Spring/Summer 2022 Icons Issue

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ADVERTORIAL

Fort Pierce, with its deep-rooted angling culture, has a community of boat builders turning out coveted, world-class watercraft.

T

he true beauty of a fine sport-fishing boat lies not only in the horsepower propelling it through the water, or the state-of-the-art fish-finding radar flashing at the helm, but in the regal lines and curves of its silhouette as it glides back into the marina at sunset, proud and full of fish from a successful day on the Atlantic. What might surprise many boaters though, is that the art and the architecture of some of the industry’s most beautiful beasts springs straight from the minds of local boat builders in Fort Pierce, where a deep-rooted angling culture drives a collection of manufacturers with regional, national and international appeal. Institutions like Maverick Boat Group, Twin Vee PowerCats, Bluewater Sportfishing Boats and Pursuit Boats solidify Fort Pierce and St. Lucie County as a premier destination for avid anglers and leisure boaters alike.

Left to right: Maverick Boat Group Pathfinder 2700 Open; Pursuit Boats S 358 Sport; an up-close look at the S 358 Sport

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Fort Pierce

Pursuit Boats Every Pursuit boat starts out as just a bale of resin and is carefully crafted all the way down the assembly line inside the Fort Pierce facilities. Pursuit, a coveted vessel for anglers, has been manufacturing luxury fishing boats since 1983. In 2020, the s 358 sport company doubled its manufacturing capabilities in BRAND LEADER order to keep up with demand. Today, Pursuit occupies nearly 400,000 square feet spread across the LOA: 37’4” Beam: 11’4” two factories, where its center-console boats, dual-console boats, offshore boats and sport boats Draft: 3’3” Motors Down Displ. (dry): 16,600 lbs. take shape.

Pursuit’s largest model, the S 428, stretches Power: (2) 425 XTO, 850-hp nearly 44 feet and is the flagship of the brand’s center-console sport boat series. Striking a balance between both form and function, the vessel features extra rod holders, large fish boxes, ample tackle storage, generous bait prep areas, oversized fridge and freezer boxes and convertible seats to create more space.

While Pursuit’s performance is undeniable, the boat’s style on the water commands attention, with its sleek, clean design. Rules permitting, Pursuit typically invites those lucky enough to buy one for a tour of the facility to see how the magic is made—and to sign the hull of their own unfinished boat.

NATHANIEL HARRIINGTON, PURSUIT BOATS

Maverick Boat Group

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

Maverick Boat Group has a strong fishing heritage in Fort Pierce. “Our founder was an expert angler who really understood other anglers and fisheries, and obviously Florida has some of the best fisheries in the world,” says Charlie Johnson of Maverick Boat Group. Pull up to any sandbar, and you’re bound to see one of the brand’s Maverick or Hewes fishing boats, Pathfinder bay boats or Cobia center- or dual-consoles.

With two facilities in Fort Pierce—including one 2700 open brand-new 126,000-square-foot warehouse near B R A N D L E A D E R the airport—the company employs about 540 team LOA: 27’0” members. While a majority of their inventory is Beam: 9’4” sold domestically, where demand is the highest, Draft: 1’5” Mavericks traverse international waters from Displ. (dry): 4,934 lbs.

Puerto Rico to Australia to South Africa.

Power: (1) 450-hp max.

Maverick also offers potential buyers an upclose look at production. “We host people who are considering the brand, people interested in the manufacturing process, and then we have people that actually come to see their boat while it’s in production,” Johnson says.

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Twin Vee PowerCats Made with the tricky-to-navigate Florida waterways in mind, Twin Vee catamarans can pass through shallow estuaries and the Intracoastal, consuming minimal fuel along the way thanks to their twin-hull design. The company’s efficiency will only continue to improve with the launch of its first electric model, currently in development in Fort Pierce. “Right now for boating, it’s kind of like how electric was about 10 years Thundercat ago for vehicles,” says B R A N D L E A D E R Frank Smith of Twin Vee LOA: 28’0” PowerCats.

Beam: 9’6” The center- and duDraft: 1’8” al-console PowerCats Displ. (dry): 8,200 lbs. are designed for both Power: (2) Suzuki 300-hp fishing and fun. The 400 GFX model is Twin Vee’s largest offshore PowerCat, measuring in at 40 feet and featuring a tackle station with a cooler, fish boxes, three live wells and underwater LED lights.

Not only are the boats fast (upward of 1,400 horsepower), but so is the company’s growth.

At a warehouse located in the southern part of

Fort Pierce, the company employs about 140 team members, 60 of which just came on board in the last six months.

Bluewater Sportfishing Boats While Bluewater’s No. 1 priority is maintaining its anglers-first approach, sometimes a boat’s leisure versatility is what hooks an owner. “Our seating is removable, so our clients can have a family-fun boat for Sunday sandbar trips while still being able to remove the seating and get out and do some hardcore fishing,” says Paul Skilowitz, owner of Bluewater Sportfishing Boats.

With both inshore models for fishing the Indian River Lagoon and offshore models for going miles off the coast, Bluewater boats can measure upward of 36 feet in length. The largest tournament-sized 355 E model features a large cockpit, extra storage for tackle and rods and a concealed area below deck for cast nets.

Bluewater’s center-console fishing boats offer complete customization to suit each customer’s needs. Bespoke boat designs are executed by a modest team of 24 at Bluewater’s facility near the Treasure Coast International Airport. Want to see how a Bluewater boat is made? Walk the boatyard if you’re considering making a purchase.

“During the visit we have the opportunity to discuss the options and features the customer would like to have built into their new Bluewater,” Skilowitz says.

Bluewater 2150 BRAND LEADER

LOA: 21’5” Beam: 8’0” Draft: 1’3” Displ. (dry): 2,670 lbs.

Power: (1) 250-hp XL

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Above left and clockwise: Twin Vee PowerCats Thundercat; Maverick Boat Group Pathfinder 2700 Open; a small island in the Indian River Lagoon; Bluewater Sportfishing Boats, Bluewater 2150

Angling Adventures A seafarer’s guide to St. Lucie & Fort Pierce Bring or borrow a boat: Fort Pierce has plenty of marinas where boaters can load up on fuel before spending a day out on the water, plus boat ramps are free for all visitors. Don’t have a boat?

Treasure Coast Boat Rentals will set you up with a daily rental, or for members of Freedom Boat Club, Fort Pierce City Marina is home to a huge fleet of vessels.

Slip & stay:

SALVATORE BOCCIA, BLUEWATER SPORTFISHING BOATS, NATHANIEL HARRIINGTON

A number of hotels in Fort Pierce include the amenity of a boat slip with overnight accommodations including the Hutchinson Island Plaza Hotel & Suites, Dockside Marina & Resort and Indian River Lagoon Waterfront Cottages. Causeway Cove Marina doubles as an RV resort with a boat facility for travelers towing their vessel.

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

Dock & dine: So many waterfront restaurants in Fort Pierce allow boaters to pull up, grab a slip and step off for a bite to eat, with everything from laid-back fish shacks to happening sushi spots. A few favorites include 12A Buoy, Cobb’s Landing, Harborcove Seafood Bar Grill and Sushi, Little Jim Bait & Tackle, On the Edge Bar and Grill and Crabby’s Dockside. Some eateries even allow customers to bring their own fish for a catch-and-cook experience—but be sure to call first to confirm. For a picturesque place to enjoy a picnic, try one of the small islands in the Indian River Lagoon and Intracoastal Waterway, with many offering an inviting spot to anchor and fire up one of the public grills. And Sandbar Sunday at the Fort Pierce Inlet (known by locals as The Cove) never disappoints. To book your boating adventure, go to visitstlucie.com. n

— SP RI NG/S UMM E R 2022 —

CONTENTS F E AT U R E S

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66

76

86

BE WELL

BOYS, BOYS, BOYS

DUST IN THE WIND

IN SEARCH OF GIANTS

B Y N I LA D O S I M O N

Settle into mind, body and spirit at some of the state’s most lavish wellness resorts.

From fancy fitness facilities to high-tech treatments, here’s what’s trending in the Sunshine State’s selfcare space.

BY MADDY ZOLLO RUSBOSIN

Slip your MP3 player into the pocket of your low-rise Levi’s, because we’re throwing it back to the ’90s when Orlando became the birthplace for pop’s hottest boy bands.

BY ERIC BARTON

For years, the remains of countless Seminole Tribe ancestors have been tucked away in museums far away from their land. Join tribe members on the arduous and emotional journey to bring them home.

BY JESSICA GILES

Set out on a quest to catch a true trophy fish in Tampa Bay. As the 32-year moratorium on goliath grouper comes to an end, scientists fear a harvest season will reverse the fortunes of this special species.

Cover Photography by MARY BETH KOETH On the cover: Model Nayla Latus smiles into the sun on the sands of Miami Beach in front of a Carillon Miami Wellness Resort umbrella.

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D E PA R T M E N TS

18

50

102

WADING IN

COLUMNS

ON THE FLY

21 /// THE SPREAD: Work up a thirst from your swing, and sip on these bevs off the green.

50 /// C APITAL DAME: Overthrowing the archaic custom of Tallahassee’s May Day queen

104 /// BIRD’S-EYE VIEW: Watering holes and artsy souls in old Key West

25 /// M ADE IN FLA: A chic Miami couple marries function with fabulousness in their latest tableware line.

99 /// PANHANDLING: Some girls just marijuana have fun—and get more than they bargained for.

29 /// T HE STUDIO: Meet the South Florida native photographing Hollywood’s biggest stars.

114 /// F LORIDA WILD: Could citrus be the secret to saving the Florida panther?

32 /// FLEDGLINGS: How this indie-pop trio channels the spirit of the Magic City into their tracks.

107 /// THE ROOST: Three pastel palaces nestled in paradise 110 /// DESIGN DISTRICT: These tiny-home designers maximize minimalism.

116 /// T HE TIDE: Spring into the social scene with hot air balloon rides, beer bashes and tarpon tournaments.

120 /// F LORIDIANA: Pull up a barstool at Broward’s oldest restaurant.

35 /// JUST HATCHED: A lavish library, a beach-lover’s brewery and a laundromat with secrets behind its spin cycle 44 /// G ROVE STAND: Whole foods and healthy eats give Carly Paige a fresh perspective on self-love.

On this spread: Model Nayla Latus walks the shoreline in front of Carillon Miami Wellness Resort.

Photography by MARY BETH KOETH Clothing: Cara Cara NYC Jewelry: Cresta Bledsoe Fine Jewelry Hair and makeup: Jesus Bravo

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Running Home

the energizing feeling that I so deeply associate with this place.

Every spring at Flamingo we take a fresh look at the Sunshine State’s cultural touchstones. And more times than not, the moments that truly resonate in our own personal histories have little to do with the big five: Mickey, gators, beaches, sunshine and oranges.

In the pages of this Spring/Summer edition, you’ll see both obvious and unexpected nods to our culture.

Our four features explore themes of preservation, selfcare, conservation and pop culture. In our cover story, Be Well, contributor Nila Do Simon takes readers to the intersection of luxury travel and wellness with an indulgent cleanse of her mind, body and spirit at some of the region’s top resorts. On a more serious sojourn, Flamingo senior writer Eric Barton illuminates the fight to return stolen remains of Seminole ancestors kept in museums around the country to their home soil. Deputy Editor Jessica Giles shoves off on a mission to catch a giant goliath grouper currently in the crosshairs of a heated conservation debate. And regular contributor Maddy Zollo Rusbosin dances down memory lane with her childhood crushes from Orlando’s golden Boy Band era. Before it’s all over, we try a little medical Mary Jane and de-crown Tallahassee’s May Queen in our Panhandling and Capital Dame columns. We hope that this collection of stories challenges what you previously considered a Florida icon.

So lace up those running shoes, and embark on something that shocks your senses this season. Go somewhere unconventional and untamed, search for giants, dig up the past and have some fun along the way. You might forge a deeper connection to the Sunshine State, whether you’ve been here for seven generations or seven months. The first step on your journey begins right here within the pages of Flamingo.

E di tor i n Chi ef & P ubl i s h e r

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

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MARY BETH KOETH

I

learned to run at 16. It was such an unnatural feeling for me: heavy strides, cramping sides, burning lungs.

In contrast, the girls galloping ahead of me on the sidewalk seemed to do so effortlessly in the sweltering South Florida heat.

I had joined the cross-country team as a recent transplant to the Sunshine State.

Let’s just say, I was no athlete at the time, so one month before my junior year began, I started jogging.

Those turtle-paced laps along the densely landscaped path that traced our new neighborhood and the elements I encountered on my route imprinted my first memories of Florida and introduced me to some of its most prolific icons. I trained my lungs on the humid salt air, felt the constant sting of sunburned shoulders, sprinted past alligators lurking in the canals, critiqued the parade of unfamiliar Mediterranean-style homes, and pondered the source of the powerful array of botanical aromas mingled with sulfury water shooting from irrigation systems. At the time, I couldn’t quite decide if I loved or loathed the sights and smells that enveloped me on those runs, where I would push through the pain by envisioning how my new life as a Floridian would unfold: Epic trips to Disney? Lounging on the beach every weekend?

The promise of living in the Sunshine State was built on the allure of its most recognizable attributes. And while I would have many rendezvous with the famous mouse and spend most weekends lathered in tanning oil on Deerfield Beach, the experiences that formed a sense of home for me were routine and grounded in our distinct environment.

Today, when I’m in South Florida, the sweet aroma of tropical plants and the sea take me back to those transformational days: the pain, the perseverance and

Embrace Nature’s Tranquility on Amelia Island.

Escape to our remote barrier island at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island with our Stay Longer Package. Delight in luxurious overnight ocean view accommodations and enjoy a $50 daily resort credit.

Create your new memories by visiting ritzcarlton.com/ameliaisland.

Offer valid through December 28, 2022, subject to availability. Rate is per room/per night, based on single or double occupancy, exclusive of taxes, gratuities, fees and other charges; does not apply to groups; cannot be combined with any other offer and is not applicable for Marriott Bonvoy redemption. Advance reservations are required. No refund or credit for unused portion. ©2022 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC

CONTRIBUTORS

JOSH LETCHWORTH is an outdoor sports and lifestyle photographer from Lake Mary. A graduate of Flagler College in St. Augustine, he’s been shooting professionally for more than 20 years. The camera has carried him to six of the seven continents. As a Florida native, his passion is immersing himself in all things nature: fishing, hunting, surfing, camping, conservation and sharing those experiences with his family of five. In his Flamingo debut, Letchworth trains his lens on Tampa Bay. There, he climbs aboard a humble skiff in search of a species at the center of a heated public debate: Atlantic goliath grouper. Read all about his fishing expedition on page 86.

MADDY ZOLLO RUSBOSIN is an Orlando-based writer and style expert. In addition to regularly curating Flamingo’s Made in Florida department, Rusbosin has written for Cosmopolitan, Robb Report, Southern Living, Women’s Health and Orlando magazine.

She spent eight years working as a beauty editor in New York at Seventeen and People Style and loves nothing more than checking out the latest and greatest products and scaring her husband by testing face masks. In this issue, Rusbosin sat down with two Miami creatives for our Made in Florida department and takes us back to the ’90s in her feature story all about the Florida birthplace of boy bands on page 66.

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BAILEY LEFEVER is a freelance journalist reporting from Tampa Bay. She covers health and education for WUSF, Tampa Bay’s NPR affiliate. She has also covered seniors for the Tampa Bay Times, local government for the Miami Herald and breaking news and community news for The Palm Beach Post. LeFever has reported on the illegal sea turtle trade in Cuba, tennis phenom Coco Gauff and nursing home lockdowns during the pandemic. When not telling stories, LeFever loves to read and take her chocolate lab, Sage, for walks. In this issue of Flamingo, LeFever dives into the great design minds behind the tiny-home trend on page 110.

MARY BETH KOETH launched her career as a designer for Hallmark, where she spent her weekends traveling Europe snapping photos. Her hobby led to a career change. She studied photography and apprenticed in Norway and Los Angeles before branching out on her own. Today, the award-winning photographer’s work has appeared on the covers of Time and ESPN magazines and in the pages of countless national and international media outlets.

Koeth lives in Miami and has shot for Flamingo since 2016. She’s captured every corner of our state from lawn mower races to the halls of the Versace Mansion. Koeth’s work is featured in this issue’s cover story and throughout the magazine.

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JASON NUT TLE , JOSH LETCHWORTH, K AYL A TUCKERMAN PHOTOGR APHY, L ACE Y IRVING PHOTOGR APHY, JAVIER SANCHEZ/ART BY MARY BETH KOETH

NILA DO SIMON is an award-winning journalist and editor who has contributed to Condé Nast Traveler, Garden & Gun, The New York Times and Venice. The Florida Magazine Association has recognized her for best feature writing and feature headline writing. She has written for Flamingo since 2017, with profiles on tennis star Sloane Stephens, the unique South Florida community of Stiltsville and premier boat painter Monique Richter.

In her latest Flamingo piece, Simon ventures to some of the state’s most luxurious wellness resorts in pursuit of an experience that can heal mind, body and soul. Find her holistic health escape on page 54.

Pretty.Unexpected.

From culinary creations and thought-provoking exhibits to historic cultural gems and inspiring performances, the arts come alive year-round in Florida's Capital City.

VisitTallahassee.com

TallahasseeArts.org

Explore our comprehensive calendar of arts and cultural events, public art, arts resources and more!

IMAGE FROM "SPECTRUM" BY DAN TAYLOR AT VENVI ART GALLERY

FLAMBOYANCE

ISSUE

20

For Floridians. By Floridians.

TH O UG H TS FRO M T HE F LOCK

• FOUNDED IN 2016 •

— s p r i n g/s u m m e r 20 2 2 — My Grandpa T.L. Williams rounded up wild Cracker cows all over S. FL and drove them to Punta Rassa and put them on ships to Cuba. They were gone for months at a time and endured many hardships, but that was the way of life back then. Cowboying has been passed down to every generation of our family.

We would not trade it for anything. Long live the Florida cattlemen and our cattle land. —Bonnie RS., Forsyth, GA

What a fascinating article. So many brilliant women I want to read, listen to, find out more about and have a glass of wine with! (Speaking of wine, the best FL Woman story I’ve heard involved a Walmart parking lot, a motorized grocery cart, and wine in a Pringles can.) — @beachesbarsandbungalows, Satellite Beach, FL

Thats right.

I’ve told that to several people over the years that real working cowboys come from Florida!

— William L., Georgetown, GA

— @jayrevell, Tallahassee, FL

— @dctblackwell, Lakeland, FL

Editor in Chief and Founder JAMIE RICH jamie@flamingomag.com Deputy Editor Jessica Giles jessica@flamingomag.com Consulting Creative Director Holly Keeperman holly@flamingomag.com

There’s just no way to adequately portray how great the Bradfordville Blues Club is.

A true American treasure right here in Tallahassee.

Great collaboration with Carlton Ward! Surprised to learn how extensive and historic cattle ranching is in Florida.

Glad to see that some want to preserve the lifestyle and land. Hope you’ll do an article about Deseret Ranch—potential gamechanger!

EDITORIAL

The Dixie Highway goes all the way up to Chicago. My Grandma lived on it in Danville, IL. The reason why there is an old Steak-n-Shake in Atlanta is because people coming from the North would have a familiar place to stop for food on their way down to Florida. — @arch1539, Auburn, AL

Senior Contributing Designer Ellen Patch ellen@flamingomag.com Contributing Designer Lauren Eggert Senior Writer and Cont ributin g Editor Eric Barton eric@flamingomag.com Cont ributin g Writers Steve Dollar, Prissy Elrod, Bailey LeFever, Alyssa Morlacci, Diane Roberts, Maddy Zollo Rusbosin, Nila Do Simon, Carlton Ward Jr. Contributing Photographers & Illustrators Leslie Chalfont, Beth Gilbert, Mary Beth Koeth, Josh Letchworth, Stephen Lomazzo, Birgit Singh, Libby Volgyes, Carlton Ward Jr. C op y E d it o rs & Fa c t-C h e c k e rs Lydia Parker, Amanda Price Editorial Intern Samantha Fitzgerald

SALES & MARKETING

FRESH SQUEEZED newsletter RESP ONSES FROM OUR READERS

HOW DO YOU SPOT A TRUE FLORIDIAN? A true Floridian might be seen admiring the wall of flowering vines and insect life embellishing the fenceline, instead of blasting them with weed killer and insecticide—because the true Floridian misses the fireflies, whose brilliant flashes once punctuated the late evenings with accents of wonder.

—­Love Bug

Native or life-long Floridians generally don’t: wear tropical shirts, have thatch porches (aka “tiki huts” built by the amazing Seminole tribe), disparage Pub subs, think you can’t flush a toilet when a hurricane knocks out power, know who Bryan Norcross is, mispronounce Apalachicola, Kissimmee & Chokoloskee, avoid St. Augustine grass barefoot, and sunburn easily after a lifetime of exposure.

—­Natives know best

Publisher JAMIE RICH jamie@flamingomag.com Advertising Sales Megan Zebouni megan@flamingomag.com For general inquiries email advertising@flamingomag.com Contact Us JSR Media LLC 13000 Sawgrass Village Circle, Bld. 3, Suite. 12 Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082 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

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

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It Takes an

ISLAND

OC E A N KEY.COM | 844.799.2733 | KEY WE ST, FL

THE SLICE P R O D UC TS + EVENTS + PROMOTIONS

Make It a Flamingo Summer With These New Issue Must-Dos: 2. JAM OUT to the latest album,

Water Your Garden, from Miami trio Magic City Hippies. Their alternative, pop-funk party music is the perfect soundtrack for summer pool days, beach bonfires and road trip playlists. We sat down with Pat Howard, Robby Hunter and John Coughlin to talk crowd surfing, Miami’s cultural fusion and their creative process.

Find the full conversation on pg. 32.

3. RAISE A GLASS to health

weekend at The Boca Raton, fresh off a $2 million restoration. Originally designed by architect Addison Mizner, this iconic 95-year-old property has been revived and revamped for the modern-day traveler, while preserving its storied charm. Book a stay at thebocaraton.com. For more travel inspo, read our Just Hatched roundup of shops, restaurants, hotels and more that just hit the scene on pg. 35.

4. SPORT THE LATEST

Flamingo T-shirt, and pick up some other summery swag in our shop.

From corkcicle companions for your next bike ride to back issues of the magazine you can read with your toes in the sand, the Flamingo Shop is stocked and ready. See it all at flamingomag.store.

Blackberry Mint Moscow Mule S e rv e s 1 1 can ginger beer 1-2 ounces of vodka (or substitute water for mocktail) 1/4 cup blackberries 2 lime slices 4 mint leaves, plus more for garnish 2 tablespoons of simple syrup PREPARATION: Add blackberries, lime slices and mint leaves to a cocktail shaker. Muddle with a spoon until fruit is crushed and juicy. Add vodka and simple syrup. Shake well, and pour into a glass over ice. Top with a splash of ginger beer. Garnish with extra blackberries, mint and a lime wedge.

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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THE BOCA R ATON, MAGIC CIT Y HIPPIES, FITLIVING EATS

1. GET AWAY for a Golden-Era

and happiness with this better-for-you cocktail by Carly Paige of FitLiving Eats, and read how the entrepreneur made a positive change in her life through food on pg. 44.

From Chaos to Order: Greek Geometric Art January 15 – May 8, 2022

What’s New? Recent Acquisitions January 15 – May 8, 2022

Line, Color, Shapes, and Other Stories: Abstract Art Selections from the Permanent Collection January 15 – April 3, 2022

Legends of the Saints January 15 – April 3, 2022 TOP ROW FROM LEFT Larry Zox (American, 1937-2006), Green Composition, 1973, Serigraph, 21 x 36 in. Gift of Eugene Ivan Schuster. 1991.23.22 © 2021 Larry Zox/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Jakow Semijon Telischewski, (Russian, 1900-1970), (Suprematist Composition), Colored Forms in Space, ca. 1920Oil on Canvas, 19-5/8 x 24-5/8 in.

