James Gamble Rogers Oral History

James Gamble Rogers an Oral History. Here James Gamble Rogers depicts his time in Winter Park, family and friends in the area, hurricanes, and Rollins College.

Transcript

This is an interview with Mr. James Gamble Rogers, II, made at his home at 1011 Temple Grove, Winter Park, Florida on November 14, 1981.  An interviewer for the Morris Foundation was Mrs. Marjory R. Muller.

                              Mr. Gamble, thank you for letting me come and have this interview with you.  I’ve known you since about 1953 when we first moved here and your wife Evelyn was my very first friend at Winter Park High School and I think all those years that Winter Park has changed quite a bit since we came and certainly a lot since you came.  And I thought maybe you would just reminisce a little and tell us how you happen to come to Florida and ended up here in Winter Park.

00:01:12                Yes.  Father was an architect.  He was a graduate of MIT and he had a massive heart attack.  We lived in Winnetka at the time.  He had a massive heart attack and doctors in Chicago gave him at best six months to live in the Chicago climate.  Or if he came to Florida, they estimated he could live two years.  So he decided to come to Florida.  His father had retired into Sea Breeze, which is now part of Daytona Beach.  Grandfather – my grandfather was an attorney who retired comparatively young and his second oldest son was an architect who’d studied at the Bozar [ph] in Paris and then father came along and he followed his favorite brother into architecture.  So my grandfather decided that while he had some time on his hands and that he would study architecture himself and take a correspondence course and he did and he passed the  Illinois State Examination.  He did no work except design his house at Sea Breeze.  That’s how we happen to come to Florida as a family.  At the end of two years, father was feeling pretty well better, although he had periodic attacks, much milder than the first one.  And – but when the United States got into the war, he joined the Navy and they said well you have a heart murmur and he said I know it and he  said, “I must stay in warm climate.”  So they put him in charge of the Port Guards in Keywest, which was an organization of the Navy, working directly under the  Commandant.  And he had a hundred men given to him and they assigned him Andrew Carnegie’s yacht.

00:03:35                What year was that again?

00:03:36                That was 1917.

00:03:41                And what was your father’s name?

00:03:43                John A. Rogers.  But he stayed in Keywest for the balance of the war and  I refer to Andrew Carnegie’s Yacht and the government took over the yachts of  big, big boats they could use and I think the  yacht was about 150 feet long it was a great big one .  And he had a hundred men who were working for him and that was his crew.  They examined – any ship that wanted to come in to Keywest had to  heave to outside of the harbor  until he [Inaudible 00:04:28] came over and put his  men on board and they examined everything on the ship.  That’s how we happened to come to Florida and I went to – I was – I joined the junior class in Daytona Beach High School and graduated in 1918.  And I applied for Dartmouth College and they said, “Well, there’s no chance for two years and  I think you might get in – if you apply now, you might get in three years.”  So I got a job at the Merchant’s Bank in Daytona and worked three years.  And…

00:05:16                Before you went to college?

00:05:17                Before I went to college.  And it was just not much beyond my 17th birthday when I graduated in high school so when I got to college, I was only about one year average older than the average student age because I gotten there a year or so earlier.  But I had to – before Dartmouth would accept me, I had to get to Daytona Beach High School accredited and so, I don’t know, I looked into that.  They told me that the first  thing, they said, “We never heard of Daytona Beach High School.  We got to know something about it.”  But it was a darn good high school.

00:05:59                How did you get it accredited?

00:06:03                Well, I had directions from [Inaudible 00:06:05].

00:06:07                Oh, I see.

00:06:08                They sent me the necessary instructions and it so happened that the principal of the high school was a very capable individual and a darn good friend of mine and so on and he worked very hard in the school board and so on.  We were 18 in the senior class we graduated at the same time.  So that…

00:06:34                So your class at Dartmouth was what?

00:06:37                1925.  And so ’22.  I went in 22.   I could have gotten right in but I had to work and I worked at college and worked my way through because in those days, everyone had to look after himself and father was so incapacitated for so long of course and we had a struggle actually.

00:07:03                Yeah.

00:07:03                And but he came out of it and lived until 19 – until he was 64.

00:07:13                And he was told – but how many years after he was first told?

00:07:17                Twenty-four.

00:07:18                Twenty-four years.

00:07:19                Twenty-four years when they said he could Overlay

00:07:20                In the wonderful Florida weather.

00:07:22                Yup.  And the reason I like Winter Park was…

00:07:30                Had you ever come to Winter Park from Daytona Beach and you knew about it.

00:07:32                Yes.  One of my uncles is married in Winter Park and his sister also in 1917 and he – his fiancée had a winter place at  Winter Haven and so she elected there and married I think in January and she elected to be married here in Winter Park and they were married at the Episcopal Church.

00:07:59                All saints?  [Inaudible 00:08:00]

00:08:01                All Saints, they were married at All Saints.  And…

00:08:08                Do you remember who the rector was at that time?

00:08:11                No.   I can’t remember.  But that led me to Winter Park and we had some friends who…the Gosses were here from Glencoe.  Mrs. Goss Sr..

