House of Refuge Restoration Update

welcome to the speakers at Flaggler by the Stewart Heritage Museum at this point I'm going to turn things back over to what you came for uh Jess Robinson and Katherine Larson from the uh Elliot Museum House of Refuge are here to tell us about what's going on over there ladies you know just just one thing as you guys were talking about um how to wash your own face you know it's it's important to be able to wash your own face as a museum right to make sure that you're what you're doing every day kind of leads you through the next season but I would like to say that the Heritage Museum being free is such

a wonderful opportunity to pull people in off the street as they walk by our beautiful downtown area and and to be able to have that free experience just even walk through and get a a glimmer of the history of our area is incredibly important and so thank you thank you thank you for making that happen all of these years and being such a a stalwart in the downtown and again thank you guys for being here i know it's really cold out there like it's a little chilly thanks for bringing your blankets and wrapping up and coming in you know I was telling Gloria earlier that I've read a whole lot of diaries about the pioneers

of this area and they never complain about the heat you never hear "Oh my gosh it was so hot today i couldn't even lift." You never hear that you do hear about the bitter cold in the winter time right and how they maintained and and were able to to work and continue in the shin splints and the finger issues that they had and you know as I look around this room I'm very humbled to be standing right here and giving you this update on the House of Refuge there's many people in this room that I have absolutely learned from as mentors and these people that work tirelessly to retain and interpret and display the information

about our history here in Martin County and so I do kind of feel a little bit like an assurer because I'm from Palm Beach County right i still have that 561 area code on my phone number and I probably won't give it up but I do love living here and coming across back from work today to make it here uh you know I crossed three bridges and I don't know if you saw that sunset out there today but it was incredible this is paradise that we live in and I know that each of you feels that same responsibility to the history and to the the culture and to the things that make Martin County great

so again I'm so grateful for the lessons the camaraderie and all of the stories that each and one of you have given to me in the times that we have spoken one-on-one what else is history but the collection of the stories of the people who lived it right and that's what we're doing now is trying to recreate those stories of the people who came before us and thank you thank you thank you for all of your work to tie those connections together so the beauty of operating with a 70-year-old institution are the analysis of those who have come before me right the the readings and the writings of the people that have come before me

and since I took this position and it's just been one year now that I've been in the position of the collections director at the Historical Society of Martin County I've just been reading everything right anything that I can find in the archive I I have a bean bag in there now so that I can sit and be comfortable while I read the things um from progress reports written by Janet Hutchinson in the 60s and the 70s to the diaries of the pioneer families to um the archaeological reports that have been done over the years right we've had many of those done throughout the years and they're quite technical and so I've been building databases to

be able to insert that information so that I can ask questions you know logical questions so I I upload these documents like the history of Martin County the archaeological report that was done in 1999 um the dig reports that they did in the 70s i've uploaded all of this into like a searchable database and I'm really close to making that available for everybody to search online and so that's one of the the major projects that I have going on and really what I'm here to talk to you about I'm only introducing the main star here okay i'm only down I'm giving you just a little bit of of background and information of what she is

doing on the ground boots on the ground every single day and so what I'm going to give you um a little glimpse into is how I plan to publicize the information from our archives we've been working dedicatedly with Georgian at the Martin Digital History Project which is so incredibly important to everything that we do right we talk about resilience we talk about preparation we talk about preserving these parts of our past and digitization of that is it is it's the front line what if a hurricane hit the building next door what would we do we would lose everything and so documenting documenting documenting in a way that is stored off site in a way that

we will never lose access to those things is so important and that's where I'm at that is my background is data management logistics and um so I I'm bringing a technical approach to the collections of the Ellia and the Historical Society of Martin County that really hasn't been looked at it in this way before you know the House of Refuge was really the pride of the community when it was first made into a museum in 1956 70 years ago as evidenced by the early records from that area and with the Tradesman Group which is really breathing new life into the building for us katherine has been documenting every step along the way and she is

going to show us tonight some video of speaking with the general contractors speaking with the engineers speaking with some of the specialty trades and so forth so what we're trying to do with the new interpretation because when we go back in there we're going to be building all new exhibits which requires new signage new interpretation and so that's what I'm working on whereas she is is is making sure that we're documenting the story along the way we have every bit of it um documented on video and through audio and you know and what we're really trying to do is to honor each of the distinct eras of the house because there are so many right