The Alfond Collection of Art, Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2017.15.6 Bernardino Di Mariotto, (Italian, 1478-1566), Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, Early sixteenth century, Tempera on panel, 13 x 6 in., Gift of Marjorie Myers Ginn, Francis E. Myers, II, John C. Myers, Jr. ’42, and Everett M. Myers in memory of John C. Meyers, Sr., 1957.8 BOTTOM ROW FROM LEFT Amer Kobaslija, (Bosnian American, b. 1975), Red Tide, 2019 Oil on aluminum 84 x 60 in., Gift of the Artist, In memory of Mirsad Kobaslija. 2021.2 © Amer Kobaslija Greek (Thessaly), Horse on Two Openwork Spheres ,Eighth century B.C., Bronze, The Sol Rabin Collection Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899 – 1991), Cabeza, 1977, Mixografía on paper, 12 5/8 x 16 ½ in., The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College, Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2020.1.7 © 2021 Rufino Tamayo/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

FREE ADMISSION ROLLINS.EDU/RMA

— Flor idians, far e, f inds —

WADING IN — The Spread —

C ocktails t o ge t you out of t he bunke r

— MADE IN FLA —

Ma gical Mi am i t abl e s e t t i ngs

— the studio —

Th is p h otographe r has an eye for Hol lywood.

— Fledglings —

Three hipp ies put t i ng a s unny s pi n on f unk

— Just Hatched —

N ew spots to s i p, s hop and s t ay t hi s s pri ng

— grove stand —

CARILLON MIAMI WELLNESS RESORT

E a tin g right change d t hi s che f ’s l i f e .

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ADVERTORIAL

For the traveler who can’t quite make up their mind, Paradise Coast offers an experience that can be upscale, untamed and unbelievable.

A PIECE OF PARADISE

I

t’s hard to imagine a place equal parts glamour and grit, with a landscape as rugged as an alligator’s back, a history as deep as the Gulf of Mexico and a city as polished as a diamond. But on the lower half of Florida’s Gulf Coast lies a slice of Sunshine State life at its most authentic, and for those who know, it’s pure paradise.

Naples, Marco Island and the Everglades, affectionately known as Paradise Coast, are home to some of the state’s most diverse travel experiences from 30 miles of whitesand beach to an untamed wilderness teeming with wildlife and ecotourism adventures to world-class shopping, dining and resorts all set to a glittering backdrop steeped in Old Florida charm.

WILD THINGS Perhaps the most iconic habitat in Paradise Coast is Everglades National Park. The River of Grass, as it was named by environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, is a Florida pilgrimage of sorts. Wildlife enthusiasts of all ages visit to hike through cypress swamps and enjoy air boat rides along the wide sawgrass-lined waterways in the hopes of catching a glimpse of alligators rolling or roseate spoonbills coming in for a landing.

Don’t forget to look up when visiting Marco Island and the Ten Thousand Islands Wildlife Refuge, as shell hunters may spend hours strolling the shoreline to collect treasures like Atlantic calico scallops or Florida fighting conchs washed up by Gulf Coast storms. Aside from shelling, the area’s mangrove-filled preserves, estuaries and beaches offer some of the state’s best fishing and wildlife watching with snook and tarpon dancing in the waters and herons and sea turtles nesting on land.

On Marco Island’s Tigertail Beach, sunset chasers post up along the boomerang-shaped slice of shore until the moon slowly emerges. Further north, Clam Pass is one of Naples’ most beautiful beaches with a thicket of red, white and black saltwater mangroves surrounding the park.

H ISTO R I C A L THINGS Maybe Paradise Coast remains so special because the area’s past is as intertwined with its present as the patterns on a

scotch bonnet shell. Right now, history and art buffs alike will appreciate an exhibition at the Marco Island Historical Museum featuring the ancient Key Marco Cat, considered one of the best examples of Pre-Columbian Native American art ever unearthed in North America.

Calusa Indians carved the 6-inch-tall feline statue from hardwood some 1,000 years ago, and anthropologists found it perfectly preserved more than a century ago in an airtight layer of mud.

Just down the road, Everglades City is home to a different kind of icon. The Old Florida enclave is known as the stone crab capital of the world with its classic waterfront seafood houses, where the state’s signature claws are pulled up from the surrounding waters. Dig into more of the town’s history at the Museum of the Everglades, a funky pink structure showcasing millionaire entrepreneur Barron Collier’s vision for turning the remote outpost into a sportsman’s paradise.

For another storied outing, stroll Naples Pier, constructed from Brazilian ipe wood, which keeps it cool in summer months.

The rustic seawalk stands in its original location and has become a favorite gathering spot for fishermen hoping to score grouper and visitors just enjoying the Gulf views.

FINER THINGS After a day spent wandering the city or the Everglades, retreat to the area’s signature luxury resorts. At the J.W. Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort, curl up with a book under one of their thatched beach huts or indulge at the gastro-pub and gaming emporium. The nearby Hilton Marco Island Beach Resort and Spa doesn’t disappoint when it comes to luxe treatments, creative cocktails and pleasant places to park yourself for a day of relaxation.

Naples is the only city in the world with two Ritz Carlton resorts, one set among rolling fairways and the other overlooking a pristine shoreline. On Naples’ Fifth Avenue find a corridor of independent boutiques, high-end retailers, international art galleries and local artisans. A bevy of acclaimed restaurants compete for diners’ palates with standouts like Bar Tulia with modern Italian fare and HobNob Kitchen and Bar serving a classic American menu. For an unforgettable sundowner, head to the beach and grab a black cherry paloma at the Turtle Club at the Vanderbilt Resort as the sky fades to pink.

Whether it’s the finer things, the wilder things, the From top: Marco historical things (or all the things) that move you, a trip Island’s Tigertail Beach; World-class shopping to Naples, Marco Island and the Everglades is something on Naples’ Fifth Avenue; you’ll never forget.

End each day with a Gulf-Coast sunset.

To learn more visit paradisecoast.com

It’s like your best college memories.

When you think back, college was probably pretty great. Discovering new things, enjoying friendships, and having a whole lot of fun. It probably included being outdoors, a few refreshments, and some music. Let us welcome you to the post-graduate program.

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

By St e v e D o l l a r • P h o t og ra p hy by L i bby Vo l g y es

Another ROUND Golf is one of the Sunshine State’s most iconic pastimes, and with it comes a long (and splashy) tradition of cocktails. Tee-up these three course-inspired refreshers at your next gathering.

This page: Snag the recipe for

this Pink Flamingo cocktail from Streamsong Resort on Flamingomag.com.

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

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ven as a kid, I understood the intimate relationship between golf and alcohol. My father was an avid golfer, and his weekend visits to the local country club often stretched beyond the links to the storied “19th hole.” That would be the clubhouse, where my dad and his middle-aged cronies would retire after their round, a fashion nightmare in their houndstooth polyester slacks and neon-bright Penguin shirts, now sodden with sweat and stray bits of turf, and settle their bets. Somehow, the scores couldn’t be tallied without a few drinks. As the whiskey or gin flowed, someone might break out a pack of cards, maybe a few cigars—for this was the 1970s—and it became apparent that golf was maybe an excuse, an alibi if you will, for all the rest.

Funny, then, that the most famous cocktail associated with

Sawgrass Splash makes 1 cocktail 1 1/2 ounces Tito’s Handmade Vodka 2 ounces lemonade 2 ounces orange juice Squeeze of lime juice PREPARATION: In a Collins glass, combine all ingredients over ice, and then stir.

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the game, in its six centuries of existence, is barely a cocktail at all: the Arnold Palmer. Its namesake, the greatest player of his era who wasn’t Jack Nicklaus, became synonymous with the beverage— three parts unsweetened tea to one part lemonade—in the late 1960s.

Decades later, the often-troubled golf champion John Daly saw his own name appended to his hijacked version of the Arnold Palmer. The “John Daly” pays homage to the golfer’s habit of spiking the Arnold Palmer with vodka and was first popularized under Daly’s name at the Whiskey Creek Country Club in Fort Myers in 2005. Eventually, Daly would market multiple variations of the recipe—years ahead of today’s craze for alcoholinfused sodas and seltzers.

The names on the leaderboards have changed, but mixology is still very much the game when thirsty swingers step off the 18th green. Floridians never have to look far to find a course, and some of the most celebrated clubs have their own signature concoctions.

Among the most legendary is the Sawgrass Splash. This twist on the classic screwdriver is a hallmark of the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, home of the PGA’s The Players Championship. Its name is inspired by a notorious 1982 incident, when

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Left: The Sawgrass Splash

is a refreshing vodka-based beverage made famous at TPC Sawgrass.

This page: Goslings Dark ‘N Stormy is the signature drink of The Honda Classic.

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tournament champ Jerry Pate pushed Pete Dye—who designed the fiercely challenging course with his wife, Alice—and Deane Beman, the tour commissioner, into the lake that doubled as a water hazard on the 18th hole. The “splash” marked a memorable end to the new course’s first Players, and was immortalized in the Sawgrass Splash, which four decades on abides as the go-to cocktail for the intrepid golfers who have braved Dye’s Stadium Course.

As befits the coastal ambience, it’s a vodka-based, tall-glass cocktail, made with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, which just happens to be “the official vodka of the PGA tour.” Equal portions orange juice and lemonade balance a jigger of booze with sweet and tart, with a squeeze of lime for an extra citrus kick. “It’s pretty much your easydrinking not-much-to-it drink that’s delicious that people love,” says Doug Baumann, director of food and beverage at TPC. “It’s about a balance of flavors. [Cocktails] that do well on courses are refreshing drinks that can cleanse your palate after a round of golf.” Surprisingly, the Sawgrass Splash isn’t even on the cocktail menu at Nineteen, the clubhouse restaurant that overlooks the 18th hole. It doesn’t need to be.

“It’s so popular, everyone knows about it,” Baumann says. “We make ‘em every day.”

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WADING IN :MADE IN FLA B y Ma d dy Z o l l o R u sb o si n

TURNING TABLES Meet the design duo raising the bar on luxury living.

This page: Michou

MARY BETH KOETH

Mahtani, left, and Thomas Fuchs, right, relax inside their Miami apartment.

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WADING IN :MADE IN FLA

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Above: The 1/2 and 1/2 collection’s new colorways are inspired by the Sunshine State. Below: The green and

blue melamine bowl from the 1/2 and 1/2 collection

include Tom Criswell and the late Chuck Close.

“Fifteen years ago, I met Thomas on Match.

“What we do is set the table with our com,” Mahtani says. At the time, he was collection, matching their art of the evening, working as the global brand director at Rémy and then Thomas makes a Martin for Louis XIII. Before whole meal influenced by their they met, Fuchs studied fine art,” he says. arts at The George Washington THOMAS FUCHS While the Tavolo series is just University’s Corcoran School of CREATIVE one piece of the Thomas Fuchs the Arts & Design and was the Creative whole, it’s a telling design director for Donghia, FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM example of how collaboration a renowned luxury design @thomas.fuchs.homegoods and innovation are at the heart company.

SHOP DINNERWARE, BARWARE, GLASS LIGHTING AND of the company. Their emphasis As the men’s relationship MURANO HAND-BLOWN GLASSES on partnerships, whether it’s progressed, Mahtani was in their suppliers across the globe, awe of Fuchs’ keen eye for thomasfuchscreative.com or the people they surround craftsmanship, so when the themselves with, only makes economy crashed in the midsense since the brand was aughts, Mahtani suggested they brought to life after the co-founders’ own start a company together. Soon after, Thomas personal relationship blossomed.

Fuchs Creative was born.

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THOMAS FUCHS CREATIVE

hose who know Thomas Fuchs and Michou Mahtani know that a dinner invite from these two fabulous entrepreneurs is rarely run-ofthe-mill. One December night in 2018, guests at the pair’s Miami apartment were met with a floating—yes, floating—dinner table (thanks to a little industrial-strength chicken-wire magic). It was impeccably set with the couple’s melamine collection from their luxury home accessories brand, Thomas Fuchs Creative. The reason behind this gravity-defying soiree? It was their inaugural “Tavolo” gathering, a quarterly fine-arts dinner that Fuchs and Mahtani conceptualized to bring South Florida creatives together. This particular night honored Brazilian sculptor Frida Baranek, who had recently returned from a “zerogravity” flight excursion.

“When we moved to Miami, I was like, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to meet people?’” Mahtani says about Tavolo’s origins. “I decided we needed to promote Floridians and Florida so I created a dinner series where we highlight artists.”

Each dinner is dedicated to a different local maker, and Mahtani and Fuchs let the artist transform their home to match his or her vision for the night. Past artists of honor

“Think about meeting somebody online, especially way back then when online dating was just first happening, and then all of a sudden you’re starting a company with somebody you met online,” Mahtani says. “It’s a cool story, but the reality is, how often does that really happen?”

With Fuchs taking the reins creatively and Mahtani helming press, communications and marketing, they launched their first collection—one focused on high-end barware.

“Our first vendor was Barneys New York,” Mahtani says. “They sold out of the collection eight —M I C H O U times before it even got to the floor.” Beyond the pieces’ striking aesthetics— including a champagne bucket carved from a solid piece of marble—a major part of the appeal is the attainable price points. “We’re bringing that genre previously only attainable to the trade [industry]—meaning to designers and architects—now everybody can access that price point,” Mahtani adds.

This was partly thanks to their handson approach in choosing the right production partners.

Mahtani, who is Indian and Lebanese, reached out to contacts he had in India to ensure they worked with factories that deliver quality, yet ecofriendly products. The duo also sought out

top-notch creators all over the world in Africa, Italy, Egypt, France and beyond. The couple, who married in 2013, used to split their time between Manhattan and Miami, but in 2018, they decided to permanently fly South, fully leaning into the Floridian lifestyle. Beyond turning their apartment into a chic ode to the Sunshine State by reupholstering all their furniture with palms, painting walls flamingo pink and incorporating M A H TA N I orange trees into their bedroom, their shift to a sunnier state of mind was also apparent in their work.

When Mahtani and Fuchs moved to Florida full time, they started designing their ½ and ½ collection based off the colors of Miami and Florida. “It has a double entendre because not only is it called ½ and ½ because half of one plate is one color and the other half is another, but we’re also half Floridian, half New Yorkers,” Mahtani says.

Additionally, these bright, two-toned trays, bowls, plates and cups are all made of biodegradable melamine.

“Our [melamine] is actually mixed into the resin—the color—so that’s why it has organic shapes, and it will never wear off,” Mahtani explains. “Plus, it has the weight of an actual ceramic plate.” The melamine’s popularity (and practicality) for alfresco dining naturally lends itself to a coastal lifestyle, and the latest additions to the line include wine glasses, cups and pitchers—aka the ideal accessories for pool-party season. These new color waves even have Florida-inspired names like Miami Spice,

Our first vendor was Barneys New York. They sold out of the collection eight times before it even got to the floor.

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Key West Blues, Sarasota Summer and Naples Nice. Other state-inspired products include napkins adorned with brightly colored Florida bugs.

“Now that we’re Floridians, what we make is influenced by where we are,” Mahtani says.

Fuchs is also the creator of Otium, a Murano glass lighting company offering chandeliers, lamps and vases; and Foxware, a line of hand-blown and hand-carved drinking glasses.

While there are design couples all over the world, Mahtani and Fuchs’ goods shine because they’re unapologetic.

“A lot of people get so carried away with trying to be somebody, whereas we’re just who we are,” Mahtani says. “We love entertaining. We love what we do. We’re in constant gratitude of everything—now more so than ever.

Left: A blue and We wake up every navy cup from the 1/2 and 1/2 collection morning, and we’re Above: A Thomas like, ‘Is this even Fuchs Creative real? How lucky orange and navy melamine bowl are we?’”

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Sip on Florida Memories in historic St. Augustine! Enjoy samples of City Gate Spirits’ whiskey, moonshine, rum and vodka in their tasting room, located directly across from the Castillo de San Marcos. Voted Best New Craft Distillery 2021 by USA Today!

Capture the Spirit of Florida®. Enjoy complimentary tastings of Florida’s most awarded craft spirits at St. Augustine Distillery! Learn how they craft bourbon, rum, vodka and gin from farm to bottle on a free, interactive self-guided tour. Don’t miss the new VIP classes and Fill Your Own Bourbon Bottle Experience!

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WADING IN :THE STUDIO FLORIDA ARTIST PROFILES

By St e v e D o l l a r • P h o t og ra p hy by M i ch a el S ch w a rt z

SHOOTING Stars South Florida native Michael Schwartz on photographing the world’s most recognizable names

Above: Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things for GQ; Samuel L. Jackson for Vogue Man Arabia Below: Michael Schwartz

M

ichael Schwartz moved to New York City two decades ago like most aspiring creatives: still looking for the inspiration that would propel him toward his life’s work. What he found, after multiple professional pivots, is a career as one of the most sought-after celebrity and fashion photographers in the business. The Dade County native began his creative exploits as an agent for some of New York’s top fashion models and then started photographing them. Nowadays, his images grace the covers of glossy magazines like GQ, Men’s Journal, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, in addition to his work for corporate clients like Netflix and ViacomCBS. The who’s who of stars that have posed for

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his camera is more like a who hasn’t? Whether they’re legends like Willem Dafoe and Richard Gere or showbiz kids like Millie Bobby Brown and Julia Garner, Schwartz gives his subjects room to be the naturals they are, while framing them with a precise touch of class.

We caught up with Schwartz over Zoom amid one of his frequent work excursions to the Left Coast. He talked about his inspirations, his favorite photographic subjects and why he still calls Florida home.

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WADING IN :THE STUDIO FLORIDA ARTIST PROFILES

the time in Miami. I was peripherally aware of the fact that there was some crazy shit going on down there, but not really understanding it so much. It’s funny looking back now. Seeing Billy Corben’s [Miami drug documentary] Cocaine Cowboys, it’s shocking to see that the mall I grew up going to as a kid was where a big shootout was.

WHICH PHOTOGRAPHERS’ WORK INSPIRED YOU THE MOST?

MS: When I was starting out as a model agent and really absorbing photography, the guys I loved were David Sims, Vanessa Vinoodh, Steven Meisel—those were the big fashion people—but I also really was drawn more to the classic portrait-type photographers like Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz, Man Ray, that shaped the whole thing. I don’t really even pay much attention to what’s going on out there currently, because there’s just so much of it.

YOU’RE IN A VERY COMPETITIVE FIELD. THE UBIQUITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA MUST MAKE IT EVEN WORSE. HOW DOES THAT IMPACT YOUR WORK? MS: Instagram has changed a lot of the ways that clients even want photography done.

They want stuff that’s easily digestible … that almost seems like your friend could have taken the picture, so when it shows up in your feed, it doesn’t feel manufactured; it feels very authentic. You see a move toward these lower-production-value shoots right now, which are also great and beautiful, but it’s not really what I do.

WHO ARE SOME STARS YOU’VE REALLY CONNECTED WITH?

Above: Paul Bettany for GQ Right: Andie MacDowell for Vogue Greece

WHAT WAS IT LIKE GROWING UP IN SOUTH FLORIDA DURING THE “COCAINE COWBOY” ERA? MS: When we had parties in high school in Miami, no cops would come and break it up, because they were so busy with other

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stuff. So we could really have good house parties and hangout. It was weird. My father was a criminal defense attorney during that time, so he was representing a couple of those big-name criminals at

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MS: One of my favorites to work with is Daniel Radcliffe. I actually shot with him yesterday out here in L.A. We were doing key art for his new movie, so he was in character, which was a lot of fun. He’s just the most down-to-earth, nice guy. You would never know that he’s been famous his whole life. Samuel L. Jackson is one of my favorites. I’ve shot him a handful of times. I was super intimidated coming into that because Pulp Fiction was the movie that shaped me, because I was in high school when it came out. He’s a big imposing guy with a big presence. But once he gave me that big handshake and a hug, it was like, “Oh man, this guy, he’s great.”

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR APPROACH TO A SHOOT?

MS: I’m known to shoot very fast. I go into it not really trying to micromanage peoples’ movements. I see my job as documenting a moment, albeit a slightly manufactured

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moment. I’m putting them in a scenario, and then I’m trying to capture what they give me.

ANYTHING IN POPULAR CULTURE THAT’S SPARKING YOUR IMAGINATION RIGHT NOW?

MS: I hate to be cliche, but I just finished Euphoria, and it was breathtaking. Every shot in that show felt like it could be a perfect photo. I love movies like that, that feel like a photo that happens to be moving. I also loved The Florida Project, and I just saw Red Rocket by the same director. People think of Florida as this beautiful, heavenly place to go visit, and they don’t realize there’s a lot of terrible shit going on.

There’s a lot of under-the-ground stuff that people don’t see. That movie really encapsulated it well.

SPEAKING OF FLORIDA, WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT YOUR DOWNTIME IN FORT LAUDERDALE?

MS: My wife and I just bought a house, so we’ve been doing a lot of work on the house. We’re homebodies. My wife is an artist, so she works from home painting all the time. I like just hanging out with my dog. I see Florida as a place to go and relax and take a deep breath before my next trip. My job is so social. When I’m on set … everyone’s friendly, and you’re listening to loud music all day and talking and hanging out. So when you leave, it’s not like you want to go out to a bar.

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WADING IN:FLEDGLINGS FLO RIDA MUSICIANS ON THE R ISE B y Jessica Giles

Magic City Mania Meet the hottest hippies on the indie music scene.

I

f you can’t tell from their slickedback hair, penchant for sunglasses and floral button-ups undone to their navels, the Magic City Hippies are the cool kids. On this Sunday afternoon, just a few hours before the Super Bowl kicks off, Robby Hunter and John Coughlin join our Zoom interview in matching black shirts and—you guessed it—sunglasses.

Behind the tinted frames, their faces break into disarming smiles, oozing the same charm that’s earned them adoring fans in every city across the nation and a place on Spotify’s top 10 debut albums in the U.S. in January for their new record, Water Your Garden. Drummer and producer Pat Howard joins the call minutes later.

He’s hustling through the streets of L.A., gushing about the trio’s musical process and their whirlwind tour. “It was the first time John crowd surfed,” Hunter says with pride. “Yeah, all 2,000 hands touched your butt,” Howard teases. On the surface, the trio may seem like the standard of effortless stardom, cool without even trying, but their endless ribbing on one another ensures no one in the band gets a big head.

As the alternative, pop-funk group finished up the final leg of their U.S. tour, we talked about their unpretentious roots, the eclectic mix of Miami music and their practice of trusting their guts.

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From left: Pat Howard,

Robby Hunter and John Coughlin of the Magic City Hippies

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Hot Sands. Cold Suds.

HOW DID YOU ALL START PLAYING MUSIC TOGETHER?

Robby Hunter: I used to play music on the street in the Coconut Grove area. I would climb an awning and stick an extension cord in and just busk on the street, until I got moved to this bar called the Barracuda Bar. John Coughlin: The police came and said, “You need to get off the sidewalk and go play a gig or something.”

RH: It was just a regular gig that we had where we’d basically play for beer on Friday nights like two to three hours cycling in musicians, and I met Pat for the first time subbing for the drummer. Everything clicked from then on, and then John came in.

JC: Me and Pat went to music school together at the University of Miami. So I guess a year after you all started playing back on the rotation, me and Pat moved in together, and there was this gig. I know you guys were going to go play duo without a bass player. It was summer, we were in college, we had nothing to do, and I was like, “Pat, I would love to come play this gig, man. You don’t have to pay me.

It would just be so much fun.” And he very graciously split the $75 with me.

HOW DOES BEING A MIAMI-BRED BAND INFLUENCE YOUR SOUND?

