HOWEY MANSION

 METS (Meeting, Eating, Traveling Seniors) group from our church sponsored a trip to Howey Mansion in Howey-in-the-Hills. It has just been open a little over a year after much renovation from years of disrepair and neglect.

 The mansion is now open for tours and used for weddings and special events.

 A large group went on the tour. Many of us drove since the church bus only holds 15.

 We gathered in the ballroom.  The walls are made our of plaster or stucco, and the ceiling beams are cypress. The furniture is not the original and we were allowed to sit on it.

This is Mr Howey who built the house in 1925. His love was citrus and he made his money from buying land cheaply and planting trees. He sold an acre of trees at a very substantial profit.

 The archway that looks like marble was really plaster, treated very secretly to look like marble.

 The courtyard looking at the building that had been the garage but is now where the kitchen is for catering.

 The statue is not a mermaid but a siren, as in Greek mythology. Starbucks symbol is also a siren, they have two tails.

 The stairway upstairs. All the fixtures are the original.

 Beautiful stain glass at the front door.

 In the library when one of the shelves was removed there was a lever on the wall.

 The lever moved this pin.

 That allowed this wall to open,

 so you could go down these steps,

 to where the liqueur was hidden.

 All the bottles were empty, but there was a nice display of things to look at from this period.

 A nice bright sitting room upstairs.

 With a patio outside,

 that looked down at the courtyard.

 There were four bedrooms and bathrooms.

 The one bedroom had a ladder that lead up to the roof. What a view they had from there.

 From the master bedroom you came out to this patio,

 that had a staircase to the side of the house. Our guide was very knowledgeable and gave a very good tour.

After the tour we all went to JB Boondocks for lunch.