00:08:30                That’s  Glencoe Illinois?

00:08:32                Yes.  And the Casselberry’s were here.  My – one of my very best friends is Dan Leonard [ph] whose wife is Mary Elizabeth Leonard [ph]  we called Nell and they…

00:08:50                That was his sister, wasn’t it?

00:08:52                He was Dan’s – she was Dan’s sister.

00:08:54                Yes.

00:08:55                And she married Hubert Casselberry [ph] in Lake Forest and they settled here and I used to come over here and I met their friends and there are a group of people, fairly young people.

00:09:14                Can you name them?  This is something that is interesting about the people who might have lived here at that time.  Do you remember any of them?

00:09:24                Yes, I remember of course the – I did a house, the first house I did in Winter Park was for William B. Follet [ph] and he was – let me see, the family was from Winnipeg.  I got to know that group and after I got through college, I came back here.  I was very active and we met the  Foley’s, Shirley Foley and Eleanor Foley and they were among the very few young people who were here.  And a year or so later, Ray Smith came here from Texas and he was teaching history, a history professor at Rollins and he married Dorothy Lockhart [ph] of Philadelphia and they moved here  and they’re still here.  And so in those days – and we had really a heck of – a lot of fun and with boats and so on.  And we had a little sailboat I think it was about 12 feet long in the lake.  I built it, what we called the Woo Island cottages.

00:10:59                Blue Island?

00:11:01                Woo, W-O-O.  And that was a name from the Rollins students  because they used to come out there and fool you during the summer.  So we used to gather.  We had a group that had sailing races on Sunday afternoons.

00:11:25                Now, that’s on Lake  Maitland.

00:11:27                That’s right, on Lake  Maitland.  And let me see, I think when I was talking to Keith I believe I told him  the experience that we had.  We laid out a course, sailing course, and I had a transit  thing, something to do with architecture.  I had a transit, so I was elected to lay the course out and I got – you have to have a baseline.  And I had to…two of us went over  there to lay the course out and I got a …I was the one with the telescope to find the points  over there and what I picked up a couple of Rollins students  going swimming with no clothes on.  A girl and a boy.

00:12:29                That was pretty racy for that year, wasn’t it?

00:12:32                It certainly was.

00:12:35                Well, Gamble, how did you – when did you and your wife Evelyn decide to leave Daytona and settle in Winter Park?  What brought you?

00:12:46                Well, we had some good friends.  I had made some good friends here and Evelyn had moved back to Atlanta with her family and so…

00:12:57                Was that before you were married?

00:12:59                That’s before we were married.  And I would occasionally visit her up there.  But there was such a nice group of people here and we liked the town so well because – then she visited here at one time and stayed with  the Follett’s and I had a hotel  it was something and I sort of lived  in when I stayed here for a week at the time.  And I decided then.  I mauled over going back to 00:13:30 and opening up there but I decided the climate was too crummy and I’d much rather stay here and try to make a living within Florida.  And I went to – I approached the owners of the Isle of Sicily and told them that if they would deed me a lot free and clear, that I would build a house on it  that I felt was up to travel.  And they decided they’d do it and they deeded me a lot in the middle of the island with water on both the west and east side and I built this cottage, which got quite a lot of publicity.  It was published in seven different magazines  over the country from time to time.

00:14:22                It was a little French?

00:14:25                French Provincial.

00:14:26                French Provincial.

00:14:27                Overlay French Provincial.

00:14:28                A charming place. 

00:14:29                Overlay.  They have the equivalent of three bedrooms and two baths.  So when that house was finished, we were married in September and that house was finished in the first of January 1930 and Evelyn and I moved in.  And then we lived there until we bought Temple Grove in 1941.

00:14:53                I see.  Well, now, you at the time that you were living there, wasn’t that the year of – or someplace around there that there was a major hurricane?

00:15:06                Yes.  Well, the hurricane was in 1938.

00:15:10                Oh.

00:15:10                That was – we were still living there.  And we had one son, Jimmy.  Jimmy was tiny.  Jack was on the way.  And that was a hurricane I rode up in a 55-foot sailboat at the Bermuda Triangle.

00:15:30                I think that would be interesting if you – you said that you had written it up atone time.  I think that might be interesting to record that now.  Would you consider reading it?

00:15:41                Certainly.  I’d be glad to.

