00;00;00;00 - 00;00;13;15

Monica Drake

The past is Prolog. That kind of extends to me that the things that we have at Heritage Village are a lineage. They're not something static and in the past.

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Malaika Hollist

Hi. Welcome to Season two of the Arts Axis Florida podcast. I'm your host Malaika Hollist. Each episode, we amplify the voices of the diverse art nonprofit organizations in our community. Conversations, community, and Connection is right here on the Arts Axis Florida podcast Support for Arts Axis Florida comes from Community Foundation Tampa Bay. Championing philanthropy. Encouraging and connecting givers to bring lasting good. Investing in education and economic mobility. Learn more at C F. Tampa Bay dot org. That's C F Tampa Bay dot org.

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Malaika Hollist

Today we speak with operations manager Monica Drake on Heritage Village, a preservation space where they collect and preserve local history. She gives an insight on how they preserve these buildings. The team of specialists who successfully transport these buildings and artifacts to the village and the history you can find right here in the Pinellas County community. Monica, thank you so much for being on our podcast.

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Malaika Hollist

Today. Can you let us know a little bit about what Heritage Village is?

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Monica Drake

Yeah, it'd be my pleasure. So Heritage Village is a 21 acre park and history museum and it is actually operated under the Pinellas County Parks and Conservation Resources Department. This was a great effort that came together back in the 19 late 1970s, around 1976, where there were several different groups and including several commissioners, county commissioners, the Junior League of Clearwater and other Concerned Citizens about particular buildings that had great importance to the history of Pinellas County, that were in peril of being raised or falling into disrepair.

00;02;33;26 - 00;03;36;19

Monica Drake

And so Heritage Village was really born from that impetus back in the late 1970s to really save the cultural patrimony of Pinellas County, including historic buildings, collections, pieces. So we are a collecting repository on and really keep those things in perpetuity for the public to explore our research and learn from and heritage villages is really amazing because we have about 16,000 plus objects in our three artifact collection we've got two over 8500 photographs, thousands of maps which relate to the history of Pinellas County and, and how it's developed over the 100 plus years that it's been around and 260 cubic feet of archival documents of early families local businesses and late 19th century area documents,

00;03;36;19 - 00;04;18;00

Monica Drake

government documents and much much more including hundreds of oral history recordings. So we've we've got a lot going on here with our collections pieces. But on top of that we have you know, the 33 plus historic structures on the site. And those are certainly something that we're really always concerned in maintaining and preserving, you know, to to the best that we can because they again, they're, they're houses and people might not think of it this way, but they're also collections pieces.

00;04;18;10 - 00;04;26;12

Malaika Hollist

Right? So how do you preserve that? I mean, how how does, how does one preserve those kind of buildings and those artifacts?

00;04;28;05 - 00;04;57;17

Monica Drake

So there are different methodologies for each of the things that we do here. And we're quite lucky because we have subject matter experts with advanced degrees that know how to preserve these things. We have our curator of collections who works to preserve our artifact collection. We have our our archivist who cares for and manages our library and our archival documents.

00;04;57;27 - 00;05;33;00

Monica Drake

And then we have a historic preservation of stone site, whose main goal is to monitor, assess, inspect and care for the buildings on site. And so each different kind of area of preservation has its own way of doing things because all the items are so different, they go from one, you know, 20 story building to the smallest you know, political pin from the 1960s.

00;05;33;00 - 00;05;59;23

Monica Drake

So certainly a lot of different types of materials, those types of items that all need their own type of care. And so we have our collections policy that dictates how we care for those things in the three D collection as well as in the library and archives. And then we also have our historic preservation treatment plans and inspections.

00;06;00;27 - 00;06;27;12

Monica Drake

And currently the county has recently installed a platform called City Works which helps us with the buildings really record some of the, the projects that we're doing on those buildings preservation projects so that we understand in the future what these houses have had, the types of treatment that they've had and the types of care that they'll need into the future.

00;06;27;12 - 00;06;39;29

Monica Drake

So that's a great way for us to kind of record and then track what's happening to these buildings. So it's quite a delicate balance with all of the things that we have here on property right.

00;06;40;14 - 00;06;52;15

Malaika Hollist

And so how did you get involved in this kind of work? So for people who might be interested in getting involved in historic preservation, what might be a track that they could follow to get there?

