- October 11, 2024
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Every year, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation picks 11 threatened historic places in the state and highlights them to inspire communities to preserve the history in their backyards.
This year, the Ormond Yacht Club has made the list.
The two-story, 1,734-square-foot wood building on the Halifax River at 63 N. Beach St. has been a presence in the community since it was built in 1910. Few may be aware of the structure’s history, but the club’s 65 members are determined to make sure the building remains standing — and part of that means making sure the community knows its importance.
“As we’ve seen other things that we thought could be saved go away, it inspires us to put our noses to the grindstone, so to speak, and not let that happen to this building,” OYC board member Bill Partington II said.
Partington has been a member of the OYC since 2003.
The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s Florida’s “11 to Save” program “is intended to be part of a collaborative effort to identify custom solutions for each property,” according to a news release from 2022.
The 11 sites for 2023 were announced during the Preservation on Main Street Conference, presented by Florida Main Street and the Florida Trust, on July 19.
No funding accompanies the designation, but being on the list eases the process of applying for programs that could fund preservation efforts, Partington said.
Since 2014, only one other Ormond property has made it onto the list, in 2021: the 1976 former Ormond Beach Union Church. That year’s list was announced on July 21, 2021. The church’s demolition began six days later, on July 27.
On Feb. 7, 1910, the city granted the OYC approval to construct a clubhouse over the river, according to a letter to the club from the city’s town clerk at the time. Then, on March 18, 1910, the club received approval from the Union Church’s pastor to build the structure on what was then part of parsonage ground, at a lease cost of $5 per year. Architect Sumner Hale Grove designed the building.
“The pastor spoke of there being no place for boys excepting where they ought not to be,” an extract of minutes from the church’s annual meeting reads. “... The request was granted asking the club to build a good looking house and that nothing objectionable should be carried on in the building.”
Partington has compiled those documents, and others, on the new OYC website at ormondyachtclub.com, which is still in progress.
The OYC’s earliest members included some well-known local historical figures: John Anderson and Joseph Price, who built the Ormond Hotel, and Charles McNary, one of the original aldermen of the first Ormond Beach City Commission in 1880.
“It’s a big part of [Ormond’s] early history,” OYC Past President Kevin Callahan said. “Many early members were pioneers, or sons of pioneers, and a couple of daughters — names that we recognize on street signs, maybe, or just remember from other people.”
Before he became a member in 1998, Callahan would see the building as he drove over the bridge on his way to and from home.
“I always wondered what it was,” Callahan said. “As we referred to it, there was a mystique about this place. Nobody really knew what was going on here.”
The OYC was never home to yachts, and it was originally not on the tax rolls.
It used to have a boathouse attached to a 100-yard dock, and mainly offered slips to guests of Hotel Ormond across the river. After the boathouse was destroyed in a storm in the 1920s, the members never rebuilt it.
Now, 113 years since the club was chartered, the OYC membership owns the building, relying on dues and its annual fundraisers for its budget.
It’s less about boats these days, and more about historic preservation.
“Not only is this a local landmark and part of our history, but it’s very unique because there’s just not very many of these kinds of buildings on the water,” OYC President Greg Snell said.
Snell has been a club member since about late 2004 — joining just in time to see what the hurricane season that year had done to the clubhouse.
The floorboards on the first floor had curved upward and members discovered that the floor joists were failing. The pilings also needed repair.
So the members spent $70,000 to make the OYC structurally sound.
“We thought, ‘We can’t really go through repairing the building unless we had a good foundation,’” Callahan said.
The OYC was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
According to the registration form, once the boat house was gone, OYC members used the clubhouse for card games, reading, billiards, potluck dinners and dances.
“In its heyday, the club was a central part of the social activity of the community,” the form states. “Dinners, dances, street fairs, afternoon teas and meetings of the Ormond Board of Trade (the Chamber of Commerce), the Garden Club, the Ormond Beach Board of Realtors, the Ladies of the Village Improvement Association (later the Women’s Club), the Boy Scouts, Girls Club and other community organizations held meetings there.”
Snell has experience preserving historic buildings.
He previously owned and restored the historic Ormond Fire House at 160 E. Granada Blvd. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
As a lawyer, before becoming president, Snell mainly helped Callahan with any legal issues the membership came across during the process of preserving the clubhouse.
“I have the ability, hopefully, to lend a little bit of leadership here,” Snell said. “Kevin [Callahan], he’s still helping out for sure ... but hopefully we’re going to keep things rolling here.”
The OYC membership would love to open the building to the public more often.
On Saturday, July 22, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., members hosted a free open house for the community.
Government can do a lot of things, Partington said, but saving the building is up to the private sector.
It was thanks to Ormond MainStreet that Partington decided to nominate the OYC to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s Florida’s 11 to Save program.
“In this case, I think the private interests of the group, along with the community, can do a better job of saving a historic structure than any government could,” he said. “So we’re excited to be a part of it.”