00:15:43                Okay.  Okay.  This is Overlay

00:16:58                This is a Overlay.  It was best written up by William Manchester [ph] in his bestselling “The Glory and the Dream” when this storm struck New England.  Its fringes raked the Florida shore but the center of the storm was how – when we got into it was right out in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle and I kept a log and I’ll just read that and here it goes: One of the fiercest hurricanes in recorded history swept out of the Caribbean Sea in September 1938  raking the American Coastline from Florida to New Jersey with its outer fringes and bludgeoning the Long Island  sound area from New York City to Nantucket with winds of unprecedented force.   Ocean going vessels were tossed high and dry into the streets of coastal towns along sound and reaped trees lay uprooted and twisted into tortured shapelessness.  The hurricane smashed its way inland, wreaking havoc over much of New England and beating into Canada.  Left a path of destruction unparallel in the Eastern United States.  It was this storm which caught the yacht Caprice in the center of its fury on a shape down cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville.   Caprice was a 55-foot  gaff rig catch designed by [Inaudible 00:17:36] and built in Nova Scotia in the early ’30s.    Her black hull with its graceful  lines belied her strength  and her salty beauty  would thrill the soul of any blue water sailor.  Rising from a flush deck  her trunk cabin terminated in a rather spacious  self bailing cockpit.  No  dog house interrupted the low profile of the cabin’s structure, which was entered from the cockpit by  means of a sliding hatch.  Her scars were [Inaudible 00:18:04] and seemed incredibly  stocky for their length.  A small gasoline engine mounted behind the missing  mass and under the cockpit’s soul provided auxiliary power.  She was a beautiful thing indeed and was built for the rugged service that men who really know the sea expect of their  ships.   Caprice new owners were Bob Murdock [ph][ and his father-in-law and George Tuttle [ph] who had bought the boat second-hand in Fort Lauderdale after a survey had shown it to be in sound condition.  Living in Central Florida, they determined to sail her to May port near Jacksonville then run her under auxiliary power up to St. John’s River to Sanford where she would be near enough their home in Winter Park to enable them to do some work on it during their spare time.  For the trip outside, they needed additional crew, so when Murdock asked me to get one more hand and join the cruise, no arm twisting was necessary.  I found a willing crewmate in Hubert Casselberry [ph] who had grown up on Lake Michigan and had crewed in some of the Mackinaw [ph] races.  Murdock himself had lived in Bermuda most of his life and had gained sufficient maritime experience by the time he was 30-odd years old to have earned a  captain’s license.  Tuttle and I both had many years of experience on the water, so we felt that our group was with sufficient know-how to meet any normal emergency.  The morning we left Fort Lauderdale were bright and clear.  Since the hurricane morning service now located Miami had not been established we could check only with the local weather bureau.  These good people gave us a forecast of fair weather with moderate to fresh east winds for the next 36 hours.  What could be better?  Our course lay approximately north and this meant a long reach up the coast.  We chunked through the new river bridges and south to Fort Everglade  where we slipped through the jetties to the open sea.  The light breeze rippled the water in the early morning sunlight, sparkled jewel-like on each tiny wave reflected in dappled patterns on our sails.  Other than the main,  Caprice carried [Inaudible 0:20:15.8].  The morning air wasn’t much more than enough to fill the sails, but by noon sufficient breeze had  arisen to push us along  with a fair clip.  During the afternoon and evening, the wind became stronger and blew fresh from the east, occasionally  healing Caprice over, so her little tow rail dipped in green water.  She rode beautifully  under full canvas, tossing spray from her bottom, encountering each wave with easy grace.  The night was clear and warm and no moon but with a myriad of stars, which seemed to hang on most within reach of  Caprices’ main mast.  The privilege of lying on the deck of a sailboat at night is given to few men, but for those who have done it experience is something to dream about.   Silence save for the wave  at her bow  Caprice responded to the warm, fresh breeze and surged  ahead like the thoroughbred lady that she was.  Fresh east wind continued through the night and the catch sailed herself with no more  effort on the part of the crew than an occasional hand on the wheel.  And we manned her in four-hour shifts of two men each, one at the wheel and one on watch while two slept in the cabin below.  Murdoch took our bearings in the morning and placed us approximately 20 miles east of  Vero Beach.  The east wind grew stronger during the  forenoon and later in the day became rather gusty, whipping  froth from white-capped waves and causing us to dawn our  foul weathered gear.  By mid-afternoon skies really began to thicken up as the wind rose to an estimated 30  knots.  Here and there rapidly moving clouds are breaking out in the east, bringing an occasional hard shower, which would  pent us for a few minutes and then stop as suddenly as it started.  During the next hour, it became apparent that we were in for a blow so we dropped and furrowed the  mainsail  reaped the other sails and  ran on the shortened jib, sisal and mizzen.  We checked our lines,  battened down all hatches  and waited to see what the weather would  bring.  The barometer had been falling since morning and by four o’clock in the afternoon stood at 29.4.  We shifted our course to northeast in order to gain more legroom in case we should have to be [Inaudible 00:22:37].  Murdock took our bearings again at five o’clock and placed us some 40 miles southeast of  Cape Canaveral.  By this time, heavy clouds were closing in rapidly and the whole sky looked  ominous.  The sea was black and compressed vividly with the white foam which blew everywhere as the wind became stronger and wind through the rigging the somber foreboding.  In order to be prepared for any emergency,  we had just started to take a [Inaudible 00:23:04] from the sails when the storm struck like an explosion.   Caprice reeled over so sharply  the Tuttle who was on the  forward deck was merely  thrown over.  The jib was ripped from its fastenings and sailed off with the storm still rising and it disappeared in the gloom.  