Pat Howard: There’s so much from all the different flavors of Caribbean and Latin music to the ’80s legacy or even just the fact that the Bee Gees set up shop there in their heyday.

There’s just a lot of good disco-funk basslines. The music school there has spat out over the years some legendary studio musicians and artists. It’s an invigorating place to try to make music and be part of the lexicon of Miami music.

WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE TO WATCH YOUR NEW ALBUM TAKE OFF?

JC: It’s really hard to get out of the criticism mode of the recorded version, but one of the best antidotes for that is starting to play the songs on the road. So when the song comes out, and you haven’t played it yet, you’re listening to the single that came out, people are liking it, and you’re still like, “Man, it’s got a little too much low end, we should probably turn that back.” Now when I hear the song, I just get the fucking electric rush of what it’s like to play live. So I think the high I’m getting is showing them the record with my hands instead of hitting play.

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SURPRISING FEEDBACK ABOUT THE ALBUM?

PH: We don’t know how to pick the winning horse, ever.

FRO ROJAS

JC: What’s funny is, maybe it’s also the Spotify algorithm, but what does well on Spotify is stuff that’s more moody.

RH: Bad news sells [laughing]. “Ghost On The Mend” is the one that’s really going right now, it seems like, and that was one that I think was a lot of our favorite. It wasn’t originally in the running in the initial discussions as being a single, but I think gut-feeling wise all of us really liked it. Maybe that should teach us that’s what matters more.

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Add Dunes Brewing to your Summer plans.

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59 Dunlawton Ave, Port Orange Under the Dunlawton Bridge, next to Jimmy Hula's 386-872-4007 | DunesBrewing.com |   M-Th 2p-9p, F-Sa 12p-10p, Sun 12p-7p

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Whether your outdoor passions favor riding waves, swimming with dolphins, riding horseback or biking trails, treat your eyes to the beauty and your heart to the excitement of Palm Coast and the Flagler Beaches.

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE B y Th e E d i t o rs

(NORTH)

Above: Cheyenne and Chawnee Gulick opened their coastal women’s boutique Chey & Chawn after developing a business plan for a class at

Jacksonville University.

CHEY & CHAWN BOUTIQUE

KELLY MARTUCCI

JACKSONVILLE BEACH

In a way, Cheyenne and Chawnee Gulick ran their own fashion boutique long before the doors of Chey & Chawn opened in early December 2021.

The trendy twins have been the community’s closet for as long as they can remember—always willing to lend out their favorite jumpsuit or summery wrap dress to a friend in need of a wardrobe refresh. Now, their boutique on Beach Boulevard will help dress all of Jacksonville Beach to the nines. From cozy smiley-face sweaters to breezy floral maxi dresses, the racks are filled with beachy, effortless styles for the everyday girl. The

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duo carefully curates clothing that inspires a sense of casual confidence in every woman. In preparation for a warm Sunshine State summer, the shop recently added swimwear to their offerings, including two Floridamade brands: Arcane Swim and Mahkia Swim. Shoppers will also be able to browse for their beau this summer when Chey & Chawn adds its new men’s collection. Since opening their doors, the Gulick gals have been overwhelmed by the encouragement and support from locals. “We always knew Jacksonville Beach had a community like no other—it’s one of the reasons we decided to make it our home—but it’s

been amazing to experience it firsthand.” instagram.com/ shopcheyandchawn

RIVER & FORT ST. AUGUSTINE

A glass of vino and a view await visitors to this buzzworthy addition to the Ancient City. The sister property to Jacksonville staple River & Post, this restaurant became a fast fan favorite among foodies. When the skies are clear, venture up to one of the two rooftops for a panorama of St. Augustine—and maybe even a glimpse of the lighthouse across the Matanzas River. From this vantage point, visitors can enjoy small bites like lobster flatbread, broiled

oysters and wood-charred wings while the sun sinks. Stay parked by the rooftop heaters once the moon rises or descend to the main floor for your main course. Regulars rave about the stuffed New York strip and fried pickle hush puppies, but don’t dare skip out on the dessert menu. The Key lime creme brulee is a tangy two-in-one you never knew you needed. riverandfort.com

SPURRIER’S GRIDIRON GRILLE GAINESVILLE

Head down to the town where the girls are the fairest and the boys are the squarest for a Heisman-worthy meal in a shrine

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (NORTH) of Gator memorabilia. Overseen by the Head Ball Coach himself, Spurrier’s is a museum, rooftop bar and all-American restaurant designed for those who bleed orange and blue. Rows of game balls encased in glass, glittering championship rings and yes, even the HBC’s 1966 Heisman Trophy will keep guests company while they dine. But just as worthy of recognition is the food coming out of the kitchen. Don’t expect subpar sports-bar food at Spurrier’s.

The tomahawk pork chop drizzled in maple-bourbon butter is a flavorful favorite on the robust menu. Pro tip: Have your dinner date order the short rib and wild mushroom risotto, then trade ‘em a bite.

The open-air rooftop bar, Visors, is the perfect place to post up for a Gator game, and it’s not uncommon to see Super Steve himself wandering these hallowed halls. You’ll often find him inside the podcast room where he broadcasts live in the restaurant or on the rooftop hosting Gator Talks with other Florida sports phenoms. spurriers.com Above: In addition to caffeine, Jitterbug Beverage Co. serves gluten-free baked goods. Below: The Lady Aphrodite, a

JITTERBUG P E N S A C O LA

The most challenging aspect of kick-starting this Panhandle coffee co. may not have been perfecting the recipes or deciding on a name, it was learning how to drive a 100-year-old car.

The idea for this specialty coffee shop was inspired by Tallulah Mae, a sky blue 1923 Ford Model TT the pair found in Denver. Co-owners Ariel Booth and Barrett Colhoun designed the Tin Lizzy as a

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roving coffee car or—if you go by the license plate—a “horseless carriage,” which in DMV terms means it’s even older than an “antique.”

While they worked on their automotive muse’s restoration, the java-preneurs started pouring campfire cold brews and cinnamon lattes at pop-ups around Pensacola, amassing a cult following while they were at it. Before Tallulah could arrive for her first day of work, Booth and Colhoun stumbled

across another cool opportunity: their very own brick-and-mortar coffee shop. Jitterbug joined the fold at The Magnolia’s new location in East Hill in December 2021, elevating the beloved neighborhood eatery’s breakfast offerings.

But don’t worry, Tallulah Mae isn’t in retirement just yet. The duo promises their peppy jalopy will be pouring joe for the streets of Pensacola soon. drinkjitterbug.com

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JIT TERBUG BE VER AGE CO.

rose and raspberry latte mixed with hibiscus-cinnamon tea at Jitterbug

VACATIONERS, START YOUR ENGINES.

Experience world-famous beaches offering 23 miles of elbow room — more than enough to enjoy biking, fishing, surfing, strolling, or just relaxing. Choose from boutique hotels to luxury resorts.

Now’s the time to plan your escape to Daytona Beach.

DaytonaBeach.com

WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (C E N T RA L ) find a nautical-themed waterfront brewery that’s as cozy as it is crafty. With eight craft beers on tap ranging from the Mrs. Bumstead blonde ale to the black lager, there’s a brew for every bias. For those who left their beer-drinking days in college, Dunes Brewing has also curated an impressive lineup of wines, ciders and champagnes. Sink into their living room-style seating or challenge your buddies to some Mandalorian pinball. And if you need a little coaxing to order that extra IPA, Dunes rewards anyone who orders three pints with a free one the following day. Nothing like a little hair of the dog to keep customers coming back. dunesbrewing.com

BACÁN

O R LA N D O

Above: The Carnival of Animals cocktail at Bacán Below: Dunes Brewing offers eight beers on tap.

DIRTY LAUNDRY ST. PETERSBURG

Pack your pockets full of quarters and head down to this seemingly standard laundromat on St. Pete’s Central Avenue.

Leave the laundry basket at home though, because this lively locale is better suited for carousing than cleaning.

Belly up to the bar across from the row of washers and dryers for one of the best cafe con leches in the city and a fresh empanada. Looking for a little more than lunch? Pick up the payphone on the wall, and you’ll learn the location of the secret speakeasy (hint: Does one of those washers look a little suspicious?). Once

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inside, revelers are immersed in a Havana-inspired hangout complete with live music, burlesque shows and kooky cocktails. The Havana mule, topped with guava nectar, comes served in a cheeky Goya can and the Cubana mami, a fan favorite, slides across the bar ablaze. Slip onto the patio to enjoy a sipper beneath the string lights or in the shade of a lounger. Visitors don’t even need to leave if they’re looking for a bite. A menu featuring everything from Cuban sandwiches to charcuterie is available to steady the stomach. Airing dirty laundry has never been more fun. dirtylaundrystpete.com

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DUNES BREWING PORT ORANGE

The seed for this coastal brewery was planted more than 25 years ago, and although it took a quarter of a century to sprout, locals say it was well worth the wait. Michael Benedict, Bobby Zitzka and Chris Thompson first floated the idea of a brewery in their hometown of Port Orange when they were peers at the University of Florida in the 1990s. But despite their Gator roots, don’t expect an ode to the orange and blue here.

Instead, hopheads will

Lake Nona Wave Hotel’s signature eatery, Bacán, brings a whole new meaning to dinner and a show. The open theater-style kitchen gives diners a sweeping view of the magic happening not-so-behindthe-scenes. Slide into the plush sapphire seating and relax while chef Guillaume Robin showcases an array of traditional Latin American cooking techniques, from rotisserie to plancha.

Then, indulge in the fruits of his

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (C E N T RA L ) performance when you order the whole truffle chicken two ways, a tender, rotisserie-roasted chicken that’s simmered in truffle butter for six hours. The menu speaks to the flavors of the Americas, but Bacán takes care to incorporate ingredients from right in their own backyard.

Cage-free chicken eggs from Lake Meadow Naturals, fresh seafood from area fishermen and Intercept wine from Lake Nona resident and former NFL player Charles Woodson are all components of this lavish Latin-yet-local experience.

Don’t fill up on the main course though, because the

grand finale consists of a chocolate sphere that melts once a decadent chocolate sauce is poured on top, made by two-time World Pastry Champion Laurent Branlard. lakenonawavehotel.com/ restaurants-lake-nona/

WINTER PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY W I N T E R PA R K

Spend the weekend with your nose in a book inside this stunning $42 million celebration of education, innovation and creativity.

Designed by Sir David Adjaye—the same architectural

mind behind the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture—the new Winter Park Library is crafted to be the community’s living room.

Sunlight streams through the multitude of windows that span the building’s modern facade, giving the space a bright and airy ambience. The library’s new digs allow for an expanded youth collection, more meeting spaces, a brand-new recording studio perfect for podcasting and a haven called “The Hideout” specifically for teenagers looking to escape with a

paperback. But this futureoriented library isn’t just for those looking to get lost in the stacks—the new building is outfitted with features that will encourage the community to gather for lectures, workshops, activities and performances.

Find a seat in the center’s new raked theater to catch an improv showcase, learn the ins and outs of Adobe Photoshop in the computer lab or button up your resume and cover letter in the business center, where staff can help job seekers land their dream roles. Are you ready to run to the library yet? winterparklibrary.org

L AKE NONA WAVE HOTEL, EV Y LOBDELL, CIT Y OF WINTER PARK COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

Below: The new Winter Park Library was designed by Sir David Adjaye.

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SAFARI WILDERNESS – Lakeland, FL

LEGOLAND® FLORIDA RESORT – Winter Haven, FL

WESTGATE RIVER RANCH RESORT – Lake Wales, FL

Where Natural Wonders Surround Thrilling Attractions.

When it comes to incredible outdoor fun that your whole family will love, Florida’s Sweetest Spot delivers—every time. Discover our attractions, activities, animals and more at VisitCentralFlorida.com—including the new Peppa Pig Theme Park located steps from LEGOLAND® Florida Resort’s front gate.

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE

(SOUTH) can kick-start their palate with a pickleback—a mixture of Jameson, pickle brine and cornichon—before moving onto the tamarindo fresca—reposado tequila, tamarind-ginger syrup and lime garnished with a Mexican tamarind candy straw.

Slide into one of their semicircle booths beneath an ornate chandelier for an evening of cocktails and conversation or find a seat at the bar to watch the pros pour. Don’t be shy if you’re unsure about what to whet your whistle with. Their servers are skilled at providing recommendations that suit your preferences. And if you find that an evening of indulgence has left you famished, the lounge’s provisions menu includes everything from oyster shooters and hamachi crudo to steak tartare and foie gras. It’s one of the few places where the atmosphere is as extraordinary as the alcohol. nomanslandftl.com

Above: El Salón serves classic and creative cocktails using its proprietary collection of spirits. Right: Bar Pintxo is

Esmé’s version of a village pub.

ESMÉ

JEN CASTRO

MIAMI BEACH

Although this glamorous hotel, and its cluster of casas, glitters like a hot new addition to the Miami Beach scene, it’s really an ode to the olden days.

Originally a Spanish village built in the 1920s as a haven for artists in search of a safe place to prosper, this bespoke boutique hotel is ready to welcome them again after a five-year renovation. “Our goal when designing Esmé with Jessica Schuster was to create a fun and playful space that incorporates historical

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elements and moments to the Mediterranean revival era,” says Jessica LaRosa, the general manager of Esmé, in an email.

“We wanted to channel the spirit of the 1920s Jazz Age icon Louise Brooks.” Gold accents, bohemian finishes and velvet green curtains draped over arched windows throughout the eight buildings that make up the village create an aura of timelessness. And if the ambiance inspires guests to indulge in a libation or two, there are five dining options to choose from, whether they’re thirsty for a tipple by the pool at

The Roof or yearning for a quiet Old-Fashioned in the subdued El Salón after dinner. esmehotel.com

NO MAN’S LAND

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

The yellow neon sign boasting “a refuge from the ordinary” is the only clue that this secluded speakeasy is even open for business, but the tinted windows keep this secret gem just that: secret. No Man’s Land is designed for the high-brow bacchanalians. With a thorough and thoughtful selection of handcrafted cocktails, guests

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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (SOUTH)

Above: Even the tiles on the walls of Orno are wood-fired, just like the signature dishes on the menu. Below: Chef Niven Patel in The Library at Orno

CORAL GABLES

It’s generally accepted knowledge that anything Chef Niven Patel touches turns to gold. And by gold, we mean a wildly popular eatery that’s both daring and universally delightful. His latest venture, tucked inside the Thesis Hotel, is detail-driven. Patel has his hand in every facet of the food at Orno, from planting to plating. Many of the ingredients are sourced from Rancho Patel, the chef’s very own farm in Homestead. Since Patel relies heavily on high-quality ingredients, the menu changes seasonally, but if okra is on offer, be sure to order it. He grows it himself with seeds he brought back from India.

Top-notch ingredients are only

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elevated by Orno’s emphasis on wood-fired cooking, drawing out flavors and imparting a subtle smokiness. But while the concept is true farm-to-table, the atmosphere is anything but rustic. Gold geometric light fixtures illuminate a sophisticated space brimming with greenery that serves as an elegant backdrop for a date night or celebratory meal. But we’d recommend swinging by this one-of-a-kind kitchen even if it isn’t a special occasion.

The food alone is worth celebrating. thesishotelmiami. com/taste/orno

THE KATHERINE

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

Chef Timon Balloo has only ever known how to be his authentic self. His eponymous

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restaurant was beloved for the Trinidadian-Indian-Chinese dishes it served, inspired by the chef’s heritage. And once again, Balloo puts his heart on the plate in his latest venture, The Katherine. In a way, this outpost is even more vulnerable than Balloo’s first, as it’s a manifestation of his love story.

Balloo created The Katherine in tandem with his wife, Marissa, and their romance is woven in every carefully chosen dish and piece of decor. The menu is a compilation of meals the couple fell in love with and over throughout the years, from slow-braised duck orecchiette to clam chowder fries—which one patron requested in a “bathtub size portion.” With a low-lit, cozy interior, this global tapas spot feels like you’ve

wandered into someone’s home—if that someone just happened to be a James Beard Award semifinalist. thekatherinerestaurant.com

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CHRISTIAN SANTIAGO PHOTOGR APHY

ORNO

Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida (LRRoF) is a statewide, all volunteer charity dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, and placing Labrador Retrievers in loving, permanent homes. Our mission is made possible by dedicated volunteers, foster homes, partners, and donors.

Please consider adopting one of the many lovable dogs in foster care, using your skills or interests to volunteer, or making a contribution towards the medical care needed to prepare each lab for his or her new home.

Because LRRoF does not have a shelter or central facility, we are always in need of fosters. The number of foster homes available directly impacts the number of labs that can be saved by our organization.

Please visit our website for more information.

www.L RRo F.or g

Duke, Adopted March 2018

ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS B y E ri c B a rt o n

Flawless Fuel Carly Paige learned how to eat right and feel good, and now she’s helping others do it too.

This page: Carly Paige created FitLiving Eats to teach people that food has the power to heal.

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@T HEFLA M INGOMAG

C

FITLIVING EATS

arly Paige’s dad was dropping her off at school one day when she was about 12 years old when he said something that she’ll never forget. “I really hope one day that you realize you don’t have to wear so much makeup,” he said.

Looking back on it now as a 32-year-old, Paige knows what her father meant: She didn’t need to put on so much cover-up. She’s naturally beautiful. It was simply a dad trying to be supportive of his teenager.

During her middle school years, acne hit Paige hard. As a student at the tiny Orangewood Christian School in Maitland, Florida, Paige felt like it was hard to hide herself from the world. She spent her days covering her face with her hair and leaning on her palm in class. She tried antibiotics, creams and chemical peels. The worst of it involved two monthslong treatments with Accutane, a powerful drug used to treat severe acne, which wreaked havoc on her body. “I literally tried everything under the sun,” Paige said.

After graduating from Palm Beach Atlantic

Above: Carly Paige’s Simply Swapped Everyday cookbook features 75 simple plant-based recipes.

Right: Green Goddess Power Bowl

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University, Paige worked as a digital media manager but soon wanted something different from her life. She took jobs at a fitness studio and a juice bar. For the first time, Paige began focusing on the quality of the food she ate, and her skin reaped the benefits. Not only did her complexion clear, but she felt better than she ever had before. It was then that she adopted the mantra: “Food has the power to heal.”

Inspired by her own life transformation, Paige built a healthy eating brand called FitLiving Eats, which features events, a popular cookbook and a prospering personal chef service in Winter Park. The message through it all is simple: Eating well leads to feeling better.

Growing up in the Altamonte Springs/ Maitland area of Orlando, Paige said she had a very different concept of eating healthy.

She always thought that if food was cooked at home, it had to be good for you. “As long as my mom got dinner on the table, that was healthy,” she said. If a package had the words “low fat” or “low carb” on them, she figured that was good for you, too. She remembers sitting on the kitchen counter watching and helping her grandmother make pancakes and chocolate chip cookies and lending her mom a hand with homemade pizzas and confetti pasta with meat and red sauce. In high school, she’d cook with friends, and in college, while her roommates survived on quick meals, Paige served up complicated dishes like butternut squash risotto.

While working at the juice bar and fitness studio in Winter Park, Paige enrolled in a health coach program. She learned about the benefits of fresh fruits and veggies, whole foods and whole grains, good carbs and fats and nutrient-dense foods. “I had people coming into the juice bar and commenting, ‘Wow, your skin looks so good.

It’s so clear. It’s so bright,’” Paige said. “My eyes

Green Goddess Power Bowl S e rv e s 2

POWER BOWL 3 cups baby kale 2 tablespoons avocado oil 1 cup broccoli florets 1 cup brussels sprouts, cut in half 1 cup garbanzo beans 1 lemon, cut into wedges 1/2

cup microgreens

1/4

cup hemp seeds

1/2

avocado, sliced

Salt and pepper, to taste PREPARATION: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Add the broccoli, brussels sprouts and garbanzo beans to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with avocado oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Add the lemon wedges and roast for about 20 minutes.

LEMON TAHINI SAUCE 1/4

cup tahini

1/4

cup filtered water

1 garlic clove 1 lemon, zested and juiced 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 1/2

teaspoon salt

PREPARATION: Place all of the ingredients in a bowl, and whisk to combine. To assemble, divide the baby kale between two bowls. Top with the roasted veggies, garbanzo beans, microgreens, hemp seeds, avocado slices, and then drizzle with lemon tahini dressing and a squeeze of roasted lemon.

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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS

Above from left: Carly Paige’s ultimate superfood detox mason jar salad; sweet potato double chocolate brownies; Moroccan-spiced quinoa cauliflower burgers

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Moroccan-Spiced Quinoa Cauliflower Burgers Makes 6 burgers 3 tablespoons olive oil 1/2

medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced 2 cups cauliflower florets, finely chopped 1 cup garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained 1 cup cooked quinoa 1/3

cup walnuts, chopped

2 tablespoons cumin 1 teaspoon salt Freshly cracked black pepper 1/2

cup almond meal

2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons ground flaxseed + 5 tablespoons water) 1/4

cup tahini

1/4

cup fresh parsley, chopped

PREPARATION: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To make the flax eggs, combine the flaxseed and water in a bowl and set aside until gummy, about five minutes.

In a saute pan, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Saute onion until translucent, about four minutes. Add the cauliflower and garlic, saute until the cauliflower is tender, about eight minutes. Add the garbanzo beans, quinoa, walnuts and spices; saute until warmed through, just a few minutes.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor, and pulse until crumbly.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl, and add the almond meal, flax eggs, tahini and parsley, mixing until all ingredients are well incorporated. Using a measuring cup scoop up the mixture, and shape into six even burger patties using wet hands to prevent sticking. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes to firm up.

Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through. Serve with toppings of choice.

FITLIVING EATS

were really open to getting back to the basics, getting back to unprocessed plant-based foods.”

She began cooking more vegetarian and vegetable-forward dishes, something that still defines her cooking today. With the ingredients from the juice bar, she amped up the health factor of her meals by adding things like nutritional yeast, replacing dairy with cashew cream and swapping traditional sweeteners for coconut sugar instead. “It’s about knowing these substitutions that you can cook with that change the value of what you’re putting in your body.” Feeling and looking better helped Paige shed the insecurities that had tortured her since her old acne days. She realized how many of her decisions—like the boy she dated in high school with a propensity for stealing—were made simply to fit in, to feel valued.

Hoping to expose other people to what she had learned, Paige started FitLiving Eats six years ago as a health coach program that would teach people how to eat better. She held cooking classes, posted recipes on social media and published a plant-based cookbook, Simply Swapped Everyday, which emphasizes

Toppings of choice: hummus, lettuce, tomato, red onion, microgreens

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@T HEFLA M INGOMAG

Sweet Potato Double Chocolate Brownies (Gluten-Free, Vegan) Makes 12 brownies cup cooked sweet potato, skin removed

3/4

1/2

cup almond butter

1/2

cup maple syrup

1/4

cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed, to make 1 flax egg (combine with 3 tablespoons water) 1/2

cup cacao powder

3/4

cup almond flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4

teaspoon salt

1/2

cup dairy-free chocolate chips

1/3

cup chopped walnuts

PREPARATION: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add the sweet potatoes, almond butter, maple syrup, almond milk and flax egg to a large mixing bowl, and mix until smooth. Add the cacao powder, almond flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and salt, and mix until well-combined. Fold in the mini chocolate chips. The batter will be thick. Spoon the batter into a baking pan that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Just before baking, sprinkle extra chocolate chips and chopped walnuts on top, if desired.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until cooked through. The brownies will firm up as they cool, so be careful not to over-bake them as this will result in dryness.

This page:

A Mediterranean mezze platter featuring veggie dippers, tzatziki and fiber-rich crackers

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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS

the benefits of swapping in better-for-you ingredients that increase the nutritional value of a dish. But she realized most people wanted quick fixes, and they were constantly asking if she’d just cook the food for them. Paige resisted at first, fearing a lack of experience would lead her to fail. She gave in three years ago and pivoted her business to include a personal chef service, where she and her team cook healthy meals in clients’ homes.

