like a chef. She’s 36, chef at the “guests feel like they’re in my living room.” celebrated Reading Room in St. Petersburg and a James She’d started a long-distance relationship with partner JP Beard semifinalist for best chef in the South this year. I’m Palombo. With Palombo in Florida and Macellaro in Philly, guessing her family never saw it coming. they met in the middle and moved to Asheville, When she was a kid, lunch was peanut butter North Carolina, in 2009. It wasn’t the frenetic and jelly, maybe peanut butter and honey foodie city it is today. Macellaro worked for Whole READING ROOM sandwiches. Foods for a while before becoming the No. 2 to “I had some bad eating habits as a kid. I was Brian Canipelli of Cucina 24. She was there for five — LOCATION — 6001 CENTRAL AVE. very obsessive and would eat only one thing years, her star rising as his did (he’s another James ST. PETERSBURG and nothing else for six months. I would never Beard semifinalist). — HOURS — eat school lunch.” “Chef [Canipelli] is one of my best friends to this WED.—SAT. 5 P.M.—9 P.M. CLOSED SUN–TUES But whether nature or nurture, something day,” she says. “We wrote great menus together. rrstpete.com from her big Italian family must have sunk in. His kitchen was another foundation for me, where Her Sicilian uncle Albert had a double lot in we carefully treated these great ingredients and had Queens, used one of the lots for his garden and a good time doing it. Not so militant and strict, it made wine in the basement. Her Italian mother would was a complete juxtaposition from Tabla.” make squash blossoms with ricotta, snipping herbs from Macellaro came to Florida specifically to open a restaurant, a pot outside. But all that good modeling wasn’t what though she worked first at Locale Market and then at Rooster got her started in the kitchen. It was a commercial for a brown-and-crisp microwave bag (seriously, microwave cooking was big back then). She begged her mom for it, bought a Cornish hen because it fit in the bag and accessorized it with yellow squash and a pat of butter. Wipeout. Soggy, blotchy poached skin. Her dad ate it anyway, because dads rock that way. In college, Macellaro studied psychology in Maryland; she was the kind of person people told their secrets to, so a career as a therapist felt like a solid goal. It didn’t work out, and she needed a job. Applying to be a waitress, she was convinced to do something in the kitchen instead. “The food was awful, but I liked what I was doing,” Macellaro says. “I thought it was exciting. You’re the people behind the curtain.” She attended the Institute of Culinary Education in New York and was offered two jobs, one at Gramercy Tavern and one at Tabla, now closed. She chose to work with Floyd Cardoz at Tabla because he fed her a cube of watermelon with mango powder, sea salt and a little lime. “It was insane,” she says of the small bite. Despite her having worked in some other kitchens, this is where she says her education Right: really began. It was regimented, no Chef Lauren one goofing around, ingredients taken Macellaro with Chicky Barone seriously. She started on the vegetable Opposite: side in what was a traditional French Macellaro’s roasted autumn roots kitchen. She hopped to restaurants

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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS

& the Till, transitioning to full-time work at Rooster in April 2015. Chef Ferrell Alvarez’s sensibility appealed to her. “I like small restaurants. I liked Rooster’s intimacy and attention to detail, and there was care about where the food was coming from.” Her big break came when FreeFall Theatre owner Kevin Lane and partner Kevin Damphouse decided to open a restaurant next to the theater, with space enough for a large garden. Macellaro jumped at the chance (thanks, Uncle Albert). The Reading Room opened at the beginning of 2017 in what was formerly a Christian Science Reading Room. It’s a small but lovely dining room, the air perfumed by wood smoke, the vegetables largely harvested outside and shepherded in for expert nurturance. Menus are tucked into old hardbacks. Swiftly getting high marks from local and regional publications, the Reading Room became one of the coveted reservations in town without hitting splurge territory with its prices. The food is rustic but gorgeously arrayed, never precious or overworked. They make their own bread (a must-order starter), which is a great accompaniment to the chicken liver mousse with pickled and fermented grapes and maybe a little bowl of olives. The menu is divided into three groupings by size, all of it sharable. So how does Macellaro describe what she does in the kitchen of the Reading Room? “I approach food very thoughtfully,” she says. “There’s a lot of intention in every flavor and bite. When I think about a dish, I think about where it came from—I think about where it came from in my brain and I think about what it will mean for people.” In other words, she reads the room.