Two others jumped on the  sisal  and two  on the mizzen, managing to pull them down even as they whipped crazily about.  The southbound freighter which seemed to appear out of nowhere hoofed to nearby, apparently ready to help if necessary.  Still not recognizing the storm as a full-blown hurricane, we signaled her on.  We furrowed the mizzen and reaped the sisal but still it wasn’t much larger than  the cooks’ apron.  Finally getting control of the catch, we pointed her north, northeast  and laid her to on the starboard tact.  The storm was becoming more and more violent, forcing us to abandon all purpose except the preservation of our boat.   Loaf line, gray clouds our profiles torn into grotesque caricatures scudded ahead of a black  riff closing in on us.  We had been watching the barometer regularly and had now dropped to 28.7 lower than I  had  ever seen in all my years in Florida.  We thought fleetingly of running for shelter but being some 40 miles out and many more miles from the port which could take our seven-foot craft, we had no choice but to ride it  out.   Caprice was equipped with a battery operated radio receiving set but no sending apparatus.  Although we had turned the radio on at regular intervals during the trip and had picked up several weather reports, none mentioned the storm until a Jacksonville station interrupted a musical program shortly before nine o’clock and announced a severe hurricane at sea.  By this time, we have been in the storm more than four hours and the waves have become mountainous.  We recognized the absolute necessity of preventing the sea from breaking over the catch but was doubtful that any boat no matter how stoutly built could stand this sort of beating for long without breaking up.  The  apron sized sisal and the [Inaudible 0:25:16.0] boom was still holding on the  starboard tack tending to turn  Caprice into the wind while Murdock had the  rudder [Inaudible 00:25:23] steering her to lower, thus causing the boat to slip sideways, which put a slick on the water to windward.  This maneuver effectively prevented the sea from breaking over her, except occasionally when an especially large wave would break through the slick, leaving her at the mercy of succeeding  combs.  During the night, the hurricane became more terrifying the wind rising to such a pitch that  it literally screamed through the  rigging.  Rain was probably beating down although it was indistinguishable from the spray and seawater whipping the boat into horizontal baronage.  Darkness was absolute and complete, not even the silhouette of a star against the sky being visible.  Sleep was impossible.  The noise was deafening and even though one’s ears had long since become numb from the constant roar we couldn’t help listening for some new sound, which might press a failure in  Caprices’ structure.  Although we checked the bilge regularly and pumped a little water from time to time, she was taking on surprisingly well.  As night wore on and the storm became even more intense, we sat in pitch black darkness as huge waves broke through the slick from time to time and  thundered down on the cabin top with staggering force, shaking the boat from  stem to stern and beating her down into the sea.  At  these times, it was hard for us to forget the 12,000 pounds of lead on the  keel.  Water streamed into the cabin around the hatches and ran along the cabin soul before finding  its way into the bilge.  Between waves, we could feel  Caprice struggling to come up only to be struck down deeper by the next  comb.  These gigantic waves were actually breaking over her and with the boat partly submerged there was no slick on the surface to break them up.  Common sense told us that  Caprice certainly was founded.  It was incredible that she hadn’t already broken up.  The barometer was still falling and read an unbelievable 28.3 at midnight, leaving us little hope that we could survived till morning.  Time dragged on through that awful night and each new avalanche of seawater mercilessly battered our boat.  No night was ever longer and no morning more eagerly sought.  The hurricane raged unabated as darkness finally ebbed  and a ghoulishly glow cast some eerie light over the morning’s wild scene.  For the first time since the storm had gained its full force we were able to see the ocean around us.  The water was black but gigantic waves running in violent confusion with  the crests ripped off by the wind.   Caprice main mass must have been at least 50-feet high but these waves  seemed to dwarf it.  The  sisal had been torn from its fastening and was flapping in shreds from the  boom.  Visibility was probably less than 50 feet and was limited by an  impenetrable combination of flying seawater, rain, and semi-darkness.  We had no idea where we were and without so much as a light spot in the sky to indicate where the sun might be it was impossible to take our bearings.  Hours went by with no slacking of the storm and our outlook was grime indeed as we faced the prospect of another night in  this tempest.  There was not a man aboard who believed our ship could go through another 18 hours like the last [Inaudible 00:28:53] she had proven herself to be.  About two o’clock in the afternoon, Murdock who had gone up into the cockpit and lashed himself to the  mizzen mass  yelled down to the  sexton.  He had observed a light spot in the sky, which he thought might be the sun and based on this assumption his calculations placed us approximately 100 miles southeast of Jacksonville.  Another reading taken later proved this to be approximately correct and also heralded moderation of the storm.  Although the wind was still high, it was moving into the west and was definitely abating.  By seven o’clock we had gotten a glimpse of the setting sun and just the sight of it raised our spirits to a new high.  We thanked God for answering our prayers and blessed  Caprices’ designer and 00:29:43 who had built such strength  into her hull.  Before darkness closed in entirely, we faired our lines and hoisted the first full sail she had carried for more than 24 hours.  The following morning, in clear cool sunlight, we picked up St. Augustine, black and white spiral lighthouse on the western horizon.  Ironically, the wind dropped to a zephyr during the forenoon and we stood with sails flapping until exasperation forced us to start the engine and  run the last 40 miles to  Mayport  on the trowel.  As  we docked  an old seadog shook his head and said, you all know something  there ain’t a smidgeon of paint on your starboard plank, wind driven saltwater had completely cleaned the paint off down to the wood.