The pandemic forced Paige to shift again, since going inside people’s homes was suddenly not an option. She opened a ghost kitchen in Winter Park, preparing meals for pick up or delivery. Her mom, always a partner in her kitchen, came to help, and together they perfected

Even now, I’m still working on not defining myself by imperfections.

means the team makes “anything and everything,” including chicken parmesan, zucchini stuffed lasagna boats, black bean and spinach enchiladas, energy bites and healthy chocolate chip cookies for the kids.

It’s clear Paige isn’t the only one craving a cleaner diet. She has a waitlist for new clients and is figuring out how to scale up, perhaps by expanding to multiple locations. “It’s grown beyond my wildest dreams,” she said. “It’s not something I thought I wanted, but now that I have it, I couldn’t imagine being without it.”

Despite her success in business and in improving her own health, Paige is open about still battling her insecurities and selfdoubt. “Even now,” she said, “I’m still working on not defining myself by imperfections.”

FITLIVING EATS — LOCATION — WINTER PARK — CHEF SERVICES — PRIVATE CHEF, COOKING CLASSES, BOUTIQUE CATERING, CORPORATE WELLNESS — FOLLOW — @FITLIVINGEATSWP fitlivingeats.com

Below: Asian quinoa power bowl from FitLiving Eats

-Carly Paige

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FITLIVING EATS

the recipes that are among Paige’s most popular: tomato basil soup, sweet potato double chocolate brownie muffins and black bean spinach enchiladas. Taking the lessons she learned from her juice-bar days, Paige incorporates ingredients that are easily hidden in flavorful recipes, like the brownies which feature sweet potatoes that you can’t taste but boost the nutrition factor of the treat.

A team of six now works out of the kitchen, prepping meals for an average of 25 clients per week. Unlike many mealprep services, FitLiving Eats is entirely custom, with each client’s meals catered to their tastes and dietary restrictions. This

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It’s never too early to start a family tradition.

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[ — Unf ilter ed Fodder —

Capital Dame B y D i a n e R o b ert s

Above: Doris Underwood smiles after being crowned queen of the May Day party in 1947; The May Day party in 1958

Queen for a Day cally lethal as the Trojan War would result from the outcome, I expect there was a lot of drama and some pointed (yet genteel) attempts to dent the popularity of one or the other. There was no actual killing. Linda Gormley, the 1957 Florida-Georgia Junior Olympic diving champion, member of the student council and the Melodears (Leon High’s all-girl choir) as well as a cheerleader, ended up with the same number of votes as Faye Dunaway, a member of Civinettes, the Pierian National Honor Society, the Thespians and also a cheerleader. The runoff election to decide who would sit enthroned under the May Oak on May Day made the local

newspaper, which sized up the competitors: “Miss Dunaway stands 5 feet, 7 inches tall and has brown hair and hazel eyes,” while “Miss Gormley is 5 feet, 6-and-a-half inches tall, has green eyes and blond hair.” On the second ballot, Linda Gormley edged out Faye Dunaway to become Tallahassee’s 123rd May Queen. She went on to enroll at Florida State University, pledge Kappa Alpha Theta and marry a lawyer named Curtis Genders. Faye Dunaway went on to enroll at Florida State University, pledge Pi Beta Phi and star in Bonnie and Clyde.

The May Queen was no ordinary pageant winner, not like your Cotton Queens or your

[

It was 1958, the year The Everly Brothers topped the charts with “All I have to Do is Dream,” the year cops in Montgomery, Alabama, arrested Martin Luther King Jr. for “loitering,” the year the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped an atomic bomb over Mars Bluff, South Carolina, and the year there was a tie in the Tallahassee May Queen election. It was a bit like the contest between Aphrodite, Athena and Hera to decide which goddess was the most beautiful. There were only two Leon High School goddesses vying for the coveted title of May Queen, and, while nothing as drasti-

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STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA

The Tallahassee May Day party doesn’t quite stand up to the test of time.

Peanut Queens or your Watermelon Queens, obligated to ride on parade floats in rhinestone tiaras and sashes, open new Ford dealerships and hand out prizes at the county fair. There was no formal competition, no swimsuit round, no demonstration of flute-playing or baton-twirling. The top vote-getter, as chosen by the student body of Tallahassee’s all-white high school, won the title, while a dozen or so runners-up became the queen’s court. The May Queen did not advertise anything or raise money for charity. She just existed for one day in May wearing a white crinoline, sitting on a white fan-back chair under a huge live oak tree, flanked by boys in white dinner jackets and girls in petal-colored hoopskirts. For almost 140 years, she occupied a near-mythic place in the local mind. She may not always have been born into one of North Florida’s “old families” (though she often was), but social doors opened for her anyway; the ladies of the Tallahassee Garden Club, the Junior League of Tallahassee, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy celebrated her as the embodiment of “Southern femininity.” Of course, they meant white femininity.

We called the May Party “Florida’s oldest festival,” either not realizing or not caring that for more than a millennium, the Seminoles, the Mikasuki and, before them, the Apalachee had marked occasions like the Green Corn Ceremony with feasting and dancing. In 1833, when the first May Party was held, Florida had been a U.S. territory for a mere 12 years. Still, the May Party wreathed itself in the pink mists of romantic antiquity, as if its line reached all the way back to Camelot. The Floridian newspaper reported on May 6, 1848, that the “coronation of the Queen of May is an ancient ceremony, handed down according to forms with no essential change, from the days of the Tudors and Plantagenets.” The white folks who grabbed the good cotton land of North Florida and brought in enslaved Africans to work it were dedicated readers of Sir Walter

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Scott. They called their houses Waverley, Whitehall and Loch Achray, names taken from his novels. Inspired by the tournament in Scott’s novel Ivanhoe, the sons of local landowners staged jousts, dressing up in tin armor and velvet surcoats, taking chivalric “noms de guerre,” which is French for an assumed name: the “Knight of the Mists,” the “Knight of Ochlockonee” and “Robert Bruce.” They’d ride full-tilt at each other with pine lances in a little valley near where the Tallahassee Whole Foods is now. Whoever managed to stay on his horse longest got to crown his chosen local debutante “Queen of Love and Beauty.”

Our mothers may have heard of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, but Feminism had not—and never would—penetrate the May party.

Back then, the plantation class inhabited a mental Middle Ages, imagining themselves feudal lords and ladies presiding over a pastoral society where everyone lived lives of probity, Christian charity and impeccable manners. The enslaved people who picked the cotton, cut the sugar cane, cooked the food, cleaned the house and otherwise enabled this supposedly “pretty world where Gallantry took its last bow,” as Gone with the Wind called it, did not trouble the dominant narrative of benign masters and content slaves. Indeed, they barely registered

in it. When I was a child in the 1960s, I was dimly aware that sometimes the police weren’t very kind to Black folks and that a good man called Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to make things better. All that seemed far away from Tallahassee, a town full of white-columns and old rose gardens, where you could run into May Court ladies at church and May Queens at the Jitney Jungle. My mother’s best friend had been on the May Court in 1947 and her sister in 1953. In the fourth grade, Mary Weedon Drake and I used to recreate the May Court with our Barbies on the floor of her living room. A portrait of the 1949 May Queen, Mary Weedon’s mother, Mary Leslie, hung over the mantel. She was ethereal, almost translucent, her long neck rising out of a misty confection of a dress, her face framed with red gold hair. At the 1969 May Party, Weedon and I and other girls in our class danced around the maypole. Actually, there were two maypoles, white-painted wooden things that looked like pegless hat racks with pink, green and yellow ribbons. We sang “Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu,” which we learned in chorus and did not understand, while half of us circled one way, half the other, trying to braid the ribbons on the pole. Mostly, we knotted them so badly somebody would have to use a hedge trimmer to cut them off.

I was in college when I learned that some folklorists think the maypole is a phallic symbol and May Day merrymaking a pagan throwback to the Roman festival of Floralia, known for its nude dancing. In the Middle Ages, peasants chopped down trees, decorated them with flowers, drank a lot of mead and got up to all kinds of naughty business. In 1627, Governor William Bradford of Massachusetts was outraged

by May Day in New England, blasting the “beastly practices of ye mad Bacchanalians” with their “wanton ditties.” Sadly, there were no wanton ditties, no Bacchanalian

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Capital Dame UNF ILTER ED FODDER

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banker or realtor dressed up as the genocidal Andrew Jackson, who was territorial governor of Florida for about nine months in 1821, and floats with middle-aged ladies in hoopskirts and bonnets and white men in greasepaint and feathers pretending to be Seminole Indians would not only charm the powerful, but bring in revenue.

After a night of high wind in August 1986, the May Oak collapsed. It was old, maybe 200 years old, and had long been dying from the inside. When the city landscaping crew sawed it down, they left the stump. It’s six feet across and still presides over Lewis Park. A group of local Wiccans called the Church of the May Oak used to meet there, but I’m not sure they still do. Tourists and visitors to Tallahassee’s Chain of Parks Art Festival sometimes pause at the historical plaque, no doubt wondering what kind of people preserve a tree stump.

They don’t know that this is at once sacred and tainted ground, the place where the white South wrapped itself in congratulatory myths, the grass where generations of young women paraded in satin shoes, the spot where Faye Dunaway, one-time Tallahassee girl, plotted her glittering future and stood smiling, a first runner-up Athena to the Aphrodite who won that year’s flowery crown.

Diane Roberts is an eighthgeneration Floridian, educated at Florida State University and 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.

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AL AMY STOCK

carryings-on, and certainly no nakedness at and in 1970, chose Doby Lee Flowers, a Black the Tallahassee May Party. The Garden Club undergraduate, to be homecoming queen. would not have tolerated it.

It was surely inevitable that one day a Black The May Party had a yearly theme: girl would sit in the big white chair under the “The Days of Robin Hood,” “The United May Oak. Old Tallahassee, by which I mean Nations,” “Florida Under Five Flags.” upper-middle-class white families, didn’t rail After our maypole dance, we stood there against social change—not publicly, at least— in Lewis Park, watching Leon High School and they didn’t vow to keep the celebration kids act out “Florida, Land of Flowers” with all-white. They looked around, 110 years after wreaths of baby’s breath, phlox and pinks, the Emancipation Proclamation, and finally performing a sort of minuet. I wondered understood that hoopskirts and “Dixie” were what it would be like to be the May Queen dressed in 30 yards of ruffles, crowned with roses, her mascara discreet, her lipstick sugar pink, her shining hair curled on milk-colored shoulders. How would it feel to be so admired, so desired, the “Southern Belle” of the nation’s retrograde dreams. Our mothers may have heard of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and “women’s liberation,” but feminism had not—and never would— penetrate the May Party.

Almost everyone was white.

Students at Lincoln, the “Negro Above: Faye Dunaway as Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde high school,” were not invited to participate. A handful of housekeepers and yard men sometimes out of fashion. In 1974, the May Party died a watched the show from the front yards of quiet death, giving no trouble. Old Tallahassee the big houses surrounding the park. The lamented its passing. My great-aunt Vivienne year I was a maypole child, the Florida shook her head. This modern world might A&M Marching 100 played at the May call it progress, but, as she said, “What about Party. I suppose I noticed they were Black. romance? What about beauty?”

I don’t recall. I just remember how their The city hit upon a new festival to showgold-braided uniforms glinted in the sun. I case Tallahassee’s flowers and all that history, was oblivious to how the ghost of Jim Crow hoping to impress the state legislators who troubled us all. Black schools held separate suggested maybe the capital of Florida ought May Day celebrations with skits and pagto be somewhere more convenient, somewhere eants, but they were never invited to Lewis with a bigger population, somewhere like Park. In 1963, Leon High School officially Orlando. “Springtime Tallahassee,” the May integrated, admitting three Black students.

Party’s replacement, was run by white country Florida State University integrated in 1963 club types who decided that a parade with a

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Be Well: Havens for

By NILA DO SIMON

Holistic Healing

Step inside the Sunshine State’s most restorative wellness resorts for an experience that mends the mind, restores the body and settles the spirit.

Photography by: MARY BETH KOETH Hair and makeup by: JESUS BRAVO Clothing by: CARA CARA NYC & SUNRISE SURF SHOP @T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

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I

’ve never drifted in space, but I’m pretty sure I came close to it on a recent spring day in Miami Beach.

After floating for 30 minutes inside the salt float therapy pod at the luxurious Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, I felt not just weightless but limitless. Designed to quiet our mind’s constant commotion and limit environmental stimulation, the soundproof egg-shaped enclosure gave my musculoskeletal and nervous systems a much-needed moment of peace.

Suspension in this other-worldly state of zero-gravity zen, gave me a rare chance to press pause on two long years of uncertainty and disquietude and experience bliss on my terms.

It’s time to indulge in yourself. As we work toward reclaiming our pre-pandemic lifestyle, admittedly health and wellness are at the top of our minds more than ever. With a slate of innovative treatment options, luxury accommodations and dedicated practitioners ready to dispense their golden touch, Florida and neighboring Bahamas are ideal locales to rejuvenate and reboot. Dive into a nourishing journey for the body and soul with our spotlight on four of the region’s top destinations for wellness travelers seeking the fountain of youth.

frequencies that train the brain to relax; a meditation session inside the futuristic-looking Somadome pod, which combines color, audio beats and the micro-crystalline tiles to help achieve deep meditation; and a V.E.M.I. (or vibroacoustic, electromagnetic and infrared technology) treatment, where guests recline on a lounge chair while stimulations work to optimize cellular health by shifting the body into a parasympathetic rest-and-digest state and removing harmful radiation.

The result? “He went to bed that night for eight hours,” Pahel says. “And he slept about eight hours again the next day and the day after.”

Progressive, proven therapies are nothing new to the Carillon—the largest spa and wellness center on the Eastern Seaboard at 70,000 square feet—whose hotel component underwent a $10 million renovation in 2017. Located on the

Previous Spread:

Model Nayla Latus in the Joyce Skirt and Dunmore Bikini Top

by Cara Cara NYC; the pool at Zuma Left: Latus takes in

the view from the adults-only rooftop pool at Carillon.

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Relax in one of the pools at Carillon; The Palm Court at Carillon

CARILLON MIAMI WELLNESS RESORT

Carillon Miami Wellness Resort Tammy Pahel remembers the story well. Spurred by a series of heartbreaks, a friend’s father was having trouble sleeping, clocking in no more than two hours a night for weeks. So Pahel, the vice president of spa and wellness at Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, suggested an alternative remedy: a circuit that incorporated color, sound, vibration and energy therapies.

Pahel saw firsthand the strength of these treatments in 2019 at an annual hotel and spa forum held in Paris. With nearly 70 countries in attendance, the forum was a forecaster on the future of the wellness industry around the globe. There, the latest in technological advances were presented: including beds, tables and pods that incorporated vibrational and energy medicine. Studies have shown that these disciplines can help correct imbalances in the body to restore health on a cellular level, and Pahel was eager to present them to the Carillon client.

Under the watchful eye of a spa attendant, the friend’s father underwent the Carillon’s Sleep Well Circuit, a battery of mind-and-body sensorial therapies that are backed by scientific research. The circuit of four treatments included floating inside a salt bath, a pod of water infused with 800 pounds of Epsom salt to allow the body to reach a buoyant nature, relieving stress and detoxifying the body; lying atop a sound therapy table while listening to specific vibrations and audio

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ZUMA

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Left: Carillon’s quartz

massage table coaxes tight muscles into deep relaxation.

Below: Pritikin Longevity

Center has been helping guests live healthier lives for more than 40 years.

PRITIKIN LONGEVIT Y CENTER; ALYS BEACH

sands of the Atlantic Ocean in a soothing, cream-colored, ArtDeco bubble amid the urban bustle of Miami Beach, Carillon is a comprehensive respite with experts who create a lifestyle plan to better align a guest’s physical, mental and spiritual health. In addition to a traditional spa menu, with salon services and facials, the Carillon is home to an integrative and functional medicine wellness division that offers IV therapy, B12 formulations and more to support a healthy immune system. A newcomer to the facility is a quartz massage table lined with warmed crystals that coax the body into relaxation, plus color therapy with seven alternating hues that connect the body to a deeper therapeutic experience. The tri-level facility also features on-site tools, like thermal hydrotherapy circuits with hot and cold areas (showers, tubs, saunas, loungers, an herbal laconium and more) that help to warm, cleanse and unwind the body.

Pahel admits the COVID-19 pandemic helped accelerate the booking of touchless therapies—treatments that allow guests to reap health benefits in complete privacy and solitude—without the physical presence of a therapist. In the past year, Pahel says demand for touchless treatments has been so strong that she’s more than doubled the amount of dedicated therapy equipment (going from seven to 17 pieces), like the salt floatation tub and Halotherapy pod, both of which utilize the benefits of salt and are known to improve the immune system and build respiratory health.

“Three years ago at the Paris forum, I had one of those epiphanies in which I knew technology was going to be a part of our industry,” Pahel says. “But for us to have all this opportunity under one roof was beyond my imagination.”

It’s a classic case of IYKYK: If you know about Alys Beach’s famed 15,000-square-foot fitness facility, Zuma Wellness Center, then you’re in the know. With entrance limited to a small and exclusive club of Alys Beach homeowners and vacation renters, Zuma is one of the state’s most impressive facilities, supported by a team that’s focused on the individual and his or her needs.

Located along the sugar-sand beaches of the Panhandle, Alys Beach has become a prime example of how thoughtful, smart design can enhance the well-being of its residents and visitors. Constructed to encourage community connection, the town’s New Urbanist setting includes walkable and bike-friendly layouts amid a village of stark-white Bermudan-, Latin American- and Caribbean-style buildings.

Zuma’s campus features indoor and outdoor facilities that fall in line with Alys Beach’s design ethos—serene, natural light-filled spaces that breed a motivation to stay healthy. The feeling is immediate upon entering the space and passing through the zen courtyard enclosed with custom, sculptural hardwood walls.

Patrick Hoffner, Zuma’s head fitness professional, says the intimate nature of the private facility allows him to make a deep, long-term connection with his clients. A self-proclaimed “wellness nerd,” Hoffner says that after a career as a personal trainer, in which he’s achieved the highest level of certification

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A DAY AWAY

In need of a reset but don’t quite have the luxury of time for a week of wellness? Check out these day-trip destinations around the state.

Eau Spa — Palm Beach Start floating away from the moment you walk into Eau (pronounced “oh”). Signature Day Away packages offer six hours of bliss with treatments including a massage, facial, mani-pedi and blowout before you go. Let the opulence of Eau, French for “water,” wash over you in the over-the-top private garden villas, an indulgent addition to any package.

Quietly cleanse in the open-air garden tub, and shower or just pause for a few peaceful moments before or after a treatment. Simply walking the grounds of this magnificent oceanfront property is rejuvenating enough. eaupalmbeach.com

Tammy Fender — Delray & Palm Beach Tammy Fender has become the goddess of goodness through her skin care line she formulated with the ethos of living in your most natural state. Fender’s products, made from 100 percent organic botanicals like spearmint, milk thistle, ginseng root and lotus leaf, have been touted globally by celebrity influencers.

At her signature day spa in Palm Beach, spend an afternoon enveloped in organic treatments like the seaweed wrap and hydrolonic facial with rose petals. Try the flagship location or her latest experience at the Opal Grand Oceanfront Resort and Spa in Delray. tammyfender.com

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All Natural and Organic Day Spa — Naples Looking for a friend-friendly spa day with maximum luxe factor? The All Natural and Organic Day Spa, located inside the Naples Grande Beach Resort, offers private villas where small groups of guests can luxuriate in services from the privacy of an enclosed oasis complete with a plunge pool and treatment room. It’s the perfect spot for couples to reconnect or a few close friends to toast the bride. The spa features a full complement of services using an organic product line. naplesgrande.com

Wave Hotel — Lake Nona Motion is the notion for total-body wellness at Lake Nona Wave Hotel. Spend a weekend mastering a yoga pose at the Chopra Mind Body Zone, pushing your personal best at the Lake Nona Performance Club or perfecting your serve at the United States Tennis Association’s National Campus. Rejuvenate with “Well+Ech,” in-room technology designed to promote your body’s restoration. Sleep in a luxurious artificial intelligence-powered bed that adjusts to maximize a good night’s rest, and top things off by pampering your skin with the Pour Moi patented skin care line. lakenonawavehotel.com

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Clockwise from left:

EAU PALM BEACH RESORT & SPA; ALYS BEACH; TAMMY FENDER

The Self-Centered Garden at Eau Spa in Palm Beach; Zuma offers private sessions as well as group classes; Tammy Fender’s Spa specializes in holistic treatments; Zuma guests can grab a healthy snack or smoothie after a workout.

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in the TRX Suspension Training education program, Zuma is a game-changer for both him and members.

“What drew me to Zuma is that I can build relationships with people,” Hoffner says. “In the training setting, you become not only a member’s fitness partner, but also their nutritionist, therapist and friend. The homeowner engagement is huge here because they all care, and that makes me want to be better for them.”

Zuma offers yoga, boxing, kickboxing, TRX and other classes in both large- and small-group settings, as well as aquatics programming within the indoor lap pool and one-on-one training. To round out the comprehensive experiences, Zuma also incorporates an outdoor relaxation area, steam rooms, strength training and massage therapy.

A major part of Zuma’s health and wellness component includes its tennis programming, which takes place on two fast-drying Har-Tru tennis courts. Bo Petro, a 20-year-coaching veteran at private clubs and at the university level, leads the program. Petro has spearheaded programming that includes group clinics and social mixers that center around tennis.

As Petro describes, he’s looking to build a tightknit tennis community.

“With two courts, Alys Beach has probably the smallest facility I’ve overseen,” Petro says. “But it’s what we’re getting out of these courts that matters and that’s the long-lasting connections that hopefully will lead to even greater community spirit.”

Pritikin Longevity Center Above Latus sips a green

goddess juice from The Corner Store at Carillon.

Right: The salmon poke

bowl from Carillon

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Amid 650 acres of pristine landscaping, four championship golf courses and a four-star resort, the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami matches its postcard-perfect setting with an allencompassing approach to building a healthy lifestyle. Where

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emerging facilities are in their infancy, Pritikin has been the standard-bearer of wellness for more than 40 years. Founded

by Nathan Pritikin—an inventor who developed a passion for nutrition—the center has become globally renowned as a leading medically supervised wellness destination. Pritikin’s medical experts—including a board-certified medical director and cardiologist, registered dietitians and nutritionists, fitness professionals, psychologists and chefs—develop individualized plans to help each guest achieve their personal goals.

To experience a retreat at Pritikin is to attend a master class in comprehensive health. A typical stay lasts two weeks and focuses on three pillars: nutrition, exercise and a healthy mindset. The first few days include instructional courses taught by specialists, and then building upon that knowledge, participants are put in real-life situations, like grocery shopping and dining with friends at a restaurant, to apply their learning.

“It’s pretty intense for them in the first two to three days,” says Kara Burnstine, one of Pritikin’s registered dietitians and a licensed nutritionist. “It’s a lot of learning and unlearning of habits and fad diets. But after four days, we always see participants saying how good they feel.”

Utilizing research-backed data, Pritikin practitioners are trained to reset guests’ mindsets and unhealthy patterns, much like the case of a recent participant from Canada, Burnstine says. Dealing with a lifetime of stress eating and a desk-bound lifestyle as an accountant, he spent three weeks at Pritikin, where the medical experts examined various parts of his life.

In those three weeks away from his pressure-filled routine, the guest gave himself complete self-care and experienced a world of possibilities that his sedentary lifestyle couldn’t give.

“Everything about his mood changed when he came to Florida, and a lot of that had to do with the weather,” Burnstine says. “Being around the sun and in a relaxing environment, he said that he never felt better.”