00;06;53;18 - 00;07;26;22

Monica Drake

So I really start with my undergrad degree in art history which seems perhaps, you know, on the surface like a strange place to start, but to understand the importance of the history of something from an esthetic point of view, you know, you can definitely understand architectural styles and other currents in art history that went throughout the decades and centuries.

00;07;26;22 - 00;08;02;27

Monica Drake

And and that helps to kind of center yourself in understanding what is important, what is historical, what people might find worthy of preservation. And then when I went on to grad school, I went into public history and museum studies. So a lot of the information that I received from my graduate studies was really dedicated towards looking at collections practices rather than building preservation.

00;08;04;04 - 00;08;44;20

Monica Drake

But that is in and of itself one track that you can take to get into historic preservation. And then definitely there aren't any decisions made here on the historical pieces at Heritage Village. In a nutshell, we don't we don't make those decisions in a vacuum. We take them very seriously. And so in collaboration with the historic preservationists on site and myself, also a colleague in the in the planning department who is a historic planner, and then also on contract, we have a historic architect who works with Rinker.

00;08;44;20 - 00;09;05;04

Monica Drake

I can park here in the county. We make these decisions together about what type of work needs to be done to the house and what is the best practice moving forward for this House. So no, no, work is ever done to a building without consulting many minds at one time.

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Malaika Hollist

Many heads keep that, keep it together.

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Monica Drake

That's right.

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Malaika Hollist

OK, so specifically when it comes to Heritage Village and the buildings you say that you have on site or homes, what are their, what's their significance? What's their historical significance?

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Monica Drake

So as I mentioned, you know, we have buildings on site that were low catered all over the county. And so they never were here originally. Sometimes people. Yeah, sometimes we'll have visitors come onto site and say, what a cute little town. It wasn't a town. It was actually. It's a spot that was dedicated the land was dedicated to relocating these buildings that were, like I said, in peril of being demolished or falling into disrepair.

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Monica Drake

And these these buildings were determined through conversations with shareholders of conservationists and preservationists when they were moved here. And our last house was moved here actually in 2014. So we haven't had a house come to Heritage Village recently because we're still working on the preservation and restoration of that building, which is the Turner Bungalow that house specifically was located up in Clearwater on Fort Harrison Avenue Avenue and Druid Road.

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Monica Drake

Actually, if you go up there now, the location is still a barren parcel, so you can see exactly where it was, but it was moved down to Heritage Village in 2014 it was bequeathed by Geraldine Turner who lived in that house for many years. She actually inherited the house from her family, her, her mother and her father who lived in that house, who built that house in 1915.

00;11;07;12 - 00;11;45;18

Monica Drake

So it has been consistently owned by the Turner family since 1915 and the very unique thing about this house is that there's a couple of things it, it really shows a great Florida vernacular style. It's, it's a bungalow and type building but that kind of construction is really specific to Florida and this region. So, so one it's architecturally significant in that respect.

00;11;46;20 - 00;12;34;03

Monica Drake

But you know even more than that, the bungalow you know was essentially a really great piece of history. It was owned by Alfred Cleveland and Amber Clark Turner and who was Geraldine parents? And Alfred was actually the caretaker for the golf course up at the Bellevue Biltmore Biltmore Hotel when it was there. And so you can kind of see where this piece of the built environment makes you understand how people really responded to your location.

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Monica Drake

Right? Because the built right probably only, I don't know, a half a mile from where his house was built. So you can kind of imagine him walking, you know, leaving his house and walking to the golf course and doing his day's work at this other historic building and then returning home at the end of the day. Right so it's an interesting piece of of the built environment, like I said.

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Monica Drake

And more than that, Geraldine, Turner was really well known in the community. She was a teacher. So we have lots of people who come on to the site and then understand that the Turner bungalow was owned by her and we'll say, Well, she was my teacher. So it's kind of wonderful that way. Another house that we have, which is one of my favorites is the McMullen Coachman Log Cabin, which is the oldest extant building in the county this building is 170 years old.

00;13;37;22 - 00;14;06;14

Monica Drake

It was built in 1852 and you really have a sense of a couple of things when looking at that building. One is how difficult it was to live back then. This was built of you know, logs that were fell from trees, so materials that were only endemic to the area you were getting things from up north or anything.