00:30:43                That is amazing.

00:30:45                Yeah.

00:30:46                What was the name of that storm?

00:30:57                There was no name to the hurricanes in those days.  It was just a hurricane.

00:31:03                And were people aware of the – around the state that – you know, in other parts of the states, for instance, Central Florida De Bay, were they touched by the storm at all?

00:31:17                No only the outside fringes  touched Florida. You see  we had run out in order to have plenty of room under the keel , run out to sea and we  ran right into the darn thing.

00:31:31                Well, then your wife Evelyn and your family are living on the Isle of Sicily while you were out at sea in this storm?  How long was it before she even knew about the severity of the storm and when did she hear from you?

00:31:50                Well, she didn’t hear from me until after we had landed  in  Mayport and I got hold of a telephone and called her.  That was five days after we started.  She knew there was a storm but it was not severe on shore but it worried her.  She was worried, very much worried.

00:32:15                Well, when you got into – well, five days, what were you – you were – where were you, in Jacksonville?  Overlay

00:32:26                Well, it was  Mayport.

00:32:27                Oh,  Mayport.

00:32:28                Mayport.  It’s a port of Jacksonville.

00:32:30                I see.

00:32:31                There was a navy base there too.  Now, we were just on the way up, say, from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville normally with a good breeze through a four-day trip but we were five days and the hurricane helped us along to a certain extent, as well as hindering us.  But there was just no way for us  to let Evelyn know it because we didn’t have any [Inaudible 00:32:59].

00:33:00                You were probably the only four men who survived a major hurricane and now all these years later, I mean, this is 1981, with the exception of one of your crew, you were the one living person who lived through this storm,  aren’t you?

00:33:19                Yeah, yes.  The others – well, the others were older than I am and so they’re  all passed on.

00:33:25                Well, this is I think very interesting that this can be recorded, so – because people don’t usually go through a storm like that and live to tell the tale.  I’d like to talk about Rollins College a little bit.  You were – I know that when we came here in ’53 we knew that you were an architect for Rollins College and I believe you were the one – your firm was the – was commissioned to do most of the buildings on that campus.  Isn’t that true?

00:34:13                Well, we’ve done most of the more recent buildings.  Of course a lot of old buildings have outlived their usefulness some of the old original wooden buildings.  We’ve done let me see – one, two, three, four – eight that I can count right off the top of my head four dormitories,  Bush, Krumer, the library, and  the Beanery.  And so, I’m quite familiar with the [Inaudible 00:34:44].

00:34:49                The name of your firm then is the same as it is now.  Is that Rogers…

00:34:55                Rogers, Lovelock and .  That’s the name of it now but we incorporated and I took two partners in,  Lovelock and Fritz.  But I ran it for a long time as James Gamble Rogers II.  But…

00:35:12                I think that was when we came that’s how I knew that you were here.  well, could you tell us – I remember that there was – at the time we moved here I guess just before we came there had been some controversy about the presidency of Rollins College.  It was before my time so I think that would be very interesting to hear about.

00:35:45                Yes.  That was quite a fine lot of doing back in those days.  Paul Wagner [ph] was president.  He was comparatively young and I think at one point when he first came some claim was made that he was the youngest college president from the United States.  I don’t know but he was quite young and rather ambitious.  But the reason this story came up, which I think is interesting, was because Paul Wagner was interested in getting   adopted so to speak by the state of Florida and made a state college or a state university.  And some of the old-timers down at the college, including Hugh McCain [ph] and Ray Smith [ph] and Brad Bradley and those people and those professors, were dead against it but Wagner put pressure on people in Tallahassee and they got through the legislature a bill which would name Rollins College as a state university or state college.  And when the  of it got around a group from the college which included Bill and Gretchen Fort, Ray Smith, Evelyn, and I think Ed Grandberry if I’m not mistaken and several others hired a bus and went to Tallahassee to try to stop the thing.  The legislature had passed it; the bill was on the desk of the chief of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and ready to be signed.  Well, Evelyn got in touch with their brother Charles…

00:37:53                Well, you’re speaking of your wife Evelyn.

00:37:55                Yeah.

00:37:55                Yeah.

00:37:56                Yeah.  My wife Evelyn got in touch with her brother Charles who had a great deal of influence in Tallahassee and he was then living in Pensacola and he came to Tallahassee.  And the group got together – oh, Charlie Andrews [ph] was representative in Florida in the House in Tallahassee and he was the one who was sponsoring the thing  for Paul Wagner.  And Charles got hold of Andrews and this group and they put enough pressure on it so they got that thing off the Chief Justice’s desk so it couldn’t be signed.  During the early part of that particular time, a rather amusing incident happened at Rollins.  Along with Paul Wagner, the librarian – I cannot remember his first name – but his last name was Thomason,  Hugh would remember it probably, Thomason was working very hard to get this thing passed with Wagner and Brad –  Bradley, U.T.…