The specialists were also able to unlock the root of his unhealthy habits: a fear of overexertion. Diagnosed earlier in his life with a heart arrhythmia, doctors had prescribed the guest medication that slowed his heart rate and caused him to fear the effects of exercise. The Pritikin exercise specialists eased his anxiety by developing movements that catered to his condition. The result? He lost 15 pounds in those three weeks and realized he needs to relieve stress to focus on his health, Burnstine said.

“At the Pritikin Longevity Center, it’s really about lifestyle and attitude change, figuring yourself out,” Burnstine says. “We’re looking at the science, not the trends. Pritikin focuses on all of your health while tackling your science. It’s a lifestyle, and we give you confidence and tools that you can stick with.”

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Pink Sands Resort’s Wellness Retreats

Left: Center yourself

in a Zuma yoga class.

Right: The VEMI

sound therapy treatment at Carillon Below: Learn to

prepare healthy meals at Pritikin’s cooking school.

Styling credits:

Cara Cara NYC: Dunmore bikini and Joyce skirt, pg. 54, tie-dye Harbour Island Dress, pg. 57

ALYS BEACH; PRITIKIN LONGEVIT Y CENTER

Sunrise Surf Shop: Seafolly cream bikini, pg. 58, Billabong orange one-piece, pg.

62, sunglasses, pg. 57 Cresta Bledsoe Fine Jewelry: 18-K turquoise double bezel necklace and 18-K oversized charm braclet, pg. 54, 18-K chrysoprase and turquoise station necklace and 18-K turquoise double bezel necklace, pg. 65

It’s hard to imagine a more idyllic location to perfect your warrior pose than at Pink Sands Resort in the Bahamas’ Harbour Island, which is about an hour flight from South Florida. The chic island oasis is nestled among 20 acres of lush landscape, designer homes and villas, and of course, a famed 3-mile strip of pink-sand beach that sparkles against turquoise-blue water.

And if the pure island air and paradisiacal setting aren’t enough to better one’s outlook on health, Pink Sands Resort’s wellness retreats will certainly tip the scales in favor of a more thoughtful approach to living.

Created in part to shift from the mental anguish created by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the retreats are led by some of Fort Lauderdale’s premier wellness experts, including Pam Butler, a certified Chopra primordial sound meditation instructor and yoga teacher, and Lauren Cobb, a yoga instructor and natural healer. The two have combined forces with Dean Max—a legendary chef whose farm-to-table ethos inspired a culinary generation including James Beard Foundation favorite Jeremy Ford—to create programming for Pink Sands.

With three total retreats already in the books and plans for quarterly wellness events that embrace fitness, spiritual exploration and culinary offerings with multiple chef appearances, these multiday immersions provide movement instruction, nutritious meals and expert-led meditation sessions—all set against a majestic island backdrop.

Multicourse family-style dinners are held at the on-site restaurant Malcolm 51 with a menu of sea-to-table grilled octopus,

island curry seafood soup, and spicy lobster and shrimp ragout. For something more casual with a five-star view, guests can head over to Blue Bar and Kitchen, an oceanfront spot serving entrees of avocado toast, conch salad, yellowfin tuna poke bowl and house smoked mahi dip. On-thebeach group classes, including morning jogs led by chef Max, are followed by wellness shots for a refreshing morning jolt.

In addition, it’s also a chance to experience a moment of connection—with a community and oneself. “Mental hygiene is important,” says Butler, whose meditation sessions and breathwork guidance leaves participants feeling less stressed and more present. “When you do meditation and movement and yoga, look at it like it’s mental floss: You’re getting into the nooks and crannies and cleaning it out.”

For Cobb, the effectiveness of these retreats isn’t just in the number of participants, but in the bonds that are formed between them. In their two most recent gatherings, nearly 30 practitioners from all over the nation attended the first event, and about half of the members of that group returned for the second series, excited to rekindle a bond.

“No matter where they are in the world, they will always have this network that they can go back to,” Cobb says.

“This isn’t just about a community on a weekend retreat; it goes beyond that. They are here to make lifelong connections.”

The bottom line? Namaste-ing in an unspoiled setting with like-minded people might just be what the doctor ordered.

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Boys!

A nostalgic look back at how Orlando shaped a genre and one of the larger-than-life moments in pop music: THE BOY BAND

By MADDY ZOLLO RUSBOSIN

O

n New Year’s Eve in 1998, I met my first love. Well, loves if you want to be totally accurate.

I went into the evening as your typical 11-year-old ’90s girl: wearing an outfit ripped from the pages of a Delia’s catalog, smelling like a nauseating explosion of Bath and Body Works roll-on glitter and body spray and singing along to Orlando’s pop radio station XL 106.7 in the car. You see, I had been invited to a Backstreet Boys concert that night. While I knew they were the local crooners behind bops like “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” I didn’t realize that the next few hours were about to be a defining moment of my adolescence—or that I’d leave with five brand-new boyfriends named AJ, Brian, Howie, Kevin and Nick.

Crammed in Orlando’s O-Rena, later known as the Amway Center, the evening kicked off with LFO as the opening act.

The rap-pop trio, one of the many cogs in the Trans Continental Records boy-band machine, was on the brink of hitting it big that following June with their song “Summer Girls” (the track that forever ingrained lines “I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch” and “Chinese food makes me sick” into everyone’s collective pop-culture conscious).

While LFO set the tone for the evening—one defined by shrill screams of teenage girls—things didn’t truly reach a fever pitch until the Backstreet Boys made their entrance, popping out of the stage like five handsome jack-in-the-box toys who happened to have a pyrotechnic show behind them.

I don’t know if it was the synchronized dance moves, the overtly sexual thrusting, the semicoordinated outfits ranging from Sopranos-esque suits and fedoras to flouncy, chest-baring shirts or the melodies about unwavering love and devotion, but before the clock struck midnight, I went from casual listener to full-on fangirl.

Like most middle-school crushes, my new obsession was all-encompassing. However, it didn’t help that I lived in Orlando: ground zero for boy bands. They were everywhere around town.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that New Year’s Eve concert was an outer band of the impending hurricane that was

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boy-band mania, and it wasn’t just going to hit Florida—it was going global. While those next few years from the late ’90s to the early aughts would come to be known as the perfect storm of pop music, many people, including myself, still wonder decades later why exactly was Orlando its eye?

This Spread: The

Backstreet Boys performing at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Festival

Un tap p ed Talent

It wasn’t mere coincidence that the City Beautiful was dubbed the Motown of pop music. Lou Pearlman, the late, now disgraced producer and music mogul behind the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, O-Town and countless other musical acts, called Orlando home—that is until 2008 when he went to prison for

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ILLUSTR ATION BY ELLEN PATCH; THIS PAGE BRIAN FREEDMAN

conspiracy, money laundering and false bankruptcy proceedings. Pearlman, who originally made his fortune in the aviation industry, became interested in forming a pop group after chartering a plane for New Kids on the Block. After realizing the monetary potential for a group like theirs, he set his sights on forming the next big thing. While other musicians during that time tended to be based out of New York City or Los Angeles, Pearlman saw an untapped market in Central Florida, so he didn’t even have to leave state lines.

“The talent pool in Orlando was good,” says Melinda Bell, president and CEO of StraightUp Entertainment Group and managing partner of So So Def Management. Bell also

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co-founded the Wright Entertainment Group in 1995 with Johnny Wright, the current CEO. While Pearlman launched the Backstreet Boys, the Wright group managed the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Wright and Bell also managed other acts, from the likes of Britney Spears to the Jonas Brothers. “Theme parks became a place where if you didn’t land a part in a play or commercials, you could go audition there. They had the characters, they had the dancers, they had the emcees,” Bell furthers.

That’s why in 1992, Pearlman placed a single-page ad in The Blue Sheet, a newsletter that listed auditions and opportunities for aspiring performers, in the hopes of finding young men for

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and another was Nick Carter, a baby-faced blonde from Ruskin, Florida, who decided to sign with Pearlman instead of joining the Mickey Mouse Club. The fivesome was rounded out with Kevin Richardson, who’d been working at Walt Disney World as Aladdin and various other characters, along with Richardson’s cousin, Brian Littrell. It was then that the Backstreet Boys—Orlando’s first true boy band—was born.

Above: NSYNC was

formed in 1995.

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a doo-wop harmony group. It just so happened 14-year-old AJ McLean saw the listing. The Palm Beach native had moved to Orlando with his mother and recently wrapped up an acting gig for the Nickelodeon show Hi Honey, I’m Home.

“I told my mom, ‘Why not? Let’s just go for the audition,’” McLean says. “We drove to Lou’s house. I had a song prepared. I had some choreography prepared. Lou basically signed me on the spot, and he was off to the races.” McLean was the original Backstreet Boy and has been a part of the band for 29 years now.

Thanks to attending his fair share of casting calls, McLean knew a few of his soon-to-be bandmates. One familiar face was Howie Dorough, a fellow Latino who also lived in Orlando,

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Although the Backstreet Boys were the first musical group to officially put the city on the map, Central Florida was oozing with up-and-comers. “I feel like Orlando has always tried to be a mini Los Angeles,” McLean says. “There just seemed to be a slew of talent living there in Orlando all at the same time.” When McLean was residing in Kissimmee, both singer Britney Spears and actor Ryan Gosling lived in his apartment complex, and Latin star Luis Fonsi went to Dr. Phillips High School down the street, the same alma mater of NSYNC’s Joey Fatone. “There was something in the water—there’s really no other way to describe it,” McLean adds.

Beyond a crop of eager entertainers, Orlando also offered something crowded metropolitans didn’t have: space.

“Orlando is a little more spread out, so it gave you that chance to breathe without the fans going crazy or finding you,” explains Bell, who still operates her companies out of the city. “It was always a great place to record, to rehearse, and because you had the facilities, you could do photoshoots and no one would even know they were done in Florida because we had the locations and the landscape.”

As the Backstreet Boys’ success grew, first in Europe and then in the states, so did Pearlman’s ambitions. He and his label, Trans Continental Records, began zeroing in not just on his original fivesome, but other groups as well. For Dakari, who worked as a house writer, music producer and in the artist development division at Trans Continental for eight years, he first realized there were more players than just the Backstreet Boys when he was visiting Orlando to interview for a position.

Dakari was just getting to the hook of his produced track for Wright Entertainment Group when Wright abruptly stopped him and left the room.

“Five minutes later, these five white dudes come in looking mad crazy,” Dakari says. “One’s got dreads, one’s got red tips in his hair ... They’re not Backstreet. Who the hell are these guys?”

Those seemingly random guys just happened to be NSYNC before they took over the charts—and hearts—of America.

Even after the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC eventually parted ways with Pearlman and his company in 1998 and 1999, respectively, over legal disputes about Pearlman’s handling of their finances and his fraudulent behavior, Trans

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BIRGIT SINGH, ANDY KEILEN/AVA DEAN BEAUT Y

S omethi n g i n th e Wat e r

All Things

AJ

Throughout his nearly three-decades-long career with the Backstreet Boys, AJ McLean has been known for his soulful voice, boundary-pushing style, and outspoken advocacy for mental health, substance abuse, LGBTQ+ rights and more. We caught up with the 44-year-old Palm Beach native about his latest solo endeavors proving that he’s way more than just the group’s resident “bad boy.”

FLAMINGO:

Over the years, you’ve always had such a flair for fashion, so we were excited to hear about your latest apparel line, GOAT (Golf Over All Things). What was the impetus for it?

AJ MCLEAN: I’ve been farting around with this idea to do a

golf clothing line for quite some time. I was in Osaka, Japan, two years ago, and I was with my security. We were waiting outside of the Supreme store, and it just hit me like a freaking tornado. I was like, “Oh my god, I have the name for my golf line.” As an amateur golfer—and I have a lot of friends that are amateur golfers—golf is life. It’s golf over all things. For me, that’s how it feels. Over any other sport, over anything in my life that I’ve dabbled in here and there, it’s always gone back to golf.

FLAMINGO: What sets GOAT apart from other golf lines?

AJ MCLEAN: To me, it’s not only a golf brand, but it’s also

active leisure wear, because you usually wear these shirts with a nice pair of Jordans. You could literally wear it to the office, and you can wear it straight out on the golf course and right to dinner. The other thing that I take pride in with this particular brand is that—and I’ve been told by all my friends that are avid golfers both pro and non-pro— it’s the most comfortable clothing worn. It breathes. It doesn’t sweat. It stretches. It’s so comfortable and soft as a baby’s bottom. We’ve launched our first round, which is our signature three shirts. We’re going to finally introduce the women’s line as well as some long-sleeve options for the fall and winter. Also something I’m really proud of is, I want to bring back knickers. Back when golf originated in Scotland, knickers were the only thing that golfers wore.

So we’re going to bring back knickers.

FLAMINGO:

I also know you have a nail polish line inspired by your daughters, tell me a little about that.

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AJ MCLEAN: I’ve been wearing polish for years. This par-

ticular brand, Ava Dean, this is for everybody. It’s for all genders, all races, all ages. Because this is inspired by my girls, this is a very family-based colorway. I’ve got my color. My wife has Ro Ro Red. My daughters have their colors, and we just released Ursula, which is named after my grandmother. Her favorite color was turquoise. The plan is to eventually build this into a complete beauty line. I’m talking about everything from eyeliner, mascara, foundation, lip glosses, lipstick shades, all of it. But the one thing that we really want to try to find that no one has been able to do is to make a foundation for both, that is unisex.

Above: AJ McLean

displays Ro Ro Red from his nail polish collection.

FLAMINGO: Do you have any other solo projects in the works other than your recent single “Love Song Love”?

A.J. MCLEAN: Yes. I am doing something very special in the

form of an EP. It’s very much close to the chest. It’s under wraps right now, but I will say this much: I’m doing it for the fans. This is going to be something that they are going to lose their minds over, as well as talking about doing something special in the NFT space as well.

FLAMINGO:

I actually went to your very first solo venture, the Johnny No Name show at Orlando’s House Of Blues [Johnny No Name was McLean’s alter ego that he performed under when he wasn’t touring with the Backstreet Boys in the early 2000s].

AJ MCLEAN: That was my 22nd birthday. There also might be something in that world coming back around. We might need to revitalize Johnny No Name.

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A city of celebs

Above: NSYNC at the

42nd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles Opposite page: Orlando’s

radio station XL 106.7 helped the Backstreet Boys get their start.

Continental continued to be the pop music behemoth of Central Florida until it closed its doors in 2006. Their headquarters, located in downtown Orlando’s iconic Church Street Station, was a breeding ground for up-and-comers, promising the sugarcoated dream of catchy hit singles and hordes of screaming fans.

During his tenure at the label, Dakari produced everyone from LFO and NSYNC to Aaron Carter and Jordan Knight, and he launched Trans Continental’s foray into hip-hop with the local duo Smilez & Southstar. One of his most hands-on experiences with developing the next Billboard sensation was through his work with O-Town. O-Town was the product of ABC’s Making the Band, a reality series that chronicled the inner workings of how the boy-band sausage was made.

“I was their first producer, so I saw from the jump how hungry they were. It was a joy to see young people not taking that for granted,” Dakari says. “Some people can get to a situation and feel like you’ve arrived and not work for it because you feel like it comes easy. But they learned early—you have to work for it if you want to be on point, and you want to be competitive. They were competitive for girls, studio time, the rehearsal room—people be outside waiting at the door for the next group to get out.”

Even with the massive influence Trans Continental had over the pop scene, for every success story, there were countless other Orlando groups, from Take 5 to Innosense, that never quite made it.

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For those who did make it, a huge proponent of their success was local radio. “Radio was a huge partner for the pop movement,” Bell explains. “Orlando’s XL 106.7 was so supportive. They’d always bring [a new band in], and any time a single went out, they’d do a radio interview and talk about it.”

Hearing songs like the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” or NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” on the airwaves was a huge departure from the grunge rock and dance tracks that had been popular before they hit the scene. Clearly, listeners were ready for a change. Both the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC went on to break records for single-week record sales, and the groups have cumulatively sold more than 200 million records worldwide.

“During that time, everybody’s trying to break new artists,” Johnny Magic, the host of Johnny’s House on XL 106.7 says about the early days of the Backstreet Boys. “For us, the appeal was: Here’s a band that’s getting started from Orlando, so if they make it, let’s go ahead and give them a try. If they’re out doing appearances, let’s get behind it and let people know.

When it started, we had no idea that they had something that was going to go worldwide.”

Magic and his team watched as the Backstreet Boys gradually went from hosting events in a Kmart parking lot in Kissimmee and getting dressed in public bathrooms to performing at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney with an actual wardrobe budget. It was during their show at House of Blues that Magic realized they were on the brink of superstardom. “To watch the young girls go crazy, doing the Michael Jackson thing where they’re crying, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, what the heck is going on?’” he recalls. It was around that same time when fans started gathering outside the radio station whenever the Backstreet Boys would be in the studio hoping to get a glimpse of them. “[Backstreet Boys] opened the doors and they had a system.

Once NSYNC came out, we knew they were big,” Magic says. “[The boy bands] knew that XL gave them their start, so they were loyal to us.” When NSYNC was at their peak, they hosted an annual star-studded Challenge for the Children event and asked XL106.7 to emcee, flying the team to whatever city it was being held in.

“I remember going to Miami, and they gave me all access,” Magic says. “It was crazy for me to experience all of that. But that showed me how big they had gotten. These were A-list celebrities that just wanted to be with them.”

Even ABC’s very own boy band O-Town found success on the charts with their singles “Liquid Dreams” and “All Or Nothing,”—their top single that went on to reach number three on The Hot 100. To this day, the band credits Orlando and its reputation for their success.

“It was so exciting when I was picked to go to Florida for Making the Band,” says O-Town’s Trevor Penick. “You knew what Orlando was: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, LFO and all

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Plus, every time we went to dinner or even the mall, we’d have cameras on us filming. It was really an interesting Orlando experience. We got to see the city as if we were celebrities already, because of all the hoopla around us due to the show.”

And unlike what the coverlines of teen magazines made readers believe, there was a camaraderie—not a rivalry—among the Orlando boy bands.

“O-Town had a house right near Chris Kirkpatrick of NSYNC and other NSYNC and Backstreet Boy members,” Underwood says. “Even Scott Stapp from Creed was around.

It was this fun community pool of young artists. Everybody was constantly having house parties, bands blending together.”

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MARIO BARBERIO

these artists were there. It was this mecca. For us, we got thrown into this world.”

Unlike his boy-band predecessors, Penick and his other bandmates were instantly indoctrinated into the Trans Continental fold by living in a house together in the Windermere neighborhood, rehearsing at the studios, then exploring what the city had to offer, from eating at the Florida Mall to hopping around Downtown Disney and Pointe Orlando.

“It was just the greatest time to be in your early 20s,” adds Penick’s bandmate Jacob Underwood about the early days of O-Town. “There were so many events at Planet Hollywood, and we did movie premieres like one for the movie Longshot.

Above O-Town was the

product of ABC’s show Making the Band.

a larger-than-life legacy

To this day, that mutual respect and love of pop music continues to bring the guys together with concerts and events that feature multiple boy banders. Just take ABC’s special this past December: A Very Boy Band Holiday.

“We’re all buddies now and are getting to do things together. The fans are loving it,” McLean says. Beyond the Backstreet Boys, who are touring this summer across the states, he’s put on shows all over the country, from Las Vegas to Miami, with his friends from NSYNC, 98 Degrees, Boyz II Men and more. “I will always have a special place in my heart for Orlando, because it’s built the career I have now almost 30

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years later,” he continues.

Underwood and Penick agree. “Orlando feels like my high school years. You have all these experiences to become who you are,” Underwood says. “We look back at how much we learned and then at our character today, and it’s all thanks to our time there. Twenty years later, it’s carried us into the best friendships we’ve had, and four of us are still in the band doing it together.”

As for Penick, he feels a lot of emotion anytime he lands in Orlando. “It was such a life-changing place and such a wonderful thing happened to me there,” he explains. “That’s what life is—it’s about the memories when you can just drive by a place, and it makes you feel a certain way. That’s what Orlando does.”

While McLean, Underwood and Penick understandably have a nostalgic appreciation for the city, it’s fitting that I— along with probably thousands of other ex-teeny boppers— feel that same way about their music. That sentiment was only confirmed in 2017 when my best friend from Orlando and I flew to Las Vegas to see the Backstreet Boys in residency at Planet Hollywood. It had been over 16 years since we had gathered in an arena to see them, but as soon as the fivesome took the stage and began to belt out “Larger Than Life,” all my memories from middle school came pouring back. We were dancing and singing like we did in our living rooms to MTV’s Total Request Live so long ago.

Living here as an adult, it’s crazy to think that Orlando was to thank for all that teenage lust for those few years. Even now as I drive by places in town, like East West Record Shop, I reminisce about waiting in line for hours there in the parking lot before the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC tickets went on sale. It was a distinctive era for sure—one where you couldn’t access your favorite bands via social media and had to wait with bated breath for a new single to drop so you could run to the nearest CD store or attempt to crash your parents’ computer by downloading it off Napster.

“I think it was a moment in time,” Bell told me when I asked if she thought that type of fandom could happen again. “I think with the right talent you could bring it back, but nobody has been able to put a boy band together since.”

Recently, I rewatched that Backstreet Boys New Year’s Eve concert I attended from 1998 (unfortunately, I had to stream it since I couldn’t find the dusty VHS tape I stuffed somewhere in my old bedroom). As the show was concluding, Howie Dorough came out on stage to bid the arena full of rabid fans goodbye.

Although he didn’t know it at the time, his sign-off could be used to sum up the city’s relationship to pop music as a whole. “Orlando, you guys definitely have it going on.” And he’s right, Orlando did. And who knows, maybe it’ll be topping the charts again.

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DUST in Q WIND Grave robbers stole the bones of Seminoles for decades. Now the tribe is returning the remains of its ancestors, held captive in museums across the country, home to Florida soil.

By ERIC BARTON

S

The only reward we get out of doing this work is stopping it from happening again.

— TINA OSCEOLA

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The Long Road of Repatriation When Wheeler identified the remains of at least nine Native Americans from Florida in his Massachusetts institute, the first thing he did was home in on a map of where the bodies had been dug up. It was fortuitous that Wheeler was looking at this map, because he was one of only a handful of people in the world who would understand its significance.

Before coming to the Peabody, Wheeler had been the official archaeologist for the state of Florida, a job he started in 2004. In that role, he often oversaw discoveries of unmarked gravesites uncovered during construction projects. He says he didn’t know every archaeological dig site in the state, but just

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STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA , TINA OSCEOL A

keletons waited for Ryan Wheeler in the basement of a prestigious Massachusetts institution. It was November 2012 when the Floridian and archaeologist began pulling out rows of economically built wood filing cabinets, as if Ikea existed a century ago. He found bits of pottery and items that were buried with the dead over the course of centuries. They had been unearthed along with thousands of Native American remains that ended up in the institute’s storage. Wheeler knew none of them should be there.

For Wheeler, 53, the finds were equal parts exciting and overwhelming. He had just begun his job as director of the Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, located at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Founded in 1901, the Peabody is a venerable institution and among the nation’s major holders of Native American archaeology, dating back more than 10,000 years. Descending into the recesses of the red-brick building, Wheeler discovered many of the collections hadn’t been properly cataloged. He began the daunting task of sifting through every drawer. The institute’s staff of five, along with temporary workers brought on for the task, pulled out each drawer and digitized all of the contents. It felt, he says, like discovering those burial plots all over again.

From the beginning, Wheeler noticed a sizable collection of artifacts from Florida. Having grown up in Lauderhill and having earned three degrees from state universities, he was a Florida boy, and so he gravitated to those drawers first. What he found astounded him and would eventually help uncover an archaeological site that no one knew existed, one that may soon have been paved over for good. It would also start a yearslong effort and a circuitous trip to return native Floridians back to their home soil.

about. As he suspected, the site on the map at the Peabody had not been officially recorded.