Roasted Cauliflower and Salted Plum S e rv e s 6 2 heads cauliflower Vegetable oil 6 plums (red, black, all the varieties) Sea salt Thinly sliced chilis to taste (habenero, serrano, fresno, jalapeno) 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine 2 tablespoons soy sauce 2 tablespoons mirin 2 tablespoons ginger, peeled and cut into brunoise 1/2 tablespoon grated lemongrass Salt and pepper Cilantro Chives Mint Thai basil PREPARATION: Heat an oven to 500 degrees. Cut the cauliflower into chunks. In a large bowl, toss cauliflower chunks with oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread on a sheet pan and roast until chunks are crispy and brown on the edges but not overcooked. Slice the plums very thin and toss with enough salt to coat each slice. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Add the chilis, Shaoxing, soy sauce, mirin, ginger and lemongrass to the plums. Let sit for at least 1 hour and up to 3 days under refrigeration. Garnish with cilantro, chives, mint and Thai basil. Plate and serve.

This page: Macellaro’s

roasted cauliflower and salted plum dish Opposite inset: Macellaro’s escarole and beans

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Escarole and Beans S e rv e s 6 2 cups cherry tomatoes 1 head escarole, chopped 3 cloves garlic, sliced 4 thinly sliced lemon wheels, no seeds 1 cup cooked white beans 1/4 cup white wine Sprig of thyme Sprig of fresh oregano Crushed red pepper PREPARATION: Heat an oven to 450 degrees. Spread cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan and roast, uncovered, for 8 minutes. Fill a bowl with cold water. Submerge escarole leaves, agitate and drain. Refill bowl with fresh water and repeat. Transfer lettuce to a salad spinner and spin until dry. Remove from spinner and pat with paper towels until completely dry. (If you have water on the lettuce the oil will flare up, and although that looks cool, it will result in an unpleasant taste.) Alternatively, set the lettuce on a flat rack lined with paper towels and let sit until dry. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and saute garlic and lemon wheels until golden. Add dry escarole and toss gently to coat in oil. Season with salt and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Add fresh herbs and crushed red pepper and saute until fragrant. Then add beans and tomatoes and stir to combine. Add wine and continue cooking until evaporated. Serve with crusty bread.

Roasted Autumn Roots S e rv e s 6

FOR THE ROOTS 2 red beets 2 golden beets 3 sprigs thyme 2 parsnips 1 carrot 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil Salt and pepper PREPARATION: Heat an oven to 400 degrees. Wash all roots well but do not peel. Place red and golden beets in an oven-safe dish and fill dish with 1/4 inch of water. Add salt, pepper and thyme. Cover with foil and roast for 45 minutes to one hour, testing for doneness with a knife. Remove dish from oven and set aside. Allow to cool until vegetables can be handled comfortably. Do not allow them to cool completely; they are easier to peel when they are warm and generating steam. Cut parsnips and carrots into 1/4-inch disks. In a large mixing bowl, toss with oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread parsnips and carrots in a single layer on a parchment-covered sheet pan. Roast for 8 to 12 minutes, or until vegetables reach desired taste and texture. Plate vegetables along with a dollop of puree and serve.

FOR THE PUREE 1 cup raw, unsalted cashews 1 quart water Juice and zest of 1 orange 1 tablespoon honey 1 teaspoon caraway seeds 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil PREPARATION: Soak the cashews in room-temperature water for at least six hours. Drain cashews but reserve water. Add cashews, honey, caraway seeds, orange zest and juice, and 1/2 cup of the reserved water to a blender. Start the blender low and increase the speed. If the mixture isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t moving smoothly, add more of the reserved liquid. The idea here is to add just enough water to make the puree smooth like hummus. Once the mixture has created a vortex, add oil and salt to taste, and blend until thoroughly incorporated.

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ON THE FLY:BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

A WA L K I N G G U I D E TO O U R FAVO R I T E N E I G H B O R H O O DS

not so sleepy Siesta

Explore our favorite spots in this quaint Beach town off Sarasota, brimming with Cozy cafes, live music and loads of local charm 1: SIESTA KEY OYSTER BAR

The locals’ favorite for fresh oysters, innovative cuisine and cool cocktails 5238 Ocean Blvd.

2: BIG OLAF CREAMERY

Hand mixed ice creams and yogurts made by local Amish craftsmen 5208 Ocean Blvd. Ocean Blvd.