00:39:21                That was general…

00:39:21                U.T. Bradley, he was professor of History, U.T. Bradley and a professor named Dr. Russell – I don’t know his first name – Naptalus and they took hold of him and they said  now look we want to talk to you and we want to drive, drive around.  He said, “Well, I don’t want to go.”  He said, “I’m not going to  talk.”  But they used a little force and put him in the car and then they drove around.  And I don’t know what good it did.  It may have not done any but I think it was over [Inaudible 00:40:01] because I think at that time that the bill was off the Chief’s desk.  But Thomason sued Bradley for some large sum, somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 for kidnapping.  He said he was going to prosecute him.  And they subpoenaed Brad, the sheriff’s subpoenaed him and whoever does  that sort of thing, the sheriff’s  subpoenaed him, and he was forbidden to leave the town.  So he couldn’t go.  He couldn’t go off to Tallahassee.  And the outcome was of course that the thing was  rescinded  and Thomason settled his suit for $50.

00:40:53                What – would you say – I’m interested when you said he got this thing off the desk.  It couldn’t be signed.  How do you mean “it got off the desk”?

00:41:06                Well…

00:41:06                That they just – go in and just lift it up and…

00:41:08                Overlay

00:41:06                …and took it away – off the desk?

00:41:11                Yeah.  It was waiting there to be signed so I think Charles Smith went in there and got it off the desk.

00:41:19                To give a little more time for thought, is that it?

00:41:22                Yeah.  So that was the end of that.  But they say it was a parallel to the Dartmouth College case in good many ways.

00:41:30                I’m not aware of the Dartmouth College…

00:41:32                Well, that was when the – a group up there in  Hanover was trying to get Dartmouth College made into a state institution.

00:41:42                I see.

00:41:42                Daniel Webster was practicing law then and he was a graduate of the college and he was the one that made his famous speech, which said that – it’s a little college but there are loads of love.

00:41:58                And so that was professor…

00:41:59                It was the same thing, same parallel.

00:42:02                Well, then who became the – who was president of Rollins at the time?  Wagner?

00:42:10                Wagner was president and then Hubert McCain and Janet I think were in Europe but when they came back then they – people who were opposed of the thing got together and  asked Hubert if he would be willing to serve as president and that’s how Hubert became president.  That’s when he became president.

00:42:33                I see.  Well, did Wagner resign or leave at that time?

00:42:38                He was…I think he was either kicked out or resigned I think.  I’m not sure which.  John Tinkey would know I think.  John I think was on board and he still is.  He would know or Hugh would know for sure.

00:42:51                Well, when did Hamilton Holt come in?

00:42:55                Well, Hamilton Holt was before Wagner’s time.

00:42:59                I see.

00:43:00                And Dr. Holt was here when I came to Winter Park and he was here – I cannot remember I think when – I think he was probably here, he may have been here up to the time the war started, it could be because I went off to Wilmington for the war service in 1941 and  didn’t come back in ‘45.  So I don’t know really what happened here.

00:43:33                But after this – the situation, Wagner either resigned or was asked to leave and then Hugh McCain came in?

00:43:46                Now,  Hugh  followed Wagner  I’m quite sure.

00:43:49                And  has had all  those years of leadership until quite recently.

00:43:55                But I think Rollins – I think Rollins settled with Wagner for $50,000, I’m not sure.  But it was some figure but they settled the trustee  settled.

00:44:05                I see.

00:44:07                One other thing that I think might be interesting when I came back from the war and opened up  the office, it was in the old, old post office building where [Inaudible 00:44:24] place was downstairs…

00:44:29                On Park Avenue.

00:44:30                Yeah.  And I had space on the second floor.  Well, the building was very cheaply built and no insulation.  It was hotter than blazes in the summertime.  Air-conditioning was just coming in.  And I looked around and I thought, “Well, air-condition this place because the draftsman were having to work – I had a bath towel and I ran it alongside on the – near the table where they could mop and I had the handkerchiefs around their heads so they  wouldn’t perspire on the drawings.”  And it was just simply miserable in hot weather.  So I looked through the air-conditions and in those days they were built just like an old-fashioned  victrolla, square box like this and about this high.  Well, I got one of those and I called the public service company and asked them.  I said, “I’m putting in an air-conditioner and I want to know what’s going to cost me to run it.”  And they said, “Well,” they said, “We got the only air-conditioner in Winter Park and we don’t know what it would cost.  And you just go ahead and  run it.  And we’ll see what it would cost and then we’ll bill you.”  So that’s the way we did.

00:45:46                Now, how did you get – I didn’t know that they had even been designed by that time air-conditioners.

00:45:52                Well, they were new.  They were brand-new.  It was – they were just  victrolla type.  Well, the  condensation – we had no place to get rid of the  condensation which  always runs out of an air-conditioner, you know, and we had a bucket [Inaudible 00:46:10] and then the bucket and we had to dump the bucket down the toilet once a day.

00:46:17                You would gather that much moisture?

00:46:20                Well, yeah.

00:46:22                Did that solve your problem?

00:46:24                Did it what?

00:46:25                Did it solve the problem?