Wheeler quickly moved to protect the location. He filed paperwork with the state of Florida in December 2012 that would help keep the site from immediate development.

It would take years more to determine what should happen to the Native Americans next. That’s in part because of the sheer breadth of the project Wheeler had taken on. To date, the Peabody has returned the remains of 2,004 people to Native American tribes from storage, including a large joint repatriation with Harvard University. There are another 150 ancestors in whose case all paperwork has been completed and are

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awaiting repatriation, and there are 98 that are labeled “culturally unidentified,” essentially meaning nobody has yet to determine where they should be returned.

On July 20, 2018, Wheeler wrote to the Seminoles. He told them he had big news: He might have found some of their ancestors.

Having worked with the Seminoles many times over the years, Wheeler knew the tribe had spent a generation tracking down and reburying stolen ancestors, a practice known as repatriation. Tina Osceola oversees the program for the Seminoles.

There’s little joy in the work, she says. Osceola compares it to a scene she often witnessed in her former job as a tribal judge.

Left: Tina Osceola

oversees the repatriation program for the Seminoles.

Above: A lithograph

from 1837 of a battle during the Seminole Wars

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I know they’re not happy with us right now, because we’re not returning things immediately.

— BILL BILLECK

NATIONAL PORTR AIT GALLERY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

After a conviction, family members of victims would often become emotional— tears of joy mixed with pain.

“Honestly? I don’t think there’s any part of it that makes me happy, because it’s so incredibly tragic,” Osceola, 54, says of repatriation. “The only reward we get out of doing this work is stopping it from happening again.”

The Seminoles have brought home thousands of their ancestors from museums all over the country. It’s rare for anyone to know the identities of the bodies, since the grave robbers didn’t always record or know who they were unearthing.

The Seminoles have been on the hunt over the years for several high-profile ancestors, including Chief Osceola, the tribal leader from the 1800s. A surgeon serving in the Florida militia reportedly removed Osceola’s head after his death in 1838 and absconded with it. Tina Osceola says the tribe’s search for the skull has resulted in dead ends and stories that seem like myths, like the one that claims the Chief’s head burned in a fire. “Whenever we want something back, we find out it was burned in a fire,” says Tina Osceola. While she isn’t sure she’s related to the legendary tribal leader, she still takes the search personally.

There have been historical documents that recorded the identities of the remains in two or three of the repatriations, Osceola says. In those instances, her office reached out to the

This spread and following page: A series of portraits

of notable Seminole Tribe leaders from the Smithsonian Institution Above: Bill Billeck,

program manager of the Smithsonian Institution’s Repatriation Office

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families to see if they wished to take part in a reburial, but none did. It was simply too shocking for them to learn that their ancestors had been stored in the depths of a museum for so many years. She declined to identify them by name, out of respect for the families. “In our culture, this is unnatural,” Osceola says with a grievous tone. “It’s sad to know this is a relative of yours. You didn’t even know they were taken.”

Osceola grew up in Naples and is the granddaughter of Cory Osceola, who was the leader of the Independent Seminoles.

The Independent Seminoles is a group that was skeptical of the U.S. government’s efforts to urge Native Americans to join tribes, fearing it was all just another trick by colonialists.

Her grandfather had passed away by the time Tina Osceola joined the Seminoles in 1983, which she did because she couldn’t afford college without scholarships available to tribal members. Osceola got a political science degree from Rollins College and a master’s in public administration from Nova Southeastern University. In 2015, she was among the first judges in new courts set up by the Seminoles. During the pandemic in 2020, the Seminoles went on lockdown, suspending trials, and Osceola began rethinking what she wanted to do with her life. The lead position in the tribe’s repatriation office opened up, and Osceola took over in August 2021.

When her office got the call from Wheeler about the

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Seminoles in Massachusetts, it triggered a lengthy process to repatriate them. It also meant trying to figure out how they had gotten there in the first place. At the time, remnants from the grave robbing in Orlando were spread out among nine or ten drawers in the basement of the Peabody. The drawers held an illustrated journal which listed separate sections of bays and drawers that held skeletons. The journal also documented how the collection had gotten to Massachusetts.

The story begins in the spring of 1919 when a man from Haverhill, Massachusetts, named Fred Luce contracted the Spanish influenza during the last global pandemic. Luce worked in the Victory Destroyer naval shipyard during World War I and nearly died from the flu. He took his family to Florida in October of 1919 while he recuperated. Luce and his

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sons had been amateur archaeologists back home, and so they set out to find spots to dig near their temporary home.

They discovered an Indian mound near the shores of Lake Tibet southwest of Orlando and started digging. A village once stood on what must have been a scenic rise overlooking the lake, knobby cypress and cabbage palms draped in Spanish moss along its banks. The Luces collected skeletons and thousands of artifacts, taking them home when they returned to Massachusetts. Eventually they turned over their finds to a local museum, which in turn gave them to the Peabody.

These are among tens of thousands of Native American remains held in museums across the country for centuries.

Often, the reason for this is quite simply racism.

When Grave Robbing Became a Profession Back in the 1800s, xenophobes thought they could use science to justify the subjugation of Black and Native American people. These pseudo-scientists hoped that by measuring skulls they could find some proof to determine that white people were smarter than people of other races.

To collect the skulls, they hired grave robbers. They dug up cemeteries, sites of Civil War battles, and sacred Native American burial mounds dating back millennia. They were called resurrectionists, and they pockmarked the country with their thievery. They hauled skeletons into museums and

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It’s emotional. I don’t know how you can’t be emotional about this.

I think it makes your science better to see the larger background.

— PAMELA GELLER Above: Pamela Geller is

an associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Miami.

Opposite page: An oil

painting of Seminole Indians before 1963

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NATIONAL PORTR AIT GALLERY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM

research institutions, like macabre bounty hunters.

When Pamela Geller started as an anthropology student in the 1990s at the University of Pennsylvania, skulls looked down on her from inside glass cabinets in her classrooms. As a graduate student, Geller took inventory of the skulls in the university’s collections and, in some cases, set out to return them to their people.

Geller, now an associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Miami, contacted several tribes to let them know some of the skulls at the University of Pennsylvania came from their ancestors. The Seminoles were one of several tribes who came to the university to collect their ancestors, a moment Geller, 48, says was a mix of difficult emotions.

Sometimes the visits went well.

Michigan’s Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians even invited Geller and others to participate in a Calumet, or a pipe ceremony where sage is burned to help ancestors on their overdue journey to the afterlife.

But another group, “they just yelled at us, and rightfully so, because the ancestors were, well...” Geller says, trailing off.

“Just to work with the tribes, it was pretty profound.” Being Jewish, Geller says she can’t help but think about the similarities to the genocide her people suffered and what happened to the Native Americans. “It’s emotional. I don’t know how you can’t be emotional about this. I think it makes your science better to see the larger background.”

It’s not always so easy for the Seminoles to get their ancestors back. Not all institutions are as forthcoming as the University of Pennsylvania and the Peabody. Among the museums the Seminoles say have been especially difficult is one of our nation’s most esteemed: the Smithsonian Institution.

In its defense, the Smithsonian points to following the law closely, says Bill Billeck, program manager of the Smithsonian’s Repatriation Office. Federal law requires museums to return the bones if a tribe can prove to be “culturally affiliated” to the remains.

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While the Seminoles have asked for the remains of about 1,500 native Florida people from the Smithsonian, it may be difficult to prove that cultural affiliation, according to Billeck, noting that the Seminoles began migrating to Florida in the 1700s, while many of the people taken from Florida gravesites date back thousands of years. Most of the tribes that preceded the Seminoles in Florida have been lost to history.

If the Seminoles fail to prove cultural affiliation, the tribe can still attempt to claim its ancestors under the museum’s “culturally unaffiliated policy.”

To date, Billeck says his office has offered to Native American tribes the remains of about 6,600 people and 220,000 funerary objects. As the Seminoles’ request is evaluated, Billeck says the remains from Florida will be kept in a Maryland facility.

“I have a lot of respect for native people, and I really value working with them. I hope eventually the Seminole will be pleased with the result [of their requests], but I know they’re not happy with us right now, because we’re not returning things immediately,” Billeck says.

For Osceola, that argument is nonsensical, since all people native to North America share a lineage. After a decade of refusals by the Smithsonian, her office started a hashtag that took off on social media: #NoMoreStolenAncestors.

She hopes the attention puts pressure on museums to understand how her people see it, that ancestors who aren’t at rest poison the generations that follow.

“There’s an inextricable relationship between ancestors and their descendants, and that relationship doesn’t stop beyond someone’s death,” Osceola says. “When their remains are being stored in cabinets, they’ve been separated from the natural world that they were supposed to be in. That’s against every rule of law and the creator’s law for us. If our ancestors aren’t healthy, neither are we.”

For the bones found in the Peabody’s basement, the process to return them to where they were stolen should have been simple. Then, the pandemic struck.

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Above: Prominent

members of the Seminole Tribe in Washington, D.C., following a meeting with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Left: Ryan Wheeler,

director of the Peabody Institute of Archaeology

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Correcting a Century-Old Wrong Back in Massachusetts, when Wheeler first found the skeletons of ancient Floridians in the basement of his museum, the piece of land where they had been unearthed was getting ready for its next life.

The site is part of an 18-acre tract in the Bay Hill area of Orlando. A company called Unicorp National Developments, Inc. planned to build luxury homes costing up to $2 million.

They would call it Carmel by the Lake.

But because Wheeler happened upon those skeletons and recorded the burial site, the developers had no choice but to allow archaeologists to conduct a dig. The state of Florida hired a Gainesville-based company called Search, Inc. to handle the excavation. The site is now called the Macey Mound. The team of archaeologists began digging up remains and relocating them to a spot elsewhere on the property that wouldn’t be disturbed by the development.

The Seminoles decided their ancestors found in Massachusetts would end up there, too. But by then, it was

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2020, and the pandemic struck. The Seminoles put their reservations on lockdown until February of this year and halted out-of-state travel for tribal employees.

Normally, members of Osceola’s staff would have gone to get the remains. One of them is Domonique deBeaubien, who carries the title of collections manager for the tribe and chairs its repatriation committee. While in college, deBeaubien did field work digging in an ancient castle moat in southwest England and got hooked on the field of bioarchaeology, the study of animals and humans dug up from archaeological sites.

She’s worked for the Seminoles for a decade, and, in that time, has seen the country’s attitude change toward repatriation, thanks largely to a younger generation that wants to correct a wrong. Often, it’s deBeaubien who makes first contact with a museum that’s keeping Seminole remains, and it’s often deBeaubien who transports them home. That regularly means flying somewhere, renting a U-Haul and driving back.

Transporting objects between museums typically requires that artifacts remain in the custody of an employee at all times, and, with Seminole ancestors, it’s even more important that they are never alone. That means deBeaubien regularly travels with another staff member so they can be sure the bones are never alone, even taking them into their hotel rooms at night.

“I mean, it’s definitely unusual,” she says, “but it’s something you have to do.”

While deBeaubien would have normally flown to Massachusetts to retrieve the bones from the Peabody, the tribe’s COVID-19 lockdown meant that wasn’t possible.

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SEMINOLE TRIBE OF FLORIDA , STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA

It’s definitely work that has to be done with the heart, if you’re going to do it right. — RYAN WHEELER

But Wheeler didn’t think it was right to delay returning the Seminole remains any longer, so his institute agreed to assist in the transport. He says the process of repatriation is a difficult one. “It is emotional. It requires some empathy, and it’s definitely work that has to be done with the heart, if you’re going to do it right.”

To start the journey home for the Seminoles, Wheeler says escorts brought the bones from Massachusetts to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 2019, the Bruce Museum received an email from the federal government warning that the museum was out of compliance with federal law. The museum had in its possession Native American bones that it needed to return to tribes, and, if it didn’t, the Bruce would face significant fines.

The warning surprised Kirsten Reinhardt, registrar at the time for the Bruce, who didn’t know the museum had any remains that needed to be returned. She scoured the museum’s records and discovered the remains of four Native Americans.

One of them had been collected by Wilbur Smith, an animal control officer and amateur scientist from Norwalk, Connecticut. During a vacation to Florida in 1937, Smith unearthed Native American shell mounds along the coast and, at some point during the trip, acquired an ancient skull that he brought home as if it was a vacationer’s souvenir. He gave the skull to the Bruce Museum, which displayed it in its “Indian Room.”

When Reinhardt found the skull in storage decades later, she made contact with the Seminoles and started the process of repatriation. After the bones from the Peabody arrived by courier, Reinhardt says the Bruce Museum’s COO and her husband drove the bones to Pennsylvania, where they met an archaeologist from Search, Inc. who had worked on the Macey Mound site, and she took both sets of remains the rest of the way to Orlando.

What happened to the bones from there isn’t something the Seminoles like to discuss with outsiders. They fear more grave robbers and say it’s a process sacred to the tribe. Where they ended up, whether there’s a marker there—those are things nobody outside the tribe should know. But Osceola will say this: The remains were returned to Florida soil.

The process often reminds Osceola of something her grandmother said to her before she left for college: “Don’t

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forget where you come from.” At the time, she thought it was a warning about remembering the directions to drive back home.

Now, it’s something she thinks about regularly, the idea that she needs to preserve the memory of the people who came before her. “I know there are ancestors who fought to survive, to live this life that I’m living right now,” she says. “To think those ancestors are sitting on a shelf in some dusty room. They’re not being kept with any care. There’s no ceremony. They’re not with their people or where they come from.”

While the Seminoles don’t allow outsiders to witness the reburials, in 2015, a reporter from The Seminole Tribune, the tribe’s newspaper, documented the return of 21 skulls. They were the ones that Geller helped repatriate from the University of Pennsylvania. The skulls included three children, two women and 16 men collected at battlefields from the Seminole Wars. Willie Johns, the chief justice of Tribal Court before he passed away in 2020, brought the skulls to their final resting spot. He carried them in a cardboard box wrapped in white

Below: A depiction of

Seminole indian graves in the Everglades

burial cloth. The skulls were lowered into a hole dug by a backhoe into the mucky soil near Lake Okeechobee.

During a eulogy before a small crowd, Johns contemplated the words he would use if he had the chance to speak to the ancestors he was burying. “I would say, ‘Welcome home.

Welcome home. And, oh, by the way, did you hear? We won. Your people are still here in Florida. And they are doing well.’”

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CLI M B ABOARD A MODEST SKI FF I N TAM PA BAY TO CAST FOR A FISH SH ROU DE D I N CONTRO V E RSY AN D CON FUSION.

By JESSICA GILES Photography by JOSH LETCHWORTH

D

rew Brophy loves his fiance, reeling in monster goliath grouper and Wendy’s Baconators—in that order. Just don’t ask him when he’s hungry.

The 20-year-old Ruskin native has been fishing in the waters of Tampa Bay since he was teetering around the Manatee River as a 2-year-old, and when he’s got a rod in hand, it shows.

He’s one of the youngest fishing captains at Poseidon Fishing Charters in Tampa Bay, but don’t let his age fool you. They don’t call him the “Goliath King” for nothing.

“He’s really good,” Hunter Champagne, the owner of Poseidon Fishing Charters, whispers to me as Brophy runs inside to grab more hooks. “And he’s only 20. Just imagine how good he’ll be when he’s 40.”

We’ll need his expertise—and maybe a little luck—this afternoon as the odds are against us. It’s a temperate March day in the bay, and Brophy is pulling crevalle jack from the freezer in preparation for our charter.

“These are our bait,” he says to me, tossing the frozen fish on the deck with a thundering thwack. There are only two things that’ll steal such a sizable bait off our hook in the bay: sharks and Atlantic goliath grouper. And we’re not looking for sharks.

Goliath grouper have been a protected species in both federal and state waters for 32 years. Reminiscent of a refrigerator, these yellowish-brown-speckled marine monsters can weigh up to 800 pounds and stretch as long as 8 feet, making them a coveted catch for trophy fishers. As such, they suffered from severe overfishing from the 1950s to the 1980s, everyone itching to flaunt their leviathan catch. By 1990, federal and state officials feared that the goliath grouper stock was more depleted than previously thought and banned all harvesting of the fish in state and federal waters surrounding Florida. Ever since, it’s been a catch-and-release species only.

Now, the 32-year moratorium is ending. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted on March 3 to reopen a limited harvest for goliath grouper beginning in spring of 2023. It’s a pivotal decision for a delicate fishery;

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one that numerous stakeholders turn to for sport, science and profit. Anglers anxious for this long-forbidden fish will vie for 200 permits that the FWC will raffle off via a random-draw lottery in the fall. Meanwhile, scientists hold their breath for a population they’re not yet convinced has made a comeback.

We’re not fishing for keeps today. In fact, we’ll be lucky if we hook one at all. Normally, when Poseidon Fishing Charters takes clients out on a goliath hunt, they climb aboard Pegasus, a Crevalle 26 Bay outfitted with a surround-sound system, hightech fish finder and updated navigational technology. With Pegasus, Brophy takes his clients about 20 miles offshore Atlantic to a wreck overrun with goliath. goliath There, his biggest problem is grouper running out of bait. His record have been is seven goliath grouper in one day. If they weren’t all more a protected than 300 pounds, he might’ve species been able to make it eight. since 1990.

“It wears you out,” he chuckles, shaking his head.

But as luck would have it, Pegasus blew a gasket this morning, so today we’re running with Themis, an Xpress 185 skiff. She’s adept at maneuvering low tides and shallow waters where snook and redfish play, but Brophy would sooner go vegan than bring Themis all the way out to the wreck.

As we pull away from the modest A-frame house where Poseidon is headquartered, Brophy shows off his brand-spanking-new fishing rod equipped with a 50 wide Shimano Tiagra reel, Power Pro 200-pound braided fishing line and 480-pound leader with a circle hook. Anglers are only legally allowed to fish for goliath grouper, and all other reef fish, using circle hooks because it reduces the likelihood of accidentally snagging fish by the throat or stomach.

This will be his rod’s maiden voyage, and I feel a sense of obligation to make it worthwhile, but Brophy has already tempered my expectations.

Before the red tide bloom along Previous Spread: the Gulf Coast last summer, it Writer Jessica Giles wasn’t unusual to find goliath and fishing captain Drew Brophy wait for hanging around the range the pull of a goliath markers that stand like guanogrouper on the line in Tampa Bay. sprinkled monuments throughout Left: Drew Brophy the bay. But these gargantuan tosses a frozen creatures are highly susceptible to crevalle jack into the bay as bait. environmental changes, including

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red tide and cold snaps. These days it isn’t a given that you’ll feel the tug of a goliath when you toss a frozen jack overboard in the bay. And if we do manage to hook one of these coveted creatures, we’re in for the fight of a lifetime.

“You generally don’t want the fish to be bigger than your boat,” Champagne said to me with a laugh before we departed. My eyes glanced around the skiff, taking inventory of the available life jackets.

But Brophy likes a good challenge.

We idle our way through the Little Manatee River, and just as the St. Petersburg skyline peeks over the mangroves, Brophy lets Themis show off. Picking up speed, the skiff skips over the choppy waves like a smooth rock, my blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail rippling like a flag.

Brophy leans down and shouts over the waves and wind.

“Now when we catch one, we’ll be legendary.”

Atlantic goliath grouper used to be found from North Carolina all the way down to Southeastern Brazil, and from Senegal to the Congo off the coast of West Africa. Nowadays, it’s rare to spot one of these colossal fish anywhere in the Caribbean, and they’ve all but vanished from the eastern Atlantic.

But Florida has given them a fighting chance.

Closing the fishery for the past 32 years has provided enough protection for the species to begin to see some recovery, but just how much is a serious point of contention—and it isn’t as simple as rounding up all the goliath for a head count.

Despite being under close scrutiny for so many years, goliath grouper remain somewhat of an enigma to scientists. Chris Malinowski, now the director of research and conservation at Ocean First Institute, has studied them since 2010 and conducted extensive research into their life cycle, spawning behaviors, diet, vulnerability and mercurial toxicity as a Ph.D. candidate at Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory.

Alongside former Marine Lab Director Felicia Coleman and former faculty member Chris Koenig, the team has been closely tracking the health of the goliath grouper population for more than a decade.

“It’s hard to say how the population is doing

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A Contentious Compromise

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you generally don’t want the fish to be bigger than your boat.

— H U NTE R CHAM PAG N E

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When you feel that first pull, that’s when your heart starts going crazy.

— DRE W B ROP HY

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with their Key West goliath grouper catch circa 1958.

FLORIDA KE YS PUBLIC LIBR ARY

Above: A family poses

right now,” Malinowski says. “They’re subjected to all kinds of things that are not easily quantifiable or have not been quantified in many ways.”

For most fish species, traditional stock assessments—the collection of demographic information—are done using data collected from fishery catch, Malinowski says. But since the goliath fishery has been closed for the last 32 years, there is no data available from recreational or commercial harvesting.

Scientists tried three separate times to submit traditional stock assessments for goliath grouper beginning in 2004. All three were rejected during peer review and deemed unsuitable for use in federal management of the fishery. These attempts at quantifying the population were rejected primarily due to the persisting unknowns surrounding goliath, according to a May 2021 FWC report.

“Given the data-poor nature of this fishery, it is difficult to assess the status of the stock and objectively evaluate whether the population is rebuilt,” reads a December 2018 FWC report.

Without the traditional stock assessment, the FWC relies on other sources of data to make decisions about goliath management, including the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), The Everglades National Park creel survey and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), FWC spokesperson Carol Lyn Parrish wrote in an email.

“The problem with those data, which are not being represented and presented well to the commissioners, is there’s a huge level of uncertainty surrounding those lines and curves they show in those data. There’s huge uncertainty. So you don’t use those as if they’re the Bible in this case,” Malinowski says.

Noticeably absent from the graphs used in the last several FWC presentations about goliath grouper management for commissioners? The margins of uncertainty.

“Uncertainty is high in the data we have for many marine species; however, that does not mean we cannot use scientific principles and professional judgment to inform decisions in the face of uncertainty,” Parrish wrote in an email.

The other puzzling component of this fishery debate is the propensity for everyone to see the data entirely different.

Malinowski looks at the REEF data and sees a declining goliath grouper population since 2010. The FWC looks at it and sees an overall increasing population. It seems someone is making the data beat to their own drum.

In March, the Commission used its professional judgment to reestablish a limited fishery, to the disappointment of numerous non-state scientists and the elation of frustrated anglers.

The approved harvest is an attempt to appease the masses: allow access to an elusive fish without killing off so many that they can’t recover.

Starting in the fall, Florida residents can pay $150 to enter a lottery to win one of 200 available goliath grouper permits for

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a season that will run March through May 2023. Non-Florida residents will have to cough up $500 to put their name in the hat. The permits only allow for the harvest of a single goliath between 24 and 36 inches in total length—a far cry from the 400-pound highly sought-after trophy goliath. The slot limit is designed to protect the adult fish, the ones crucial for spawning, and target fish with lower mercury levels so they’re safer for consumption.

Goliath of this size are typically still juveniles and found in nearshore environments, like estuaries.

Most of the state The largest is fair game, but goliath grouper harvest will conever caught was tinue to be forbidden on Florida’s 680 pounds.

East Coast from Martin County south through the Atlantic Coast of the Florida Keys, in the St. Lucie River and its tributaries and Dry Tortugas National Park. For those wishing to score a catch in Everglades National Park, they’ll have to secure a special permit. Only 50 can be taken from the park.

The FWC assures the public that this finite harvest will have a negligible effect on the rebuilding goliath population.

“The basic principles of fish biology, fishery science, and life history theory indicate that this level of removals is extremely small, especially when you consider that it is limited to the juvenile phase of life when both abundance and natural mortality are relatively high,” Parrish wrote.