3: THE COTTAGE

Prepared by foodies, for foodies, with inventive offerings inspired by a variety of food cultures 153 Avenida Messina

4: DAVIDSON DRUGS

A local landmark and one-stop shop for pharmaceutical needs, including home health equipment, nutritional products, and medications 5124 Ocean Blvd.

5: OLD SALTY DOG

A MP TA

2. 8.

This dog-friendly spot serves favorites like shrimp and its signature hot dog. 5023 Ocean Blvd.

SPEARFISH GRILL

6: SUN GARDEN CAFÉ

Cozy atmosphere with healthy and hearty breakfast or lunch made with the finest local ingredients 240 Avenida Madera

KS OC R F TO IN O P

CB’ S

OU TFI TTE RS

OP HE L

IA ’S

7: THE BEACH CLUB

Live music, food, and drinks located in the heart of the Siesta Village 5151 Ocean Blvd.

Siesta Key’s go-to market, with fresh groceries you can have delivered right to your door 205 Canal Road

9: LELU COFFEE LOUNGE

Local favorite tropical Cuban-style coffee house serving breakfast and lunch daily 5251 Ocean Blvd.

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10: SPEARFISH GRILL

Turning out quality interpretations of classic dishes, as well as creative island food and fresh local fish 1265 Old Stickney Point Road

11: CB’S SALTWATER OUTFITTERS

Siesta Key’s largest on-the-water bait and

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tackle shop with boat rentals, fishing charters and jet skis 1249 Stickney Point Road

12: OPHELIA’S ON THE BAY

Where Sarasota’s discerning palates go for waterfront fine dining, situated on Little Sarasota Bay 9105 Midnight Pass Road

ILLUSTR ATION: LESLIE CHALFONT

8: MORTON’S SIESTA MARKET

PROMOTION

TH E &

F L O R I D A K E Y S K E Y W E S T

spirit of freedom envelops you, no matter how many times you make the journey South to the Florida Keys and Key West. Something special happens while spending time with loved ones under those bright winter stars. Known not only for world-class sailing, snorkeling, diving, fishing and outdoor pursuits, but also for fine art galleries, museums and cultural festivals in constant rotation, The Florida Keys and Key West are beloved treasures of our state. Winter ushers in a festive astmosphere with the best of what The Keys has to offer on full display. In Flamingoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WINTER TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT 2018, we highlight some of our favorite places to stay, from high-style five-star resorts to chic boutique hotels and laid-back luxury villas.

PROMOTION

You’ll be moved, even while standing still.

You may never run out of ways to get out on the water in The Florida Keys. But sometimes, you’ll want to stop and soak up the atmosphere. It’s motion, and emotion, in perfect balance. fla-keys.com 1.800.fla.keys

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PROMOTION

CASA MARINA, A WALDORF ASTORIA RESORT OPENED: New Year’s Eve 1920 HIGHLIGHTS: The Casa Marina is an iconic beachfront property located on Key West’s largest private beach, the perfect destination for water sports and recreation. Enjoy toesin-the-sand dining at Sun Sun Beach Bar & Grill, plus two dazzling pools, a rejuvenating spa, a fitness center and 11,000 square feet of meeting and event space. LOCATION: Key West (305) 296-3535

casamarinaresort.com

THE REACH, A WALDORF ASTORIA RESORT OPENED: 1984 HIGHLIGHTS: The Reach, a Waldorf Astoria Resort, is situated on Key West’s only private natural white sand beach, just steps away from world-famous Duval Street. Enjoy spectacular amenities like an oceanfront pool, water sports rentals, a fitness center, oceanfront dining at Spencer’s by the Sea and meeting and event space. LOCATION: Key West (305) 296-5000 reachresort.com

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PROMOTION

ISLANDER RESORT REOPENING: Dec. 2018 HIGHLIGHTS: Islander Resort has unveiled a reimagined luxury experience steeped in casual elegance and inspiring oceanfront surroundings, making us a premier destination in the Florida Keys. Our beautiful property features a private beach with complete water sports offerings, two oceanfront swimming pools, Tides Beachside Bar & Grill, and Elements Lounge & Restaurant. LOCATION: Mile Marker 82, Islamorada (305) 664-2031 islanderfloridakeys.com

