March 14th Repairs done- Day trip to Leesburg Florida (Lake County) for National Register Sites

Danny started on the coach first thing at 0730 this morning.  Took him about 30-45 minutes to locate and repair the problem-  turns out it was a bad cable to the sat dish- like we had before.  

So now, we are all repaired!  

I then headed about 11 miles down the road to Leesburg, Florida- about 11 miles down the road-  

It's a town of about 20,000 right on a lake-  one claim to fame is it was the birthplace of Jim Morrison's father, Adm. George Morrison, who was a rear admiral in the Navy- 

There were two National Register locations in town, first was the Lee School, which was built in 1915, but sadly, is slowly crumbling away- and rotting too.  

You can see the rotting on the roofline- It was also fairly grown over.

The sign-  slowly fading away

Close up of the facade.  

A companion building next door.

LEESBURG — At one point every youngster in Leesburg attended the red-bricked schoolhouse known as the Lee School in the heart of the city. 

The school, built in 1915, has housed children from elementary to high school over the years and eventually became a center for struggling students

Now the main building is slowly rotting. The outside mortar is crumbling, dead vines fill a front office and in the basement at the bottom of the stairs lies a dusty cat skeleton.

Throughout the years the historic building has sat neglected as School Board members have tried to figure out what to do with it. Interested buyers have wanted the district to pay for repairs or part with it for next to nothing, officials say. Repairs would be at least $1.5 million to just fix the outside, but trying to use it for school purposes doesn't make economic sense, said John Davis the district's chief operating officer. Davis estimates the building has two more years of life before they'll be forced to tear it down.

"Unless we do something to it soon it's going to get to the state of being unusable," Davis said.

The property is made up of three buildings, the historic 1915 building, another built in 1923 and a cafeteria occupied by The Humanities and Fine Arts Charter School. The 1915 building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

School Board members said they want to try to partner with the city to find a use for the building, but city leaders don't have any desire to acquire the campus, city spokesman Robert Sargent wrote in an email.

Board chairwoman Rosanne Brandeburg said she hopes someone would be interested in remodeling it, and will have a clearer picture of what to do after meeting with area leaders.

The buildings "have wonderful character, but there's a lot of work that would have to be done," she said.

Joe Shipes, executive director of the Leesburg Partnership, said finding a group to pay for renovations will be a challenge. If that doesn't happen in time, the district will have no choice but to tear it down.

"The School Board's got to do what it's gotta do," he said. "It'll be a crime if it happens."

A short drive away was the Mote-Morris house, a beautifully restored old Victorian that had been moved back in 1990-  

 House is in great shape, and has beautiful landscaping.

 

Here's a shot of the house being moved- pretty cool 

Morrison United Methodist Church bought the house in August 1988 and offered it to whoever would move it. Residents of Leesburg rallied round the old house and raised $95,000 for a new site. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Mote-Morris House was relocated to 1195 W. Magnolia Street from 1021 W. Main Street. More than 400 people watched as the 150-ton house was moved one block south and two blocks west.

        The Mote-Morris House is a fine example late Victorian architecture. It is an interesting combination of styles, including its four-story turret, and two-story bay on the east side of the house. It is one of only a few original residences remaining. The house was built shortly after the town was platted. It has had only minor changes in its 102-year history. Several bathrooms have been added, as well as a porch or two.

        The front room, just to the left of the foyer, is the formal parlor. The main stairway is L-shaped and leads to the three bedrooms on the second floor. The doorway from the parlor leads to the music room, which had been the family parlor. A small hallway leads from the music room to the dining room, which can also be accessed from the front foyer. The glass case in the hallway serves as a display for artifacts discovered during an archaeological dig performed by experts and students from Oak Park Middle School shortly after the house was moved in 1990. A pantry from the dining room leads to the kitchen, which has been modernized over the years. There is also a bathroom off of the music room.

        Originally, the second floor had three bedrooms, plus a nursery and a servant’s room to the rear of the home. The servant’s room also had a back stairway that led to the kitchen and first floor. The main bedroom had been the one on the west side of the house. The nursery could be reached from the main bedroom and the east bedroom. The second-floor study, at the base of the tower, could also be reached from the main bedroom and also the front bedroom. That study has been turned into a bathroom. It also contains the stairway leading to the third floor study and fourth floor loft. The nursery area has been turned into a bathroom and the servant’s room is now a kitchen.

We're at the Alliance Campground for the night, then will head on down to Thonotosassa tomorrow- about an hour and a half down there, then we may have to wait to get in, which will confuse my trip over to Tampa.