Malinowski doesn’t share their confidence.

“Managers are supposed to proceed with caution, not be cowboys and just want to make a decision, because somebody’s got their ear, and they’re not being transparent about who that is,” he says.

goliath games

“Mr. Goliath, are you here?” Brophy calls into the silence as he lobs the frozen jack into the waves. We’re bobbing beside a range marker, one of the goliath’s preferred hangouts in Tampa Bay. If they’re here, we’ll know in about a minute, tops.

“When you feel that first pull, that’s when your heart starts going crazy,” Brophy says with a smile.

His obsession began with annoyance. Brophy would often be out fishing for snapper or regular grouper when a goliath would swoop in and steal his catch. Eventually, Brophy had enough.

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catch in the Florida Keys during the 1950s

“You know what, I’m going to go buy a rod, and I’m going report. They feed mostly on crustaceans and small non-reef to catch these things,” he recalls. “Now, I found my new favorfish, but they are opportunistic. If they spot an appetizing snapite fish to go for.” per hanging on a hook, they’re not one to turn down a snack.

His experience with goliath snatching snapper and snook The FWC has been candid about the fact that this limited off his line is echoed by anglers throughout harvest opportunity won’t reduce the amount Florida. Brian Sanders, an angler based out of nuisance interactions anglers will have with of a small outpost near the Ten Thousand goliath, because it doesn’t target the adults. In Islands called Chokoloskee, plays keep-away fact, a byproduct of rebuilding the fishery will with goliath often when he’s out fishing near a be more frequent interactions between fishwreck. In the heat of the day, they’ll take refermen and goliath that result in losing their uge underneath the shade of the boat, which catch, according to the presentation at March’s also just so happens to be the perfect spot to FWC meeting held in Tampa.

Goliath snatch Sanders’ catch as he reels it in.

Today, it seems no goliath are interested in “Sometimes, it’s just like a game to them, the meat dangling from our circle hook. We grouper can and other times they’re really super hungry,” zig-zag from range marker to range marker, live to be he says. “And when they’re super hungry, you plunging our frozen bait into the estuary and at least 37 can’t keep it away from them. They will eat it.” coming up empty. Having exhausted all of the years old.

Sanders learned to live with the somestructures our species favors in the bay, Brophy times-annoying animals, but not every angler pulls his buff up over his nose. is as willing to adapt. It’s one of the reasons “Y’all ready to go fast?” he says. some fishermen support reopening the harvest: They’re tired of goliath stealing their catch.

In reality, snapper and regular grouper make up less than The sun is just beginning its descent when we find ourselves 1 percent of a goliath’s diet, according to a May 2021 FWC in the shadow of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Although he

The Thrill of the Fight

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FLORIDA KE YS PUBLIC LIBR ARY, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Above: A goliath grouper

hasn’t said it, I can sense that this is our Hail Mary, our last “I’ve got something,” he says quietly, a twinge of panic chance to land what we’ve been searching for. woven in his words.

As Brophy lobs the same tired jack into the bay, a voice calls “Really?” I squeal. out from overhead.

“I’ve got a feeling it’s a dolphin,” he says.

“You goliath fishing?” says the man, perched on the railing My excitement extinguishes. It’s not often that a dolphin of the Skyway Fishing Pier, one foot dangling on either side. accidentally snares itself on the hook while Brophy is out goli“Yep,” Brophy calls back, a smidge of defeat evident in his ath fishing, but it wouldn’t be the first time. An inquisitive botbrief response. tlenose had been circling our skiff a few The young captain was eager to spend minutes earlier. Sure enough, Brophy the afternoon hunting his favorite fish. It’s spots its dorsal fin at the end of his line. a charter that feels more like play than work Luckily for him, the dolphin doesn’t to him. When I asked Brophy why goliath stick around long. Before Brophy has to grouper have become such an obsession for hatch a plan for safe removal, the dolhim, he can’t control the grin that creeps up phin lets go of its grip on the bait. his cheeks.

“Oh, thank God,” Brophy exhales.

Goliath grouper “It’s a pure adrenaline rush,” he says.

Even this catch-and-release fishing can measure up For years he underestimated them. He’d doesn’t sit right with some people when to 8 feet long. go out with a rod he’d use to haul in sharks, it comes to goliath grouper. Malinowski and the goliath would snap it like a Kit Kat. has a folder full of images of manUndeterred, he returned with an even biggled goliath grouper with their throats ger one. It’s as if he could hear the goliath taunting him. ripped open, eyes missing and other severe injuries due to misWhen he caught his first big goliath, it was like he won the handling during catch-and-release.

Super Bowl. The best part is, he captured it all on film.

Members of the dive industry are particularly averse to the “Sheeeeesh,” he exclaims in a high-pitched tone on the practice of parking on top of shipwrecks and reeling in one video as he struggles to surface the fish. “You’re a weak groumonster goliath grouper after another. These are their cashper, aren’t ya? You ain’t nothin’ boy!” cow destinations. Gerry Carroll, the owner of Jupiter Dive When he spotted the goliath’s silhouette floating up to the Center, argues that the repeated catch-and-release of goliath surface, Brophy lost his mind. He estimated it was around 350400 pounds; the biggest fish he’d ever caught in his life. And suddenly, it was the only thing he wanted to catch.

Despite their enormous size, Brophy says the fight usually only lasts about three to five minutes. The hardest part is pulling them off the wreck, reef or whatever structure they’ve made their home. Once you get them closer to the surface, they’re bloated, tired bodies float to the top like a balloon.

Anglers are discouraged from pulling goliath grouper into the boat because their bone structures aren’t capable of supporting their weight outside of the water, so many join them beside the boat for a photo op. When Brophy jumped into the ocean to commemorate his inaugural big catch, the goliath got the last laugh, giving the guide a solid slap with its tail. Not even that could wipe the smile from Brophy’s face.

Below: Atlantic goliath

grouper spawning season is from July through October.

Cash Cows

I can’t help but feel a little envy when Brophy recalls his first goliath catch. I was itching for that rush. I wanted to know what it felt like to muscle up a fish three times my body weight.

I wanted to understand the hype. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that this may just be a nice afternoon boat ride when Brophy lets out a groan.

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grouper on shipwrecks is really just catch-and-kill, like shooting fish in a barrel, he said during the FWC meeting.

Goliath grouper use shipwrecks off the coast of Florida as their spawning sites. From late July to October of each year, dozens to hundreds of goliath grouper gather on artificial reefs and wrecks to form spawning aggregations. Outfitters, like Pura Vida Divers in Riviera Beach, capitalize on this spawning season by taking divers from all over the world out to witness this spectacle found in few other places on earth. Revenue from the dive industry has tripled over the last five years, according to FSU’s Coastal Marine Laboratory, an uptick many credit to an increased presence of goliath grouper on offshore and artificial reefs.

Since goliath grouper are the main performers behind this profitable show, it’s no wonder that numerous dive shop owners fought vehemently against the proposed Goliath harvest, especially congrouper are sidering divers reported recognized as smaller spawning aggregations last season than a vulnerable previous years. species.

“We are not lobbyists.

We are not being paid to be here,” said Shana Phelan, co-owner of Pura Vida Divers at the FWC meeting. “We are doing this as a labor of love, because we are the resource users who have a vested interest in the perpetuity of this species.”

Although the FWC passed the proposed harvest, it did advise staff to look into increased protections for goliath grouper at known spawning sites, including the potential for banning all fishing at these locations during spawning season.

Just the Beginning

With sunlight dwindling and all of our options exhausted, we’re forced to accept that there will be no goliath today. As we tear back through the bay toward the mouth of the Little Manatee River, I can’t help but wonder what our zero-catch day means. Was it just bad luck? Or is this the manifestation of what scientists have been trying to tell the public all along?

The answer, like everything else about this species, is murky.

Until more research is done and gaps in the data are filled, no one can say with absolute certainty what a reopened harvest will mean for goliath grouper. Malinowski worries that we may not fully understand the ramifications of the limited harvest until it’s too late.

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“The fear is, from my standpoint, that this opens up a gateway to the next thing, which would be the adults,” he says. “I don’t think it ends here.”

And given the public comments made during the FWC meeting where the proposal was approved, Malinowski’s suspicions are correct. Some people don’t want harvest opportunities to end at juveniles. Some advocated for spearfishing to be included in the harvest, others urged the Commission to consider a larger slot limit, and multiple people took to the podium to praise the commissioners for “taking a step in the right direction.”

Despite goliath grouper being one of Brophy’s three greatest loves, he doesn’t really care whether the limited harvest is approved. Most of the goliath he lands don’t fall within the slot limit anyway, he says, and he feeds off the fight of the big ones.

He wouldn’t mind taking out a client in search of a smaller goliath if they were able to score a permit, but, as for himself, he won’t be shelling out the $150 for his own.

“Why not?” I ask. Brophy chuckles.

“I’m allergic to fish.”

Left: Captain Drew

Brophy tosses out a line under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, hoping for a goliath bite as the sun sets.

Above: Captain Drew

Brophy holds up a circle hook, designed to minimize injury to the fish.

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FLORIDA’S MOST

WAYS TO PLAY

Dive into sunny watersports, savor celebrated outdoor dining and experience world-class attractions — all just a short drive away in Tampa Bay.

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— sunny dispatches from NW FLA —

Panhandling

By Pr i s sy E l ro d • I l l u st ra t i o n by S t ep h en L o m a zzo

Girls Just Marijuana Have Fun One little pill takes this curious insomniac on the trip of a lifetime.

I

t was midnight as I sipped my second cup of Nighty Night herbal tea.

Despite all my concoctions, insomnia clung on like a bad boyfriend. It had been two hours since I’d taken an arsenal of holistic sleep aids and then applied roll-on aromatherapy to my wrists, earlobes and under the tip of my nose. The fusion of lavender, frankincense and holy basil scented the air around me, but nothing sedated my busy brain. The Cleveland Clinic determined I’m off the spectrum of normal. Well, hello

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Cleveland Clinic, I didn’t need to spit in your test tube to know that.

I’m an anomaly, who can’t take medicines everyone else on the planet can. Benadryl wires me. Steroids keep me up for days. Tamiflu turned me engine red. It’s a no to Advil and Motrin for me —I can’t metabolize anti-inflammatories.

Codeine and other pain meds? Nada, no-cando, neither. Still, I continued to take the holistic sleep aids out of habit and hope. I picked up my iPad to scroll the night away when the first sentence in an article caught my attention: “A

battle is being waged over Florida’s $1 billion cannabis market.” Apparently every Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to open a dispensary in our state. According to the story, shops were battling for business by giving discounts.

I headed to bed at 2 a.m., befuddled.

The next morning, I slid from beneath the sheets and shuffled toward the kitchen via the living room. Still groggy, I glanced up to see graphs and charts rolling on our television above the fireplace. A grey-faced man spoke in monotone on the screen.

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Panhandling

sunny dispatches from NW FLA

Dale, my husband, lay on the couch captivated by the lecturer. I needed coffee just to get to my coffee. His day begins at 3 a.m., a routine he enjoyed long before he married me in his fifth decade of bachelorhood. I learned a simple truth from the never-married man. People cannot change. Accept it, then adapt. I had.

The sagacious man is a thinker, doer and prolific learner. His passions are finance, physics and cryptocurrency, not hunting, fishing and football like my late first husband, Boone. I’m smarter just from living with the man. Okay, maybe just smart-alecky, but smart makes up half that word.

A couple of years ago, he discovered YouTube, which led him down a rabbit hole where global intellectuals awaited, eager to nourish his hungry brain. Before I knew it, his viewing moved from his office and desktop to our living room and flatscreen TV. When he heard my clogs clogging, he paused the lecturer mid-sentence and headed for the kitchen. An image of the man’s half-open mouth and yellow teeth filled the 65-inch flat-screen TV suspended over French-inspired decor. I needed liquor in my coffee by then. In his defense, the benevolent husband creates the perfect cappuccino for me every morning and has seldom missed one day in our married life. So, he can watch whatever he wants. Yes sirree, I’m no brat.

“Seems like it was just Friday, or is it Thursday?” I asked as he ground the espresso beans. “Trash day, so Friday,” he said, handing over the frothy creation as we headed for the conference meeting. It’s our morning ritual where he shares what he did since awakening, and I pretend to listen. I share what I did before bed, and he pretends to care. I sought the recliner, and he chose the couch, hiding behind the pillows.

“I read an article last night,” I said, sipping my coffee. “Florida has changed.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, through a yawn.

“Cannabis and marijuana markets are booming here, and all the big companies want to relocate.” I went on educating my learner. “Did you know we’re the third largest market in the country now?” I said, like I had something to do with the pot boom. I stretched my neck to see why he didn’t answer. He was gone.

Later that day, I shared the article with a more captive audience at lunch with my girlfriends.

I almost choked on my tea when I learned they both used medical marijuana. “I take Dream every single night,” one said. “It’s a tincture oil in a dropper bottle.”

agreed to meet in the produce section of Trader Joe’s the next day. Over a bag of green apples, I passed her the green bill with trembling hands, and she handed over my very own Dream tincture oil. When I returned home, I showed Dale my Trader Joe’s party favor.

“I felt like a criminal,” I said.

“You are. It’s illegal,” he quipped.

But as the saying goes… no good deed goes unpunished. I should have listened. Better yet, I should have read the directions on the bottle.

I thought she said to take two droppers instead of what she actually said, which was two drops.

Lord, give me strength. It was a trip I never wanted to take again.

After I swallowed my full droppers, I went to bed hoping to sleep like a baby, as promised. As I lay awake, wide-eyed, I heard movement in our pitch-black bedroom and turned on the light. My husband, headed to the bathroom for a middle-of-the-night pee, stood frozen at the foot of our bed. He was half asleep, swaying and squinting.

“Why is the light on?” he asked.

I stared at his face and watched as it dissected into jigsaw pieces. His eyes were on one side of the room, his nose and ears on the other. “What’s wrong with your face?” I squealed. His lips were three times larger than normal and drifted in circles around the room.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he stood over me, alarmed.

“I took that stuff to sleep, but something isn’t right,” I said.

“Should we go to the ER?” he asked.

“No way, I can’t go having taken that stuff,” I fretted. Two days later, I was still awake.

If only I’d learned my lesson. If only.

Two weeks later, I sat in front of a certified marijuana physician for my allotted 15-minute appointment. An hour later, I knew more about the man than I did my own husband. It started with his father, a one-time drug dealer, and ended with his fiance, anxious to get married. Worse, he knew way too much about me.

His eyes were on one side of the room, his nose and ears on the other.

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The other swallowed her bite of cobb salad and dittoed, “I sleep like a baby,” she said. “It changed my life.”

“What are y’all talking about?” They shared their ailments, symptoms, the prescriber and more. Good grief, I had TMJ, insomnia and five sets of ear tubes inserted in the last two years. “I want some of that stuff,” I said, as I swallowed my last drop of chardonnay.

As we waited for the bill, I flashed back to the early ’70s and my once-hippy self. I was no virgin to marijuana. But, like Bill Clinton, I never inhaled the stuff. I looked the part with my long, braided hair, trendy bell-bottoms and a hanky scarf I called my top. But, really, I was a pseudo hippy since I continued to shave my arms and legs. And, I repeat, I never inhaled.

I heard my name and drifted back to the lunch. “Prissy, I’ll get you some Dream,” my sweet friend offered. Girlfriends do kind things for one another. And a kind friend never pens the sweet friend’s name in her column. We

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“You’re definitely a candidate,” he said, handing me a signed order and a discount coupon.

“You should have an ID card in a week.”

If only my story ended there. If only.

The tale and my tail twisted after that. It began after I walked into the dispensary, toting that 30-percent discount coupon two days before Christmas.

“May I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Yes, please. I need something to sleep and another thing to focus.” I smiled big and brave.

Gladys, her nametag read, walked to the back and came out with two products. She showed me a white round cannister with a product called Revive. “Take one for concentration,” she instructed but didn’t elaborate.

“I got it, just one,” I replied. Her sullen personality juxtaposed my chirpiness.

Next, she held up a bottle of Dream. “Two drops an hour before bedtime,” she instructed.

Oh Lord, not again! But it was 30 percent off.

A woman in line behind me leaned in and whispered, “I can’t take either of those.”

“Then what are you buying?” I asked.

“You want the chocolate bar, the only thing I can take.” She held up a bar wrapped in plain white paper. Most times, I listen to no one. This time, I listened to the stranger in the Lilly Pulitzer dress behind me. She looked about my age, only well-rested.

“Throw in a chocolate bar, please.” I paid for my goods and tossed them in my bathroom drawer when I got home.

Three days after Christmas, I returned from a 3-mile walk, hydrated with a bottle of water and plopped on the couch to cool down. Sara, my youngest daughter, dropped in for a visit.

We chatted as she worked on her computer next to me on the couch. Hungry, I sat up to go to the kitchen. Then, it happened in a flash. I was there, yet far away, two dimensions in the same moment. “Something is wrong,” I told Sara, who saw I was pasty with a faraway stare. She yelled for my YouTube watcher. They quizzed and fretted until they called an ambulance.

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Strangers invaded and circled.

“Did she take anything?” the first responder asked Sara as she wrung her hands.

He kneeled beside me and asked again.

“I took Dream, but three weeks ago.”

He half chuckled through his serious smile.

“It’s not that, I know. You should be seen.”

Strapped to a gurney, I was bound for the omicron-infested hospital, still barefoot and with no mask. From there it was full throttle: two CT scans of my head and neck; two electrocardiograms; an ultrasound of my spleen; and umpteen vials of blood drawn.

After eight hours with no diagnosis, a doctor discharged me.

“Follow up with your physician,” he said.

Two weeks later, I visited a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. He ordered an MRI and more labs. His diagnosis was inconclusive, but he suspected a seizure. A three-month follow-up was scheduled, unless I had another episode.

I was putting my hair in a ponytail the next week when I reached in my drawer for a rubber band and found the white dispensary bag filled with cannabinoids. I’d forgotten about them, what with all my medical goings-on. But then an unexplainable sensation ran through me, and I pulled the bag out and tossed it on my bed.

The Dream bottle and chocolate bar were unopened but the Revive cannister had been.

I counted the gel capsules. Please. Please.

Please. Let there be 40, the quantity listed on the bottle. Oh no, there was one missing.

I read the directions and ingredients. Take one with glass of water, then wait up to two hours for effect (5 mg CBD, 5 mg THC per gel). Then I did math: one hour to walk; 15 minutes hydration; 45 minutes couch chitchat. Two hours. A vague memory emerged.

Had I taken a gel before I went on a walk that day and not remembered? Hence, the ambulance, emergency room and two days at Mayo Clinic. Dear dispensary woman, I asked for a product to help me concentrate, not get

stoned. I kept the secret for as long as I could bear.

But, on the sixth day, it festered, popped and oozed out during our morning conference.

“I may not have anything wrong with me after all,” I said matter-of-factly to my husband.

“Why would you say that?” he asked.

“Well, there’s a slight chance the day you and Sara called the ambulance I had taken a smidge of marijuana and just forgotten.” This time, the color drained from his face, not mine.

“You know, maybe there were only 39 to begin with, a factory mistake,” I went on as his blue eyes widened. “I can’t know just because it’s gone, especially if I don’t remember.” He didn’t answer, but he seldom interrupted me when I was on one of my verbal rolls.

“How could one tiny gel make y’all think I was stroking out?” I asked.

“Well, why not take one, and see what happens?” He suggested. Okay, maybe I suggested that. Either way, this fearless gal needed to know if the cannabinoid was the culprit or if I had an undiagnosed medical mystery to worry about.

Anyone who read my books will know that I never give up, on anything or anyone. So, for the record, I’ll be running a cannabinoid experiment here in Florida, the third largest medical marijuana market in the country. If I discover that two of three products whacked me out, I won’t despair. I have one left. And, should you see me lounging on a beach, nibbling a dark chocolate cannabinoid bar, you’ll know the third was a charm, and this determined scientist slept like a baby, finally.

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. She has authored two nonfiction books, Far Outside the Ordinary and Chasing Ordinary, the sequel.

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— fine arts, favor ites, f lings —

ON THE FLY — BIRD’S-EYE VIEW —

Wh ere to stroll and s t ray i n our Sout he r nm os t c i t y

— THE ROOST —

Th r e e s o f t - h u e d h o m e s w e l o v e

— DESIGN DISTRICT —

G o i n g t i ny o p e n s u p b i g p o s s i b i l i t i e s .

— FLORIDA WILD —

A sweet respite for Florida wildlife

— THE TIDE —

Mark your calendar for the spring social scene.

— FLORIDIANA —

MARY BETH KOETH; SWIMSUIT BY BILL ABONG/SUNRISE SURF SHOP

Th e l i a b i l i t y t u r n e d l e g e n d i n L i g h t h o u s e Po i n t

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ON THE FLY:BIRD’S-EYE VIEW A 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 I llus tration by L e s lie C halfont

due south

Raise a toast, and write an ode to 200 years of Key West

Above from left: Sloppy Joe’s bar, Oldest House, The Studios of Key West, Key West Lighthouse and Keeper’s Quarters, Hemingway Home, Southernmost Point buoy

1. THE GALLERY ON GREENE

Art collectors will delight in the 37 local artists and six Pulitzer winners featured throughout the gallery with artists like Peter Vey, Mario Sanchez and Jeff MacNelly, whose works capture the spirit of Key West. 606 Greene St.

2. THE CAFE

Vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free foodies and those who just want to eat healthy will relish in this rare find with items like the Classic Sprouthead and Famous Cafe veggie burger. 509 Southard St.

3. OLDEST HOUSE MUSEUM

Celebrate the city’s bicentennial year with a stop by this treasured landmark for a look at how architecture and construction withstood the test of time. 322 Duval St.

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4. BESAME MUCHO

Get lost in the loveliness of this apothecarymeets-stationer-meets-gift emporium carrying everything from luxury linens to bath and body products, jewelry, specialty tea, candies, clothing and more. 315 Petronia St.

7. HARRY S. TRUMAN LITTLE WHITE HOUSE

History buffs flock to the “Winter White House” of President Truman, where he stayed often, wrote a State of the Union address and celebrated his 1948 re-election. 111 Front St.

5. THE STUDIOS OF KEY WEST

8. SLOPPY JOE’S

6. BOOKS & BOOKS

9. HEMINGWAY RUM CO. DISTILLERY

Take in exhibitions, workshops and performances by international and local artists inside this former 1950s Masonic Temple, where creatives come together.

533 Eaton St.

Bookworms will find more than the perfect beach read at this indie bookstore cofounded by author Judy Blume and located inside The Studios of Key West. Author events keep this shop abuzz. 533 Eaton St.

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No trip to Key West would be complete without a drink at this bar made famous by its legendary patron Ernest Hemingway. Enjoy nightly live music, a tap room, and yes, the eponymous beef sandwich. 201 Duval St.

This distillery and tasting room pays homage to the literary giant’s legacy through its signature line of rum, Papa’s Pilar, named after Hemingway’s beloved boat and formulated to reflect his cultured tastes. 201 Simonton St.

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10. HEMINGWAY HOME & MUSEUM

Channel Hemingway’s literary genius in an exclusive evening for two with full access to the house and writing studio and a chance to write in the same spot where Papa penned his lauded works.

907 Whitehead St.

11. THE CAPITANA KEY WEST

Enjoy cotton-candy sunsets every night at this modern boutique hotel situated on the Gulf. Mix and mingle in the main building or book a cottage all to yourself.

2401 N. Roosevelt Blvd.

12. TUCKER’S PROVISIONS

A trendy boutique with the perfect touch of Key West flair. Shop local makers and regional brands for a laid-back look you’ll want to walk out wearing. 611 Duval St.