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Monica Drake

But, but kind of to that point as well, a house that we have just about 20 years later, which is the McMullen house, which is it's another McMullen House, it's the Daniel McMullen House does have materials that are made locally of course, but that have some other materials that are shipped in from other places. And this is where you see the dichotomy between the pre railroad era and the post railroad era.

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Monica Drake

So you can see how something such as transportation really transformed how people started to think about, again, their built environment and what was possible for them to do.

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Malaika Hollist

When you come to Heritage Village, can you see that difference? Could someone who doesn't know that history, will they be able to tell the differences with the houses and maybe the materials yeah.

00;15;03;20 - 00;15;35;02

Monica Drake

I think we've done a really fantastic job and doing an interpretation of these buildings and we have a lot of different ways that people can access that information. One way is we have interpretive signage outside of each house that talks about, you know, who lived there and when the building was built. It also shows a map of where the house was moved from when it was originally or where it was originally located before it came to Heritage Village.

00;15;35;21 - 00;15;58;22

Monica Drake

And so it goes through a lot of the more specific history of, like I said, who lived there, who built it, more of the general history of the area that helps put that house into context. And and for those of us who love current technology, we also have an app that goes above and beyond. Those are interpretive signs.

00;15;59;25 - 00;16;24;05

Monica Drake

And visitors can go into the app and really learn a lot more about, you know, what did that building mean to the area and why is it significant and why was it moved to Heritage Village? Among other topics? So we talk a little bit about transportation since it was so important to this area and we talk about tourism and agriculture and all of those things.

00;16;24;14 - 00;16;48;15

Monica Drake

The app is really great because you don't have to really you're not relegated to just a physical sign. You've got all the space to build out, you know, digitally and you're really not contained that way. So there's a lot of information in that app and anyone can find that by going to their app store and just looking for Heritage Village.

00;17;08;08 - 00;17;22;10

Malaika Hollist

So I have to know how since everything comes to Heritage Village, how do you transport it? How did you transport that? The Turner Bungalow and I think the McMullen House well.

00;17;22;23 - 00;17;59;06

Monica Drake

Yeah, so that's a great question because it is truly an engineering marvel, I think, to pick up these historic buildings and move them without any major damage. Right? Yeah, I have one of my favorite stories truly is the relocation of our Seven Gables House, which was actually built by David Starr back in the 1900s and had gone through several different iterations.

00;17;59;06 - 00;18;31;05

Monica Drake

It was owned by the Star family. They sold it. It became somewhat of a boarding house. And, you know, finally it was up on this bluff in Clearwater, almost and the approximate location of the current county court house. And so it overlooks, you know, Clearwater Harbor and probably had a very magnificent view. But at that point it really wasn't being used in the way it needed to be used anymore.

00;18;31;06 - 00;18;59;10

Monica Drake

And of course, there was the fear that it would fall in disrepair or just be raised. So they did something amazing they were able to get a company that took a crane, lifted the house of Seven Gables up on the crane off the bluff and onto a barge that was in the Intercoastal. They shipped it down the Intracoastal until they got to 688.

00;18;59;21 - 00;19;06;13

Monica Drake

And then they lifted it on to a flatbed truck and then they transported a tiger to George. I mean, it's amazing.

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Malaika Hollist

That's crazy. I can't wow. I can't believe they do.

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Monica Drake

That is truly amazing. It really gives.

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Malaika Hollist

Many, many smart mind to figure out how to do it.

00;19;18;03 - 00;19;51;20

Monica Drake

Wow. That is right. That that that portion is definitely above my pay grade. So I don't have to be the engineer who figures that out for each and every house. You know, we've had for example, the Turner bungalow, you know, the house and the contents. We're not the only thing that were donated to Heritage Village. But, you know, that whole process was possible because a portion of the money to move the house was also donated by the Turner family.

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Malaika Hollist

Amazing. So I'm curious to know, why do you think preserving history in this way is so important?

00;20;00;27 - 00;20;24;18

Monica Drake

You know, I, I have to say, I have a really great I think, great answer to that. And I do this stuff every day, but it didn't really hit me. You know, when you're in the thick of it, you kind of just you you you do what you do. Right. But I was recently I recently went to Washington, DC for a conference.

