It happened that on a few our short sales, the Buyers were represented by the same broker.
There is a lot of similarity between us, we are both from the Soviet Union, of similar age, immigrated the same year, came to Florida from New York pretty much at the same time, and, of course, the fact that we are in the same business. We knew of each other, but haven't met face-to-face. And suddenly we were communicating a lot.
So, when there was an interesting event in the Casements (shown on this photo), a former winter residence of John Rockefeller, who spent 24 winters here, I emailed to him and his wife and they gladly accepted the invitation.
We met a few minutes before the event, and I mentioned Pullman’s daughter (remember those Pullman's railroad cars?), who owned the house before she sold it to John Rockefeller in 1918; the famous Ormond Hotel across the street, which was built by Anderson and Price, and opened January 1, 1888...
A Florida railroad magnate Henry Flagler, Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil Company, bought the hotel 2 years later and expanded it from 75 to 400 room, a huge number even for today’s Daytona, and the sad history of this beautiful wooden hotel deteriorating after the end of patronage with the death of John Rockefeller.
This magnificent building was put on the National Register in 1980 but it was too late, and it was demolished in 1990… Now there is an architecturally rather mediocre Heritage condominiums
Hotel was the biggest wooden structure east of Mississippi, Henry Flagler extended the rail right to the Grand entrance of the hotel, so that all those rich and famous, including Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Astor, Henry Ford, Al Capone, and many others) could get on a train at Grand Central in Manhattan and come straight to the Hotel. Races on the beach started as fun for those rich and famous.
I pointed towards the cupola from the original Hotel saved during the demolition, which houses a tiny cute museum about the glory of the past, and about a few other very interesting facts from our relatively recent history…
They were listening to me with their jaws dropped. They did not know it. And so many other things about the area…
Why? I have not spent hours in the archives, haven’t bought a single book about the history of this area (but I should), didn’t spend hours in the library; and I haven’t lived here for 150 years to witness any of that, even the demolition in 1992, as I came to Florida a few years later…
It is in the air. If you keep your eyes and mind open, it is there. In articles in the News-Journal, talk shows on the radio... It is around you.
It always puzzles me when I ask people living in one place for 30 years who the street was named after, and there is this strange look on their faces… They do not know. They never thought about knowing.
Isn't knowing even bits and pieces of our history makes life richer, more interesting? In the Internet era finding out about the area we live in is often a breeze and fun…
How can we be selling real estate in the sterile environment of "know nothing, can’t care less"?
There is a big difference between the tenants and the homeowners. Tenants are temporary. The difference is the personal involvement, mental attachement, pride...
I think it is similar to life in general. Are we just renters in life, who can’t care less and go with minimum attachment, or we are embedded in the fabric of life, with its past present, and future?
Who should we be?
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