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13. CUBAN COFFEE QUEEN

Soak up last night’s libations with a Cuban sandwich at this quaint cafe, and fortify for the day with a cafe con leche, so as their slogan says, you can “do stupid things faster.”

5 Key Lime Square

14. LITTLE PEARL

A chic spot to pretend you’re not a tourist and while away the afternoon sipping Sancerre and nibbling ceviche at a cozy table in the heart of Old Town 632 Olivia St.

15. TIGER BAR & CHAMPAGNE ROOM

Fresh catch never gets old, but when your palate needs a pick-me-up, the Asian-inspired small plates on the menu at this eclectic spot deliver the goods. After dinner, pop next door to the sister champagne bar for a bubbly nightcap. 500 Truman Ave.

16. KEY WEST LIGHTHOUSE

Climb the 88 steps to the top of the lighthouse, opened in 1848, for sweeping vistas. Then, cruise by the museum for a tour through time. 938 Whitehead St.

17. OCEAN KEY RESORT

Find the perfect combination of laid-back luxury at this classic Key West beauty, presiding over the iconic Sunset Pier, with the best views and people-watching on the island.

Lounge by the pool, hit the spa, and forget about home. 0 Duval St.

18. THE LOBSTER SHACK KEY WEST

Situated near the Southernmost point buoy, this tiny but mighty spot has lobster rolls on lock and is a standout in a sea of seafood options. Fresh lobster, shrimp and conch fritters, that’s all she wrote. 507 South St.

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I F YO U L O V E F L O R I D A, YO U’L L L O V E F L A M I N G O.

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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE B y S a m a n t h a Fi t z g era l d

Pretty in Pastel

From baby-blue bungalows to seafoam green estates, come stay awhile in these watercolor homes.

Key West

P

PAUL VIDAS

aradise is a priority at this Conch Republic retreat.

Situated on your own private slice of sand that overlooks the harbor and Mallory Square, this 3,635-squarefoot home is bursting with amenities to help you live the island life. An outdoor kitchen perfect for prepping mojitos and grilling burgers overlooks a rock pool and spa, outfitted with a water slide, of course. While away the hours swinging in the seaside hammock or lazing about on a lounger on the upstairs deck. Inside, a stately spiral staircase gives the home an air of opulence mixed with its tropical charm. A guest house brings the total bedroom count up to six with seven bathrooms, so feel free to bring your friends. Paradise is best enjoyed with others.

32 Sunset Key Drive, Key West $8,450,000

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

Bradenton

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his baby-blue beauty is designed to match its backdrop: the shimmering cyan waters of Anna Maria Sound. And thanks to a roomy deck complete with a grill, quartz countertop and cabinets, there’s ample space to take in the view. Even when you retreat inside the 3,895-square-foot Gulf Coast home, large windows and numerous French doors invite the outdoors in. Dark hardwood floors stand out against the sunlit white shiplap on the walls, giving this sanctuary a modern, coastal feel. An over-the-top kitchen with a six-burner gas range, wall ovens and a massive island are a chef’s dream. After the dinner party, guests can relax in three bedrooms on the main floor, but the second floor is all yours. The owner’s suite stretches across the entire floor and includes vaulted ceilings and a private balcony.

328 Harbor Sound Court, Bradenton $3,999,000

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

Santa Rosa Beach

N

JOHN MARTIN GROUP

estled among towering longleaf pines, this Panhandle hideaway is perched right on the edge of a state conservation site, giving you unparalleled privacy. Climb the steps onto the expansive open-air porch, and you’re beckoned into this 4,861-square-foot estate by a chic all-white interior contrasted with hardwood floors. Whether you opt to spend your days on the Seaside beachfront, which is just a short bike ride away, or showing off your new pastel pad, this home offers plenty of room for entertaining and unwinding.

Boasting six bedrooms and seven baths, this watercolor crib is a haven for hosting. On a warm afternoon, venture out onto one of two airy back decks with an iced tea in hand, or climb to the fourth floor, where a built-in bar and spacious deck with sprawling views offers a prime spot to take in the sunset.

114 Pine Needle Way, Santa Rosa Beach $5,500,000

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ON THE FLY: DESIGN DISTRICT B y B a i l ey L eFev er

the tiny trend

These tiny-home architects are helping Floridians live out their dreams of downsizing.

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n a world that’s constantly clamoring for more, more, more, some people are starting to think… smaller.

Instead of oceanfront Miami Beach mansions boasting nine bathrooms and a bowling alley, Floridians are switching their mindset to minimalism and mobility. In short, they’re turning to tiny.

Some say the tiny-house movement began all the way back in 1854 when Henry David Thoreau raved about the merits of simplicity from a modest log cabin in his book, Walden. But over the past several years, there’s been a renewed fascination with these pint-sized pads. Just switch on any given streaming service, and find an array of TV shows, from Tiny House

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TINY STUDIOS, MOVABLE ROOTS

Hunters on HGTV to Tiny House Nation on Netflix, extolling the virtues of living miniature.

Today, tiny homes have become more popular than ever. People want to take advantage of new work-from-home arrangements and dial-in from places they haven’t had a chance to explore—or spend a little more time with faraway loved ones.

Plus, tiny homes are really, really cute.

Simple, cozy beach bungalows nestled in the back of piney properties. Trendy, bright farmhouses that can be towed anywhere.

Danish-inspired utilitarian powerhouses with just enough space to keep a kettle on the stove and tuck into bed at night. The Sunshine State is home to some of the region’s top tiny architects, proving that going small doesn’t mean sacrificing style.

Venice-based Tiny Studios, which crafts custom homes out of shipping containers and aluminum frames, has attracted a lot of interest from young families looking for an alternative to the standard suburb setup, says owner Tamaryn Sullivan.

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Opposite: Tiny Studios uses modern design cues to create the illusion of space. This page from top: A

rendering of a Tiny Studios bungalow; John, Mike and Nikki Cheatham of Movable Roots

Although large two-story or standard ranchis welded onto a plate to stay safely attached style houses have ample room for children and in case of hurricanes. The structures can parents to spread out, they also require more withstand up to 160 mph winds and comply maintenance and everyday cleanup. with Florida Building Code, Sullivan says.

“I think people are just liking the idea of And the aluminum framing material doesn’t becoming more simple and minimal,” she says. rust like steel shipping containers can.

Sullivan and her father, a general contractor, Perhaps the most challenging obstacle first started crafting homes out of standard when it comes to going small is finding a shipping containers. They’d combine multiple place for your new tiny home, since not all sections to build spaces of all sizes cities have embraced the lessand then paint and finish the inside is-more lifestyle. Some Florida to the customer’s taste. cities don’t allow these structures TINY The results are rustic yet modern or have detailed regulations on STUDIOS farmhouses complete with shiplap what kind of tiny home you can — LOCATION — 740 COMMERCE DRIVE siding interiors, sparkling walk-in build. Others only allow them in VENICE showers and outdoor racks to hold designated communities or RV tinystudiosfl.com kayaks and paddleboards. A special parks. Switching to aluminum touch added to each of Sullivan’s containers has helped Sullivan’s designs? An outside shower head designs conform more readily to for maxing out the best parts of Sunshine State building and zoning codes. Models range in living. Every element of these simple dwellings size from 160 square feet to 480 square feet is meant to be both polished and purposeful. and can be built on a foundation or with “The idea when we initially started was to be wheels in order to function as an RV. really thoughtful and to create spaces that just But folks aren’t looking to settle down in feel light and bright and airy, more modern and their fun-sized digs. In fact, many opt for not so cluttered,” she says. tiny homes to satiate their wanderlust. Mike Now, Sullivan and her father are using more Cheatham, co-owner of Movable Roots, aluminum models rather than steel shipping constructs homes made to move—packing containers to allow for increased floorplan a kitchen, bathroom and just enough living flexibility. Once the foundation is laid, the home space onto a flatbed trailer.

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small space; designed a nook specifically for a Roomba vacuum; and even tacked on a jacuzzi tub or two.

Part of the resurgence of the tinyhouse movement can be attributed to the exploding housing market, Cheatham says.

For many millennials, a traditional first home is too expensive, so they’re getting creative to find something affordable and all-their-own.

“Most of the time, what we’re seeing that benefits the customers is the mobility idea,” he says. “They’re not strapped to a heavy mortgage MOVABLE payment or rent payment where ROOTS they’re basically working to pay — LOCATION — 834 WASHBURN ROAD their bills.”

MELBOURNE In Florida, hurricanes and movableroots.com other extreme weather can lead to expensive home repairs from flooding, wind damage or fallen trees. With a traveling tiny home, owners don’t have to worry about what an impending Category 4 might do. Instead, they can escape the storm altogether.

“You don’t have to stick out the bad weather,” Cheatham says, noting that their homes are not built to withstand hurricaneforce winds. “If you have the vehicle, you can move your own home, or you can have somebody contracted to move your home out of harm’s way.”

The temporary nature of these compact cribs may not be for everyone, but interest among those who do want to downsize or Above: The open kitchen plan in a Movable Roots tiny home Opposite clockwise: Cozy living in a Tiny Studios bungalow; staircase to the loft in a Movable Roots design; modern bathroom inside a Tiny leave behind their life of excess is exploding, Studios space; Tiny Studios builds miniature homes and retail spaces.

Cheatham says.

Cheatham and his wife, Nikki, were So Cheatham and his brother, John, started Right now Movable Roots produces about interested in building their own tiny home their own company: Movable Roots.

15 to 20 tiny homes a year, which keeps on a plot of land in Brevard County back in The brothers build homes that are fully Cheatham and his wife too busy to embark 2016, but they couldn’t find any with firstcustomizable—as long as they are 400 square on crafting their own. The couple, however, floor bedrooms or that could be customized feet or less and can fit on a trailer. still plans on living out their cross-country, with a sleeker design. Everything felt “The most interesting thing is that every freewheelin’ dream someday. And exactly reminiscent of a log cabin or only offered customer is different in how they need the space where do they plan on going? lofted bedrooms. to work for them,” he says.

Cheatham laughs, “I want to travel the “I wasn’t seeing anything on the Cheatham has built a litter box into a cabinet, U.S.” From east coast to west coast and marketplace that fit our needs,” he says. with an exhaust fan to keep odors out of the north to south.

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TINY STUDIOS, MOVABLE ROOTS

ON THE FLY: DESIGN DISTRICT

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ON THE FLY: FLORIDA WILD P H OTOGR APHS & F IELD NOTES B y C ar lton Ward J r.

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Sweet Success

T

his is a photo of a globally significant wildlife corridor and a recent conservation success story that happens to be an orange grove. I visited Cypress Creek Grove on assignment for The Nature Conservancy for a story about the Florida panther—our state animal, and the only puma population in the eastern United States, which has been isolated to the southern tip of Florida for the past five decades. Panthers came back from the brink of extinction during that time, from fewer than 20 to nearly 200 today.

But to continue the recovery and reach sustainable numbers, panthers need one main thing: access to land further north in Florida and beyond. That is where this orange grove comes in.

Cypress Creek Grove rests on the northern bank of the Caloosahatchee River, just east of LaBelle in southwest Florida.

It is a key link in a puzzle of green land within the Florida Wildlife Corridor that connects the current core panther territory in the southern Everglades to the species’ NOTES expansion territory in the northern Everglades. The land around this grove is one of the last places along the — HABITAT— NORTHERN BANK OF THE entire length of the Caloosahatchee River where wildlife CALOOSAHATCHEE RIVER habitat on both sides of the river still exists.

Over the past ten years, The Nature Conservancy and partners have protected ranchlands on the south side of — SEASON — SPRING the Caloosahatchee River through funding conservation easements—contracts that allow ongoing agricultural production but ensure that the land can never be — TIME OF DAY— developed. Those easements with ranchers help keep the EVENING land south of the river connected to the panther habitat around Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest and Big — SUBJECT— Cypress National Preserve. The newest property to the CYPRESS CREEK GROVE north of the river is Cypress Creek Grove, which connects to the excellent habitats of the Chaparral Slough and Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area.

I have spent time photographing the grove from above with a drone but found the people harvesting the citrus the most compelling. When two tractor-trailers were being filled from the harvest, I couldn’t resist climbing on top to show the expanse of fresh-picked oranges. The harvest manager, Pablo Escobedo, showed me how to climb up. To get myself into position, I struggled to wade knee-deep through the pile of oranges. When I turned to frame the scene, this moment presented itself, as Pablo was showing me his more direct (and much more committed) way of walking from one end of the trailer to the next.

After a few days with Pablo and his team, I felt a deeper appreciation for the work that goes into Florida orange juice and felt thankful that helping to save the Florida panther also preserves a future for our state’s iconic crop—at least for this grove—during a time when a building boom is sacrificing wildlife and agriculture alike.

26°48’3.27” N

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

81°20’36.552” W

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115

ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (NORTH) ANNUAL MUG RACE PA LAT K A

May 7

Sail 38 nautical miles down the longest river in Florida to become the Mug Cup champion. Or sit back and watch the fleet of sailboats cross the finish line in Orange Park. rudderclub.com

ROCK THE ROOST TA L LA H A S S E E

July 23

Let your boots swing from a dropped tailgate while Luke Bryan serenades you with chart-topping hits at this outdoor concert that benefits Tallahassee Community College.

Yeah, that’s our kind of night. rocktheroosttcc.com

SCALLOP SEASON S T E I N H AT C H E E

June–Sept.

Grab a snorkel and a net and head to Florida’s Big Bend for one of summer’s most iconic pastimes. Collect your share, but not more than the limit, of these Easter eggs of the sea, best enjoyed fresh off the boat, grilled or chilled. myfwc.com

FISH TO FORK A M E L I A I S LA N D

Sept. 29–Oct. 2 Chefs must be skilled with both a rod and a roaster to excel in this multifaceted showdown. First, these captains of cuisine board a backwater charter in search of red drum, black sea bass, flounder and any other local species that might taste good topped with olive tapenade or seared over a plate of creamy risotto. Once back on dry land, competitors use their day’s catch to craft a gourmet meal that will out-flavor their foes, while incorporating the secret ingredient, of course. Chefs battle both individually and as teams, but the guests are always the judges, sampling dishes in between dancing and drinks.

Previous contenders have included Kenny Gilbert, Kathleen Blake and even Maneet Chauhan. Who’ll be crowned the king or queen of brawn and brine this year? omnihotels.com/hotels/amelia-island

A LY S B E A C H

May 13–14

Who says art and science have to be at odds? It’s the ultimate marrying of the minds at this immersive festival where projection art paints the stark-white skyline of this New Urbanist enclave in technicolor. alysbeach.com/events

116

EMERALD COAST BLUE MARLIN CLASSIC

FLORIDA FOLK FESTIVAL

MIRAMAR BEACH

June 22–26

May 27–29

Use your sturdiest rod, and fight to heave in the heaviest blue marlin on the Gulf Coast at this sport-fishing showdown. With a $2 million purse, this is one of the top-ten big-money events in the world. fishecbc.com

Learn the stories of the Sunshine State at this celebration of Florida’s heritage. Pluck a mandolin, weave a pine-needle basket or call a square dance.

Whatever it takes to get back to your roots. floridastateparks.org

FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// S P R I N G • S U M M E R 2 0 2 2

WHITE SPRINGS

Above: Elegantly set tables at Fish to

Fork weekend at Omni Amelia Island

@T HEFLA M INGOMAG

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CO.,

FLORIDA

|

27.0805°

N,

80.4104°

W

|

THE

ANSWER

IS

IN

OUR

PALMS

27.0805°

FLORIDA

N,

CO.,

80.4104°

W

MARTIN |

WHATEVER YOUR MOOD, YOU’RE ALWAYS IN THE MOOD FOR MARTIN

|

27.0805° W

MARTIN

CO.,

FLORIDA

|

27.0805°

N,

80.4104°

W

|

THE

ANSWER

IS

FLORIDA CO., MARTIN

80.4104°

IN

OUR

PALMS

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

N,

For experiences as vast as the open sea, there’s no destination like Martin County.

Forge new memories in Old Florida, with breathtaking beaches, world-class fishing, adrenaline-driving aquatic adventures, and sunny days where worries melt away. Family fun or a trip for one. Romantic rendezvous or escape with your crew. No matter your mood, discover your destination and find inspiration at moodformartin.com

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117

ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (C E N T RA L ) SUNCOAST LADIES CLASSIC ST. PETERSBURG

June 30–July 2

Watch as legit lady anglers compete for $45,000 worth of cash prizes. Want in on the fun?

There are seminars all weekend long to help newbies become pro-fish-ionals. suncoastladiesclassic.com

P1 AQUAX DAYTONA BEACH GRAND PRIX D AY T O N A B E A C H

Aug. 12–14

Root for your favorite jet ski skipping over the surf at the largest watercraft racing series in the world. Recreational and professional riders are welcome, just don’t forget your courage— or your helmet—at home. p1aquax.com

SHARKCON TA M PA

July 16–17

LA K E LA N D

May 6–8

See the Sunshine State from a new perspective—as long as you’re not scared of heights. A fleet of hot air balloons will sail over Lakeland for a weekend’s worth of whimsy. The fearless can fly high in a tethered balloon for an unobstructed view of Central Florida’s splendor. Meanwhile, the landlubber can look up for an awe-inspiring display of balloons bobbing above the treetops. When you’re not airborne, saunter over to the stage for songs by Rico Monaco Band and Audio Exchange, or sit behind the wheel of a vintage vehicle at the car show. Stick around after sunset because the spectacle lights up with a spectrum of color for the balloon night glow. Come for a day or camp out for all three, and get the full-blown experience. upupandawayflorida.com

FLORIDANIA FEST GULFPORT

May 21

Swap something old for something, um, older at this meetup for collectors of Florida kitsch. Trade your vintage collectibles for sentimental Sunshine souvenirs, postcards, art and more. facebook.com/ FloridaRoadsideHistory

118

BEER ‘MERICA 2022: THE LEGEND RETURNS

THE PRIDE CUP

O R LA N D O

May 14

June 3–5

Salute the red, white and brew when this fest featuring more than 100 craft beers returns to Ivanhoe Village. Flaunt your patriotic getup for a chance to win a year of free beer. beermericaorlando.com

Spike a volleyball, sink a holein-one or join the rainbow run at this inaugural LGBTQ+ sports tourney inspired by the 30-year tradition of “Gay Day at Magic Kingdom.” Stick around after dark for parties into the night. kindredpride.org/pride-cup

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Swim at your own risk! Sharks will swarm the Florida State Fairgrounds during this fin frenzy.

Dive into the science behind the species, learn to scuba and protect these apex predators. sharkcon.com

O R LA N D O

Above: P1 AquaX Daytona Beach

Grand Prix

@T HEFLA M INGOMAG

ISTOCK .COM/DHARMESON, RONNY MCHENRY

UP, UP AND AWAY

ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (SOUTH) WORLD’S RICHEST TARPON TOURNAMENT AND FESTIVAL BOCA GRANDE

May 18–19

See who can score the heftiest silver king at this storied fishing competition in some of the state’s most active waters.

They don’t call Boca Grande the tarpon fishing capital of the world for nothing. bocagrandechamber.com

VERO BEACH FILM FESTIVAL VERO BEACH

June 9–12

Wine lovers and film aficionados unite at Vero Beach’s favorite film festival. Pair a red with romance or a sparkling white with comedy, and make friends with rising filmmakers. vbfilmfest.org

KEY LIME FESTIVAL KEY WEST

June 30–July 4 Test your Floridian taste buds with five days of unique Key lime concoctions. Race to win the pie-eating contest, discover the best Key Lime rum and even learn how to grow your very own key lime tree. keylimefestival.com

INTERNATIONAL BALLET FESTIVAL OF MIAMI MIAMI

July 23–Aug. 14 Enjoy an evening with the etoiles of ballet companies from around the world at this festival for fancy feet. Principal dancers from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the U.S. meet on the stage in Miami to perform both the classics and contemporary creations. Past attendees have been treated to Washington Ballet’s Katherine Barkman and Gian Carlo Perez Alvarez in the Diana and Actaeon pas de deux from La Esmeralda, Bianca Teixeira and Lucas Erni in the White Swan pas de deux in Swan Lake and a memorable performance from Milwaukee Ballet’s Mary Fumero as the ever-sultry lead in Carmen. Audiences also have the opportunity to see the stars of tomorrow at the International Young Medalists Performance or enjoy various dance films at venues throughout the city. internationalballetfestival.org

BOCA BACCHANAL

MIAMI SWIM WEEK

May 6–7

July 14–21

PHILLIPE OBREGON, SIMON SOONG

B O C A R AT O N

Above: Dancers at the International

Ballet Festival of Miami

@T H E FLAMI NG O M AG

Make Bacchus proud when you indulge in this food-and-wine spectacular. Cork dorks can geek out at exclusive vintner dinners held at historic homes throughout the city or talk shop with somms at the grand tasting. bocabacchanal.com

MIAMI

Scour the catwalk for your summer wardrobe at one of fashion’s most anticipated events. From bandeaus to triangle bikinis, models will debut what’s sure to be trending on the sand and at the pool this season. fashionweekonline.com/miami

UNDERWATER MUSIC FESTIVAL FLORIDA KEYS

July 8–9

Explore North America’s only living coral reef while musicians strum the day away under the sea. This submerged jam session benefits coral reef preservation. lowerkeyschamber.com/product/ underwater-music-festival

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119

FLORIDIANA ALL THINGS VINTAGE B y E ri c B a rt o n

Top: Albert Hasis

mixes a drink behind the bar he built.

Below: Cap’s

Place today

Broward’s Bootleg Beach

T

hey waited until a full moon and then let the tide roll in. The entire crew carried shotguns just in case the gators attacked.

Having purchased a barge in 1928 in Miami, reportedly used by Henry Flagler when constructing the railroad to Key West, the team beached the barge.

By 1929, they had the makings of a restaurant. They added windows and a bar and called it Club Unique. The founders were rumrunner Eugene Theodore “Cap” Knight and Albert Hasis, a runaway teenager from Pennsylvania. The supper club and underground casino they created, now called Cap’s Place, remains Broward County’s oldest restaurant with a century of tall tales.

The island those enterprising bootleggers first landed on is now part of the mainland, but a tender still takes diners out to the restaurant from a dock tucked

120

back in a neighborhood.

From the beginning, the restaurant at Club Unique lived up to its name, with a Floridacentric menu of turtle-egg pancakes served with guava jelly and homemade seagrape jelly accompanied by hot rolls. Membership to the supper club cost a quarter and allowed access to the illegal gambling room. It’s said to have seen the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Susan Hayward, Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Now, three Hasis kids run Cap’s affairs: Tom Hasis handles the books, Talle Hasis manages the place, and Ted Hasis makes repairs and keeps the boat running. Tom Hasis likes to point out that his mother was pregnant with him in 1946 when she was tending bar. “So I was actually here before I was here,” he says.

Patrons will find Cap’s doesn’t look all that different from how it did way back when.

You’ll stop first at the bar, where there’s a rustic

FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// S P R I N G • S U M M E R 2 0 2 2

collection of kitsch. The dining room’s off-kilter floor creaks a tale of a thousand people who’ve dined at that wooden table before you.

The menu includes fresh-catch fish, veggie platter, crab cakes and the signature heartof-palm salad. Cap’s had the same chef for 48 years before Sylvester Love died in 1990.

Tom Hasis is 75 years old now, but there’s no succession plan. “We’re young,” he laughs.

“My aunts and uncles all made it to a hundred, so I’m a young guy, middle-aged, sort of.”

Even though Cap’s has a wall of framed articles, new attention never ceases to surprise him. “It’s nice every once in a while to get recognition,” Hasis says. “A lot of people think, ‘Cap’s Place? They’re still there? I thought they blew away a long time ago.’”

@T HEFLA M INGOMAG

TOM HASIS, BROOKE LEVILLE

Cap’s Place was a crime when it opened, and coming up on a century later, it’s still in the same spot.

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