00;20;25;06 - 00;21;06;18

Monica Drake

And everything you see there is history the buildings, the artifacts, the monuments. You know, I was it was the first time I had ever gone there so I could really feel history oozing out of the location, the built environment. And by virtue of just standing within the National Mall, you can intimately understand what Americans hold most important. So starting with like a building like the National Archives, where our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence reside, it's immediate to you that that is important.

00;21;07;00 - 00;21;34;20

Monica Drake

That needs to be preserved. And why? Because for all of the reasons that Americans hold dear, of course. So and then even among that, you have things that we hold dear, like the freedom of information contained in and the freedom of expression held and contained in many Smithsonian museums that surround that area, as well as the Library of Congress is right up the road.

00;21;34;20 - 00;22;00;21

Monica Drake

So you're just surrounded with this understanding of what's important for Americans. And so this type of built environment helps you to understand what is culturally, politically and socially important. And of course, one of my favorite structures that I saw when I was standing there is an allegory right in front of the National Archives that reads the past is Prolog.

00;22;02;05 - 00;22;47;09

Monica Drake

So so, you know, that kind of extends to me that the things that we have at Heritage Village in the same sense, you know, that you see these things at the National Mall in D.C. are a lineage. They're not something static in and in the past, they're not something that just happened 100 and so years ago, they're still happening and they still inform how we understand our region, our community is what's important to us and you know, and we're encountering these visual cues every day in our built environment that tell us these things.

00;22;47;09 - 00;22;59;09

Monica Drake

So from the facilities, we see each day or buildings such as the Turner Bungalow, too, even the design of something like a utensil you use or the shoes you wear it these cues all do the same thing.

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Malaika Hollist

Right? They all they all tell you a story. They they all tell you something that you can learn from.

00;23;07;07 - 00;23;08;06

Monica Drake

Absolutely.

00;23;09;00 - 00;23;17;22

Malaika Hollist

Well, you said that you have a preservation summit and I believe it's coming up on May 18th. Would you explain a little bit about this.

00;23;19;03 - 00;24;13;21

Monica Drake

Yeah, absolutely. We're really excited to be working with the Historic Preservation Board to have their Preservation Summit coming to Heritage Villages announced room on May 18th from noon to 6:00. And what we really will highlight during that summit is preservation practices, most specific to Heritage Village. And we hope to we hope that that anyone coming to the conference can then extrapolate from that, you know, their own preservation practices, whether it be in their own personal homes, if they have a historic home and in Pinellas County or elsewhere, or if they work for another, you know, a park that preserves local history or museum that preserves local or regional history.

00;24;14;09 - 00;24;43;28

Monica Drake

So really, we we want to kind of explore how we conduct our preservation practices here at Heritage Village so that we can help others achieve the best US standards and best practices for their own preservation projects. I'm really excited to announce that our keynote speaker for that day will be Stephen Hayes, who is the president of the St Pete Clearwater Convention and Visitors Bureau.

00;24;44;24 - 00;25;17;24

Monica Drake

To kind of bring everything together. And so that might seem like a really strange choice, but you know, heritage tourism is truly on the rise and from all recent statistics, it's actually accelerated even more during the COVID period because there are a lot of historic houses and historic sites where you can be, you know, outside and socially distance and and still interacting with his local history.

00;25;17;24 - 00;25;34;21

Monica Drake

So I'm really excited to be able to host back here at Heritage Village. And of course, we'll have more information about that summit coming up on our Facebook page and our website shortly. So.

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Malaika Hollist

OK, well, thank you so much, Monica, for being on the podcast today.

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Monica Drake

Oh, thank you so much. Really good. This was, of course, a lot of fun.

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Malaika Hollist

You can visit Heritage Village and check out their upcoming preservation summit on May 18th in Largo, Florida. We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the Arts Axis Florida podcast. You can find more information on today's guests in the show notes. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching Arts Axis Florida or go to our Web site Arts Axis Florida dot org to get access to the Arts A X I S F L dot org. Our show is a product of WUSF Public Media and made possible by our sponsors Community Foundation Tampa Bay and Gobioff Foundation. A special thanks to our editor Scott Wachtler and many more who make this show possible. Copyright 2022 WUSF Public Media.

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