Page 20 - LIN April 2023 Web File. reduce

Landmark

to get restoration

in Everglades City

McLean explains MHK has brought all its technical skills to
bear on the 1927 bank building, a year older than the Tamiami
Trail, another landmark credited to Barron Gift Collier. The county
and the original, smaller bank building were founded in 1923.
In the process of digitizing and studying the two-story bank’s
bones, McLean says his MHK team – made up of fellow volunteers
– realized it had no stairs. A fire escape filled the bill.
Society President Patty Huff says the original pinewood floors
were discovered under linoleum.
The Everglades City Historical Society, owner and sponsor of
the redo, says the bank was part of a thriving downtown with a
hospital, jail, theater, train station, library, city hall, laundry, hotel,
general store and more. The society says Barron Collier thought
big – he wanted to show visitors and others that the original county
seat meant business. “The layout was modern,” the society says in a
press release, “with a grid of streets centered on a city circle -- a bit
like Washington, D.C., or Paris.”
“We had everything,” sums up Huff.
Blake Gable, the descendant who is CEO of today’s Barron
Collier Companies, says: “It was a true company town.”
by Jeff Lytle Gable says the business and family members have contributed
mid Collier County’s centennial, one of to the drive. “It’s good when you’re able to get in there and help,” he
its oldest buildings – erected by the says.
A county’s namesake founder – is on the Hurricane Donna and Everglades City’s remote location nudged
verge of a restoration and new mission. the county seat to East Naples in 1962, the same year the bank
The stately Bank of the Everglades, a moved its operations to Immokalee.
centerpiece of Everglades City, is getting a fresh It became a rooming house, then a weekly newspaper office and
foundation and gentle interior makeover so it can a bed and breakfast inn – several times -- until closing in 2017.
serve as a visitor center and community meeting When the building is restored, the society promises, it will
place – and a source of community pride. serve as the permanent location for the Everglades Area Visitor
The project gets some additional notoriety from its architectural Center, with the first floor dedicated to an information desk
firm, MHK Architecture and Planning, which has designed with sightseeing brochures, a gift shop with local artwork, an art
commercial and residential projects that set the tone for modern gallery and space for community gatherings. The vault will be used
Greater Naples, moving on from a Tuscan motif featuring stucco
and red tile roofs.
And MHK, now with five Florida offices and five more across
the country, is working pro bono.
Mark McLean, one of five national directors for MHK, is excited
because it is his and the firm’s first project of its kind – a combined
preservation, restoration and remodeling – with a structure on the
National Register of Historic Places since 1999.
“We always work with ‘new’,” he says. “This is a one-of-a-kind,
special project.”
“It’s my baby,” he adds. “It’s the right thing to do for the
community. It will be remarkable.”

20 Life in Naples | April 2023