Is the old boarding house on North Monroe Street slated for demolition? The state won’t say

The last of the 19th-century Victorian mansions in downtown Tallahassee is locked behind an eight-foot fence, with a sign warning anyone caught behind it could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Now, in a post published Tuesday evening on X, concerns are being expressed that the state is close to dusting off a nearly 30-year-old plan to demolish the former The Gladstone, a once-regal but now run-down home built in 1897 on Monroe Street, a block east of the governor’s mansion.

Lawmakers in 1998 approved $1 million for a development plan that would provide an unobstructed view of the governor’s mansion from Monroe Street. Today, that view is first interrupted by a brown privacy fence out back.

The first step in the long-planned plan was to buy lots along Monroe between Thomasville Road and Brevard Street. But property owners reluctant to sell and opposition from historians thwarted the plan, according to a report in the Tallahassee Democrat at the time.

That is, until now. It was reinstated as an effort to protect Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Family.

Gladstone was sold to the state in 2021, records show, and fences and “no trespassing” signs were then put up.

This week, an anonymous X account user known only as “Tallahassee History” reported, without citing a source, that the historic mansion is to be demolished.

A spokesman for the Department of Management Services, the state’s property manager, confirmed the property was purchased based on a recommendation from law enforcement to expand security coverage of the Governor’s Mansion.

In fact, the residence’s perimeter has recently been moved outward, starting with barricades around a nearby parking lot in 2020 after “protesters vandalized the area during a protest,” a Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said in 2022. Also this year, “they were moved outward (again) after a vulnerability study was conducted…”

On Thursday, DMS spokesman Dan Barrow explained that “all acquisitions made by the state of Florida are turned over (to the Department of State) for historical assessment and preservation, if possible. These acquisitions will ultimately benefit the long-term safety of the First Family of Florida, the state of Florida and the city of Tallahassee.”

A spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd was awaiting comment.

Nonprofits remain silent on future of 127-year-old building

Two preservation groups that rely on state grants to protect historic resources declined to discuss the plan. A request for copies of possible demolition or other permits is pending with the city of Tallahassee.

The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation referred questions about The Gladstone to the Tallahassee Trust for Historic Preservation, but a representative of the trust, who requested anonymity, said the Tallahassee Trust would not comment.

The 127-year-old Gladstone — a World War II-era boarding house that housed soldiers and pilots’ wives — could be added to the National Register of Historic Places, according to Bob Holladay, president of the group and a history professor at Tallahassee State College.

“You shouldn’t tear down buildings that qualify for the National Register. It’s just not good public policy,” Holladay said.

He added that the porches and porticoes that run around the hotel are classic examples of Victorian architecture.

On Wednesday afternoon, you could stand outside the house and see peeling yellow paint, faded brown trim and Venetian blinds hanging from broken windows — as if haunted by the Golden Age. Five majestic oak trees draped in Spanish moss grace the side garden along First Avenue.

The yard is bordered by 19th-century lampposts that line the driveway that separates the Gladstone estate from the Governor’s Mansion parking lot. A horseshoe-shaped walkway extends from the street to a brick courtyard and portico.

Two wooden rocking chairs on the porch watch the traffic down Monroe and up Thomasville Road. At the other end of the porch, an overstuffed armchair and a Louis XIV chair pose with a table between them.

The house was built as a family residence for a local merchant.

The house was built as the family residence of grocery store owner PT Mickler when Tallahassee was little more than a village of fewer than 3,000 people.

In 1940, just before the U.S. entered World War II and Tallahassee’s population grew with the war mobilization, the Whites bought the house and opened what became known as the 13-room E.L. White Boarding House. Longtime residents remember the sign that read “E.L. White Rooms” and “Vacancy” that adorned the top of the steps leading from the sidewalk to the front door.

When Mrs. White died in 1993, she left the house to a tenant, Everett Beckman, then a history professor at the former Tallahassee Community College. He changed the name to The Gladstone and continued to rent rooms. Beckman died in 2006, and the house appears to have been untouched since the state acquired the property three years ago.

Gladstone may look isolated now, but at one time the entire stretch of Monroe Street from the capital to Thomasville Road was lined with Victorian homes, says local architectural historian Jonathan Lammers.

“It’s a cool little gem of history, a World War II memorial in Tallahassee,” Lammers said in a telephone interview.

Lammers has worked as a consultant on historic architecture in San Francisco and elsewhere and was among those who opposed the state plan in 1998.

In a 1998 letter to the editor published in the Tallahassee Democrat, he wrote that demolishing The Gladstone would only provide “a better view of the staff parking lot at the Governor’s Mansion.”

Holladay said the challenge is reusing the house: “We’re tearing down too many things. One thing the state could do is provide some space for the Tallahassee Historical Society to have a permanent home.”

He added that the association “has never had a permanent office and we would certainly be willing to sit down and talk to them about the possibility of using it as our headquarters.”

Tallahassee Democrat coverage from the 1980s and 1990s

Call James is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected] and is listed on X as @CallTallahassee.

This article originally appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat: Old Tallahassee mansion could be demolished for Gov. DeSantis’ safety