KONA KAI RESORT, GALLERY & BOTANIC GARDENS OPENED: 1991 HIGHLIGHTS: A Key Largo gem, Kona Kai gets everything just right. The magical, intimate adults-only property is a two-acre hideaway with private botanic gardens, art gallery, tennis courts, bay-side beach, pool, jacuzzi and sunset pier. There’s 13 cottagestyle rooms and suites with fully appointed kitchens and original art. Hope to see you soon! LOCATION: Key Largo (305) 852-7200 KonaKaiResort.com

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PROMOTION

OCEAN KEY RESORT OPENED: 1988 HIGHLIGHTS: An illusory setting that vacation dreams are made of. Towering palms, colorful flora and unexpected touches await in one of the country’s most sought-after locales. Where Duval Street begins in Historic Key West, the Ocean Key Resort & Spa invites their guests to indulge in the playfulness of the island. Take in the luxurious surroundings – whimsical and true to the energy of the Florida Keys. Relax at LIQUID, the resort’s pool bar and lounge, dine at acclaimed Hot Tin Roof, decompress at SpaTerre, or let go on the world famous Sunset Pier. LOCATION: Key West (800) 328-9815 oceankey.com

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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE B y S ea n M cC a u g h a n

a place in paradise

Set on some of the state's most picturesque landscapes, these homes put the focus on their surrounding environment

8 FIFT Y PRODUC TIONS

SEASIDE

he breezy neoclassical home nestled in the dunes and peering over the Gulf of Mexico is one of Seaside's original planned new urbanist beach cottages. The traditional architecture creates an old-world aesthetic although the house, built in 1990, is of relatively recent construction. It was fully renovated in the spring of 2018 and went through Hurricane Michael completely unscathed. Each of the three bedrooms has its own screened porch, and there are open patios off each of the main living spaces on the second floor. The cottage is situated in the heart of Seaside, walking distance to shops, cafes and public beach access points through two of Seasideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s iconic ocean pavilions. 2418 E. County Highway, Santa Rosa Beach $3,195,000

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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE

Merritt Island

uilt in 1942, the sprawling Mediterranean Revival estate, on 7.6 acres, overlooks the Indian River with views of the rocket launches at Cape Canaveral. Known informally as the “White House of the South,” its history is peppered with big name historical figures who stayed there, including President Lyndon B. Johnson. A vast pool and pool house look out over a spectacular private lake and cascading waterfall. There's even bamboo and rose gardens. Of the total 22,000 square feet of indoor living spaces, 11 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms split among multiple buildings, 14,755 square feet belong to the main house featuring hand-painted walls, preserved pecky cypress vaulted post-and-beam ceilings and antique tile and marble. 205 Hacienda Drive., Merritt Island $6,449,000

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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE

AMERICAN CARIBBEAN REAL ESTATE

Plantation Key

ocated on Islamorada, in the middle Keys, this home on the sand is one of only four in a secluded oceanfront enclave. Featuring a private beach, pool and 30-foot dock with a boat lift in the neighborhood marina, the house is the perfect jumping-off point to explore the Florida Keys. The West Indies–style estate has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, a great room with 30-foot ceilings, two master suites with private balconies, an elevator and extensive verandas to take advantage of the ocean views. The lush half-acre lot, already substantial for the Florida Keys, feels even larger because of the outdoor living areas underneath the house, which is elevated to protect from storm surges. 298 South Drive., Plantation Key $4,500,000

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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE

acing Roberts Bay and the Intracoastal Waterway on Siesta Key, this place is an outdoor playland. In addition to the expansive water views, the multi-level saltwater pool with a heated spa, swim-up bar and waterfall makes an impressive statement. Wide lawns under gnarled oak trees surround the pool. The six-bedroom, seven-bath house sits on a three-quarter-acre lot with 150 feet of water frontage, featuring two boat lifts and a floating dock. The Caribbeaninspired tropical interior is slightly formal, with a grand living room, exceptionally large kitchen and breakfast nook. Deep verandas extend off of the living room and master bedroom. The huge master bath has a "party size" shower and a deep soaking tub set in what can only be described as an indoor Zen rock garden. 5131 Jungle Plum Road, Sarasota $5,195,000

Sarasota

View our listings at

YO U N G A N DVO L E N . CO M BROAD, MULTI-GENERATIONAL NETWORK DIGITALLY-SAVVY MARKETING EXPERTS AWARD-WINNING SALES, TOP 10 TEAM, JACKSONVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL 2018

NORTHEAST FLORIDA

RACHEL DAY

JAYNE YOUNG

KACEY ROACHE

GWINN VOLEN

A Diff erent Kind of Real Estate Team

2 8 0 P O N T E V E D R A B LV D. PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL 32082