00:46:26                Oh, yes.  Yes.

00:46:27                And you were all comfortable up there?

00:46:30                Yeah, it was quite comfortable.

00:46:33                How long were you in that office?

00:46:35                Well, I went in after I came back from the war and it was ’45.  And I stayed there for I think about seven years.  And then the office,  Perry Cone owned the building.  He rented the office downstairs to  Edith Rawls dancing class.  Well, the building was put together with thumbtacks and glue I guess and put it here right through the floor and here are these people who are in that afternoon one, two, three kick, one, two, three kick.  And I had the  gas men up there doing this very careful work and it merely drove us crazy.  And there wasn’t any way I could get her out and she wouldn’t stop. [Inaudible 00:47:26] so I had a client then who owned the lots on Lincoln Avenue where our office is now and we went to this fellow, Dr. Nichols.  We just finished a house for him and I said, “Are you willing to sell me a piece of your property?”  I said, “I could get a building out and get out of this building.”  And he said, “Sure.”  He said, “I’ll sell that – I’ll sell you 50 feet for $3,000.”  And he said, “That’s just what I paid for.  I paid 9,000 for the lot.”  And he said, “I’ll give you a third of it for $3,000.”  And I paid him on the spot, designed the building in about four days and  we got into it in something like  I figure ten or eleven weeks.

00:48:18                And that’s where I first met you.

00:48:20                Yes.

00:48:20                You were in that new building.

00:48:23                Yeah.  We’re still there.  Of course it’s been added to considerably since then.  Being added to now  again.

00:48:30                And your baby I guess that was – Jimmy was born and Jack was about to be born.  Now he is grown and married and is a partner in this…

00:48:48                He is running the  show.  He’s running it.  I retired two years ago so now I’m down to 40 hours a week.

00:48:56                And Jack is now the president of the…

00:48:58                Jack is the head man of this corporation,  we incorporated.

00:49:02                I see.

00:49:05                Jimmy goes on with his music.  I’m not sharing because that’s what he’s doing and he’s doing a good job.  He’s having fun.

00:49:10                And very successful.

0:49:12.5               We accept it. .

00:49:14                Yes.  I think that it would be good to know about some of your homes and possibly buildings that are really a part of Winter Park that are recognized and we know that you were the architect for them.  Would you tell me perhaps about a couple of them?

00:49:49                Well, I could tell you about our little cottage, which received a good deal of publicity probably seven times in various magazines and the Barber house has been published and shown in museums, photographed and shown in museums here and there.  And also the Ingram house on the corner of  Marks and Laurel in Orlando was – made a few headlines.  And various other buildings in various parts of the  United States that have had certain amount of recognition.

00:50:30                Well, the federal Savings and Loans in Orlando wasn’t that the first one that went up of that type of architecture?

00:50:44                That was one of the original.  I think, I believe that was one of the original. Savings and Loans have adopted the Georgian, what you might call American  Colonial architecture. I know of it’s been [Inaudible 00:51:01] in a number of places. There’s one in  Tampa. Looks very much like it. And one in Lakeland and one in New York.  by the, over by the Franklin National Bank – I can’t remember where it is. It’s up around – it’s on Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue. I think an it’s pretty much in the middle of town on the north side of the middle of town. Those buildings have  proved quite popular by some people. Some of them [Inaudible 00:51:40].

00:51:39                Well as far as Winter Park is concerned, didn’t you do something about the old Winter Park  High School?

00:51:47                Just the gymnasium. The school was standing there  when I moved here and when it came to the gymnasium, well I designed the gymnasium and that was seven years ago.

00:51:58                And then you did the new Winter Park High School?

00:52:01                Yes. The new one. [Inaudible 00:52:03]

00:52:07                Well did you?

00:52:08                Well what about some of the beautiful estates here. There’s one house that I think is known as the Barber House, didn’t you do that?

00:52:16                The Barber House on  Interlocken?

00:52:19                Yes.

00:52:23                Yes, we did.

00:52:25                When did you do that?

00:52:26                1932. Mr. Barber came to my house on the island. I hadn’t met him. He rang the bell and asked if he might come in so I said “Certainly.” He said he introduced himself and said “Whose your architect?” and I told him and he said “well I want you to design me a house?” and he said I don’t want anything like this at all but he said “I want a Spanish farm house.”  He said “You go ahead and design it any way you want. I’ll  limit you to cost and number of  rooms – tell you the number of  rooms I want, but I will not interfere with you at all while you are designing the house. Do it any way you want. If I don’t like it when it’s finished  I’ll sell it.  So that’s the way we got started with the Barber house.

00:53:28                Was he from out of town? Was he a winter visitor?

