NPB Council votes to demolish Winter Club (WD) 8-3-83WL'- L K DAY Accw:# 993 ZZ 91
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North alill Beach Council,
votes to demolish Winter Club
By Steve Uman
At the July 28th regular session of
the North Palm Beach Village
Council, the governing body voted to
demolish the historic Winter
Club/ Oaks mansion building. By a
majority vote of 4 to 1 the Council
approved demolishing the building
and going out immediately to get bids
for the demolition work.
Mayor Tom Valente was just
starting to say, "The next item on the
agenda is... " He may or may not have
even said the words `Winter Club'
when Vice -Mayor V.A. , Marks
interrupted.
Marks immediately made a motion
to den-iolish the building and go out to
bid to get the cost of demolition. Ile
went on to say that anything beyond
doing the building completely over
would be wrong for the Village,
adding it would allegedly take too
much money to fix it up and then
maintain it. .
Councilman Craig Mundt went
back over everything that has been
talked about before, at former
meetings: the questionable historical
significance of the building, the
unavailability of Federal or State
restoration funds, the liability of an
old building that just "sits there as a
potential hazard" , etc.
Mundt said that the proposals from
outside sources, to utilize the building
primarily for commercial ventures,
contained ` `unknown cost factors."
What this really means is that the
Council did not even give any serious
consideration to the Crystal Tree or
Luke Taylor proposals. Some of their
ininds had been made up for a long
time.
STE V E UMAN
Mundt also mentioned a Federal
Bill just proposed which would
prevent cities Iroin engaging in. sales
and leasebacks to private developers.
Later oil, when it .was Councilman Al
Moore's turn to speak, Moore
brought this argument into perspec-
tive by reminding Mundt and the
audience that a long, long time passes
between the finie a bill is f rst
introduced and the tirne the bill is
passed (if it does pass).
Mundt let everyone know he is "ill
favor of removal of the, building. , s
Councilwoman Harriet Nolan said
that she ahvays supported the fifty
percent who originally voted to
demolish the building.
Al Moore injected a bit of humor
into the proceedings by responding to
Nolan s comment and saying that he
``represents the other fifty percent
who wanted to save the building."
Moore has been known for months
to be the only council member in favor
of saving and preserving the Winter
Club. He talked about the beauty of
the building, in a beautiful tone of
voice. He did say that `beauty is in the
eyes of the beholder,' and the other 4
people up on the podium - with him
obviously don't like `that kind of
beauty.'
Moore stated that the Winter Club
is "the only thing, or the only
building, in the Northern County,
except for possible the Jupiter
Lighthouse, that represents old
Florida as it used to be. "
He gave one good argument that
has been heard before, but, as before,
nobody listened. "Where can you find
a building so strong ... that can be built
for $500,000...to withstand hurricanes
like this building..."
Moore made two other important
comments. But they were only
important, or only listened to, by
people who cherished the old
building. He blamed the rest of the
Council for "throwing away $80, 000
of the taxpayers money" by taking
away "this one beautiful building. "
And in closing, Moore stated that
` we still don't know what the people
in the Village really want. " He
blamed special interest groups for
coming to the meetings and for
inciting the people to remove the
Winter Club.
In any case, a vote was taken on
Mark's motion to demolish the club
and to go out for bids for the
demolition work, and the vote was 4 to
1 in favor.
If you want to say goodbye to the
Winter Club, or if you want to take
some photographs of the building that
caused so much controversy for such a
long time, you'd better take those
pictures soon. Because the Winter
Club will cease to be shortly. It has
been so ordained.