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(904) 314.5188

•

YOUNGANDVOLEN@GMAIL.COM

SRQ360

SERVING THE BEACHES AND RIVERFRONT COMMUNITIES OF

CLUTCH YOUR PEARLS &

FILL YOUR GLASSES INTRODUCING THE 2019 INSPIRED PALATES DINNER SERIES

INSPIRED

PALATES

This avant-garde series of dinners will inspire your palate and spark your creative energies, all to support bringing an exciting and diverse calendar of exhibitions and related programming to the Jacksonville community. All Dinner Party guests will enjoy beer, wine, hors d’oeuvres, themed music, artful experiences, and dinner.

THU 1•10•19

THU 4•11•19

THU 6•13•19

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR TO RSVP, PLEASE CALL 904.899.6023 OR VISIT CUMMERMUSEUM.ORG/DINNERPARTY.

ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (NORTH) FLORIDA FORUM SPEAKER SERIES JACKSONVILLE

Jan. 28

Actor Bryan Cranston, best known for his role as Walter White on Breaking Bad, will offer his take on current cultural issues in a talk presented by The Women’s Board of Wolfson’s Hospital. thefloridaforum.com

DONNA MARATHON WEEKEND NEPTUNE BEACH

Feb. 8–10

As part of its mission to end breast cancer, the Donna Foundation hosts this Boston Marathon qualifying event, which includes a 5K, half-marathon, marathon and ultramarathon. breastcancermarathon.com

THE VENARDOS CIRCUS

OLUSTEE BATTLE FESTIVAL

Dec. 19–jan. 27

Feb. 15–17

LA K E C I T Y

When Kevin Venardos started his own circus back in 2014, he had a six-person team functioning out of a small truck and a rented tent, a stark difference from his days as ringmaster at Ringling Bros. But Venardos wanted to be his own boss. Since the circus’s inception, the crew has nearly doubled, and the Venardos Circus has become a storehouse for old-fashioned magic and the glitz and glamour a trip to the circus used to hold. “A big part of my circus dream is to create annual traditions in the cities we visit,” Venardos told Flamingo. “St. Augustine is the crown jewel of our national tour, and our partnership with the St. Augustine Amphitheatre has made that dream a reality,” he added. Often deemed “the little circus that could,” the group will unfold an intimate showcase of acrobats, aerialists, comedians and dancers when it stops in St. Augustine. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early for an interactive, photo-friendly pre-show party. “We are looking forward to being part of the life of this community every holiday season for many years to come,” Venardos says. Tickets range from $15 to $45 in advance. venardoscircus.com DICKENS ON CENTRE

ICHE NIPPY DIP DAY

Dec. 7–9

Jan. 5

A M E L I A I S LA N D

Travel back in time to this Victorian Christmas street festival featuring historically accurate entertainment, costumed characters from the beloved novel A Christmas Carol and a visit from St. Nick. ameliaisland.com

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FORT WHITE

Thrill-seekers can take a plunge into some of Florida’s coldest spring water at Ichetucknee Springs State Park. Campfires, hot coffee and s’mores immediately follow to aid in the frosty recovery. oursantaferiver.org

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BUTTS & CLUCKS COOKOFF ON THE BAY A PA LA C H I C O LA

Jan. 25–26

This competitive cookoff features award-winning BBQ and deviled eggs from all over the Sunshine State. Winners advance to the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational. apalachicolabay.org

Relive Florida’s largest Civil War battle Gone With the Wind–style with a memorial service, vivid reenactment, parade and pageant. olusteefestival.com

SANDESTIN GUMBO FESTIVAL SANDESTIN

Feb. 15–16

Celebrity judges travel to the Gulf Coast to award the winner of winter’s tastiest seafood gumbo. Dine and dance to the sound of live music from Dikki Du and the Zydeco Krewe. sandestingumbofestival.com

STEINHATCHEE FIDDLER CRAB FESTIVAL S T E I N H AT C H E E

Feb. 15–17

Wander through the boat and car shows picking off a plate piled high with crab dishes and jam out to coastal tunes performed by local musicians. steinhatcheechamber.com

VENARDOS CIRCUS

T H E S T . A U G U S T I N E A M P H I T H E AT R E

ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (C E N T RA L ) LAKERIDGE WINERY WINEFEST CLERMONT

Dec. 7–9

Observe displays of local art while sipping fine wine and savoring chocolate pairings. Dance the night away to the sound of live bands on the outdoor stage. lakeridgewinery.com