00:53:31                He was – no he lived here.  Well, he was a winter visitor.  Mr. Barber invented the [Inaudible 00:53:42].  He was a chemical engineer and he was a wiz – smart as he could be.  He invented Boeing, he went into a shop in…out West – I think of [Inaudible 00:53:56] in Denver but some place in Colorado.  He had some shirts washed and he had to wait while the proprietor was talking to a customer and actually the customer was an individual selling Boeing which comes in powdered form and he poured out a certain amount of it and charged I think it was a dollar or something like that [Inaudible 00:54:30].  And Mr. Barber took a look at that and said, “What was that sort of thing that this fellow bought?”  [Inaudible 00:54:40] said it’s blooming  it makes clothes white or whiter.  And Barber said, “Well, I’d like to buy a dollars worth of that.”  So he took it and analyzed it and worked on it and he came up with [Inaudible 00:54:53] and he set up shop in a little sort of an old garage in Massachusetts, Newton I think, Newton, Massachusetts, and he told me this.  He came up with a secret process and he said that he took $60,000 a year out of that company for 30 years before anybody caught on  as to actually how he made it bloom.  They tried to copy it but he always was a  jump ahead.  And so that was a man who  wanted a Spanish [Inaudible 0:55:41.9]..

00:55:43                Had he been in Spain and seen something that – was that why he chose this type of architecture?

00:55:50                I think [Inaudible 00:55:52] he had and Mr. and Mrs. George Ellen Nois came down here from Boston and Nois was an accomplished artist.  He was I think at the time the only American artist – living American artist whose work was hanging in Boston Museum.  And Nois interested the Barbers in Spanish architecture [Inaudible 00:56:18].  And Mr. Barber  got fascinated with it.  He employed Nois and Nois was to go to Spain and get him some antique furniture and they had beautiful furniture.  So that’s the way Barber I think got interested in Spanish architecture but he did – the Nois house is not a 00:56:49 actually.  It was just more of a Spanish city house.

00:56:56                Where was this – was their house here, the Nois, on Interlachen?

00:57:02                Yeah.  Interlachen.  It was on North Interlachen.  It’s almost across the street from the Barber house.  It’s been ruined now [Inaudible 00:57:08], that little house on there.

00:57:15                Oh, it’s where Ed Gurney…

00:57:18                Yes, that’s right.  Yeah.  Ed bought the house.

00:57:21                Yes.

00:57:23                But these houses get…

00:57:25                But it was the Dye house, Gay Dye and her husband…

00:57:29                Yes.

00:57:30                … was killed in a plane accident and then years later, Ed Gurney and she were married and they’re still living in that little house there I guess.

00:57:40                Yes.  I think they are.

00:57:42                Well, what – about – back to the Barber house, how long did it take – what year was it that you built it and when did he move in and obviously he liked it.

00:57:52                Yeah.  I’ll never forget the date.  The  day that he was supposed to break ground Roosevelt declared a banking holiday in 1932 and that…

00:58:04                That was a big – beginning of the Big Depression.

00:58:07                Yeah.  And I called Mr. Barber and I said, “Have you read the morning paper?”  And he said, “Yes.  Why?”  And I said, “Well, I guess I don’t need to ask you anymore because you’re going to – are you going to have the house?”  “Well, certainly,” he said, “I got a better price now, let the competition.”  And carpenters then were getting $0.25 to $0.35 an hour and he built the house for about $25,000, which today would cost at least 400,000.  And the tile – I found the tile in a field in Jacksonville which was owned by JC Penny Company.  They were fixing up a retirement place for some of their old employees and they thought they were all going to be Spanish and they bought all this Spanish tile which was handmade 00:59:08 and the angle was just right  for the tiles to lap.  And that’s the way the Spanish made those tiles.  And they’re all handmade.  You can see the fingerprints there today.  And also another interesting thing about that particular house I was looking for a strong lion there and designing the front door I made it two spots when I bought it.  Small lions there.  I talked to  Hugh McCain and asked Hugh if he had any idea where I could find a really good piece of sculpture that sort of thing.  I’m going to make a  casting if I could make a good mold.  He said, “I believe I can.”  And he said Professor Ganye from the French department has a squeeze of lion’s head on the – of lions’ heads on the Vatican that he took and he brought it back in his – I think he has  it here in Winter Park.  Well, he got in touch with Ganye and I borrowed those things and we had casts made for the two lions’ heads and they just put it exactly beside [Inaudible 00:60:25].  So that’s [Inaudible 00:60:29].

00:60:30                Interesting.

00:60:31                And it has  some interesting things in it.   All the fixtures, all electric fixtures  are hand made, the hardware is hand made.  It has bottle-end windows and a few windows are bottle-end.

00:60:48                Are bottling?

00:60:50                Bottle-end.  They cut out beyond of a bottle and just…

00:60:52                Oh, yes.

00:60:53                In a little brass and find those occasionally in Spain and Italy [Inaudible 00:60:59].

00:61:05                Well, then the McCrery’s lived in the house…

00:61:08                Yes.

00:61:08                …didn’t they?  And then Dr. Dickinson.

00:61:10                That’s right.

00:61:11                Then I don’t know who is there now.

00:61:13                Roger Holland Automobile.

00:61:17                Yes. Doing a little remodeling…

00:61:18                Yeah.  He’s done…

00:61:20                …which is controversial.  Well, back to the tiles before we close.  On my own house, the Casselberry house, [Inaudible 00:61:34] I bought in 1953 from…

[End of Transcript 00:31:28]