WILD, WONDERFUL WITHLACOOCHEE LA K E PA N A S O F F K E E

Jan. 17–22

Paddle through six days of open waters, camping and camaraderie on this kayaking expedition from the Withlacoochee River all the way to the Gulf. paddleflorida.org

RENNINGER’S ANTIQUE EXTRAVAGANZA

ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA SPEEDWAY

Jan. 18–20

Jan. 26–27

MOUNT DORA

Go treasure hunting in pavilions expanding as far as the eye can see for worldly antiques and collectables. renningers.net

MANATEE FESTIVAL C R Y S TA L R I V E R

Jan. 19–20

Marvel at large quantities of manatees wintering in the tepid waters of Three Sisters Springs, take a boat tour of the bay, then shop the streets lined with local vendors. gomanateefest.com

About 60 cars, from Lamborghinis and Porsches to Corvettes and Mazdas, will hit the road for 24 hours straight during the annual Rolex 24 competition. The endurance race, now more than 50 years old, challenges teams of three to five drivers from all over the world to an entire day’s worth of racing. In total, cars will each drive over 2,000 miles. The race originally went by the name “24 Hours of DAYTONA,” but with the Rolex title comes a fancy new prize for winning drivers—a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch, which starts at $12,400 in retail. “It’s a race with a rich history, and the 2019 edition will be a special one as IMSA kicks off its 50th anniversary celebration,” Chip Wile, president of the Speedway, told Flamingo. “Legendary racing names who have competed in the Rolex 24 include Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr., Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and most recently Fernando Alonso.” Tickets range from $45 to $110 for both days. daytonainternationalspeedway.com

SPACE COAST BIRDING & WILDLIFE FESTIVAL

KUMQUAT FESTIVAL

Jan. 23–28

Jan. 26

TITUSVILLE

DAY TONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

D AY T O N A I N T E R N AT I O N A L S P E E D WAY

Learn from experts such as Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul and many others who have made great strides in the field of birding and peruse the marketplace for birding gifts. spacecoastbirdingand wildlifefestival.org

DADE CITY

Antique cars and trucks line the streets as you take in the historic downtown atmosphere while enjoying savory and sweet kumquat-based dishes and desserts along with more than 400 vendors. dadecitychamber.org

BROOKSVILLE NATIVE AMERICAN FESTIVAL

DELAND CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL

Feb. 2–3

Feb. 9

BROOKSVILLE

Reflect on history and honor heritage as you watch colorful performances of traditional Native American song and dance and many more traditions. brooksvillenativeamerican fest.com

D E LA N D

Sip the ultimate flight with more than 300 artfully crafted brews and 75 breweries to choose from at this outdoor hops menagerie, spread out across historic downtown Deland. mainstreetdeland.org

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ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (SOUTH)

FOR THE LOVE OF ORCHIDS S A R A S O TA

Jan. 5–6

Botanical enthusiasts shop the finest orchid species and hybrids, while top growers vie for prizes and bragging rights. sarasotaorchidsociety.org

PALM BEACH MODERN + CONTEMPORARY W E S T PA L M B E A C H

Jan. 10–13

Top art collectors and connoisseurs from around the world descend on the art fair, started two years ago by Art Miami director Nick Korniloff. artpbfair.com

ART DECO WEEKEND MIAMI BEACH

Jan. 18–20 SOUTH BEACH FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL M I A M I B E A C H ; M U LT I P L E V E N U E S

FEB. 20–24

Miami’s world-renowned food and wine festival will return for its 18th year in February. Attendees can expect showcases from today’s up-and-coming chefs. The five-day fete attracts chefs from all over the world to South Beach, where they’ll perform cooking demos, host tastings and more. This year, the list of talent is long, with more than 200 chefs, personalities and restauranteurs slated to present. Standouts include Food Network’s Bobby Flay, Alex Guarnaschelli, Katie Lee and more. “With a variety of new offerings and the return of the specially curated CRAVE Greater Fort Lauderdale Series, the 18th annual edition of the festival is our most robust event and talent line-up yet,” says festival founder and Senior Vice President for Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits Lee Brian Schrager. New experiences include a sunset stone crab session hosted by Emeril Lagasse and a wine and cheese happy hour hosted by Martha Stewart. Be sure to try at least one hands-on master class and, of course, a late-night party, like beachside barbecue with Guy Fieri, pictured above in 2018 with Snoop Dogg. Event tickets start at $30. sobewff.org

An homage to South Beach’s iconic architecture and culture with events ranging from a retro fashion show to musical performances to films. artdecoweekend.com

KEY WEST FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL KEY WEST

Jan. 23–27 Fresh local seafood purveyors and winemakers from all over convene for the island’s culinary experience of the year. keywestfoodandwinefestival.com

PEGASUS WORLD CUP Jan. 26

MIAMI ART WEEK

L’ILLUSION DU PLUMAGE

Dec. 4–9

Dec. 8–9

MIAMI

The weeklong celebration of international and regional art is anchored by its signature show Art Basel Miami and elevated by a plethora of independent fairs, exhibits and parties spread out across the Magic City. flamingomag.com

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F O R T LA U D E R D A L E

The word “costume” belies the true artistry on display in the feathery ensembles and headdresses designed by Jarbas Pereira for this showgirl performance. There’s a twist—it’s actually showboys. lillusionduplumage.com

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PALM BEACH FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL PA L M B E A C H

Dec. 13–16

Some of the island’s best chefs, including Clay Conley of Buccan, put forth their most impressive creations for discerning palates looking for more laid-back elegance. pbfoodwinefest.com

Glitz, glamour and gambling encompass this international horse racing event with a total purse of $16 million. pegasusworldcup.com

FLORIDA JAZZ AND BLUES JAM B O C A R AT O N

Jan. 26

Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band, led by drummer and founding member

SOUTH BEACH WINE AND FOOD FESTIVAL, INFORMA

H A L LA N D A L E B E A C H

of the Allman Brothers Jai “Jaimoe” Johanny Johanson, headlines the festival. musicjamproductions.com

SOUTH FLORIDA GARLIC FEST LA K E W O R T H

Feb. 9–10

Garlic lovers celebrate the flavor of their favorite bulb, which takes on new and exciting gastro-combos in everything from garlic ice cream to garlic fries. dbgarlicfest.com

MIAMI INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW AND MIAMI YACHT SHOW MIAMI

Feb. 14–18 These shows offer a preview of the latest innovations, finishings and accessories in fishing, cruising and luxury vessels. Serious shoppers and leisurely lookers enjoy first-class cuisine and live music. miamiboatshow.com and miamiyachtshow.com

SEE AMAZING

UP CLOSE!

Toll Free:

1-877-999-4228 Above: Ultra luxurious mega yachts line the docks at the Miami Yacht show.

WWW.CRAIGCAT.COM Craig Catamaran Corp.

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FLORIDIANA ALL THINGS VINTAGE

Inset: Nathan Benn

documented the everyday lives of seniors on Miami Beach in 1981 by taking photographs like this one of two people stretching.

The Sands of Time

mmigration. Drug busts. Gators. Elderly folks. Mar-a-Lago. Oldschool theme parks. The list reads like a catalogue of “Florida’s greatest-hits” stereotypes immortalized today in pop culture, movies, books and Netflix series. But 37 years ago, these cultural monuments were just basic realities of life in the Sunshine State. Miami native and National Geographic photographer Nathan Benn was on the ground and in the air documenting these scenes in their cultural prime on Kodachrome film. A new exhibition showing Benn’s collection, titled A Peculiar Paradise, includes nearly 100 photos of everything

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from reptiles at an alligator farm to groups of seniors stretching on the beach to law enforcement officers arresting drug lords to mobs of angry Miamians protesting waves of refugees. These were the faces, places and phenomena capturing the attention of Florida (and the nation) in the early 1980s. In 1981, Benn snapped an image of Haitian refugees sailing in a wooden boat for Miami from the vantage point of a helicopter (pictured right). “I really like this picture the best because of the fellow who’s on the bow holding a spring line. He was this heroic figure ... that really brought the composition together,” Benn says.

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A Peculiar Paradise will be on exhibit at the History Miami Museum from Nov. 9, 2018, until April 14, 2019.

NATHAN BENN

A photographer takes us back to South Florida’s cultural prime: 1981

SEA AND BE SCENE AT THE NEW DOWNTOWN MIAMI LOCATION Harbored on Biscayne Bay between the Venetian and Macarthur Causeways

FEBRUARY 14TH - 18TH 2019

miamiyachtshow.com