and so through that through the labor and expertise that of people who made amazing things happen there like Ross Wam Adele Willoughby Mrs william Clark Shepard like these people gave of themselves gave of their lives gave of their material resources to make the museum happen and that's a legacy that we want to preserve so the ladies of Seroptimus you know these stories all along the way there's so many individual stories to tell and it's kind of like I could stay here all day we could talk for two days you know we could just keep going because there is so much to talk about about the House of Refuge so these stories are really what I

want to focus on and you'll see at the front there is a little framed drawing by Doris Thirsten um she made that drawing for um an ad campaign from the first national bank who in the 70s was raising money on our behalf and so looking back and seeing those connections with the community those are what we need to continue to inspire our corporate companies in our area you know should support us in that way right so how do we make that happen um each of the keepers and their stories and then later on when the keepers started bringing their families and the men who made this house their home through hardship and hard work and

and making sure that um all of the sailors were safe so then there's stories of the caretakers who came later on after it really was a museum there were still people living there full-time like the uh Mr and Mrs steel lived there for a while i thought that was very interesting since Rob Steele is now the director right yeah and and the car family so there were lots of people who still lived on site even through the 80s i want to talk about Captain Louie and Pompo Chuck i'm dying to walk through the Pelican Hotel so if any of you know anybody over there like that can get me in to go and walk those

hallways i look by it every single day as I drive by it i'm like somebody's got to know how to get me in there um these are the stories I'm looking forward to telling and this is really what my part of it is is is the words right and so making sure that people can walk through the House of Refuge and immediately understand its importance to our community um so I'm really hoping also that you'll take one of my cards and that you'll use my email to document your own stories you know you think about something in the middle of the night that makes you think about the House of Refuge or the Elliot or

anybody that's connected with those things shoot me an email doesn't matter what time it is like I want to hear your stories and please share that out in the community too like between Martin Digital History and our project and Steuart Heritage we are we are preserving those stories and it's always the loudest stories that make history right the people that are good with their words that are documenting the people that tell their stories out loud those are the stories that get remembered and so what I'm looking for is like my friend Kathy who's the cashier at Publix she's a sixth generation Martin County resident i'm like Kathy I know you have pictures i know you

have stories and so those are the stories that I'm out there looking for actively um another thing I wanted to mention I did play some bibliographies so the things that are the sources that I'm using to create the new interpretation for the house are available up there if you see anything I'm missing please let me know um and then the last thing I want to talk about is that the Spanish colonists who came here in the 14s the 15s the 1600s there's a lot of new AI translation happening on their individual stories and journals and two of those are coming out in the next month November and December and so we're going to get access

to for the first time in English these stories of the colonists in personal diaries and and stories that they recalled after having been here in Florida in that time frame their interactions with the indigenous people that lived here and so that's coming this month and those are there for you to take also and if there isn't enough papers to go around please again just take my card and email me and uh I'll send you everything that we talked about here today and so I'm going to let Katherine talk about the things that are happening on the ground at the house it's super exciting i went out this morning i I'm very certain that you all

will be very pleased over it and I just want to take a moment to recognize Katherine um you know she's really serving as the liaison between the historical society between the county between the tradesman group and she's there every day dealing with the minutia right and so she definitely has her hands full and I've been so pleased to watch you grow in your role and I'm grateful for your grit and your determination and your love for creating a warm and inviting space that I mean that space seems to follow her around really it's everywhere she goes and so thank you guys for inviting us here to speak today and please reach out with any questions

that you might have um hi everybody I'm Katherine Larson and I am keeper of the house and it is a role I do not take lightly and it's kind of an interesting thing um my area code is even farther away from counties i'm from Washington DC and I'm kind of a Smithsonian baby i had the luxury of being around incredible museums and um I have a passion for history i have a passion for history and looking at everybody here today you guys are here for a reason too because you all have a passion for history and uh it's very true about what they say uh that our life's blood really are our our volunteers people

that have dedicated themselves to the commitment of community to coming in and sharing um spreading the word sharing and um that's one of the the beauties of the house of refuge u because it is all about storytelling the house itself is not a very big house and there is a collective of incredible history dating and we we are actually an archaeological site we are a an Indian Native American miden and with that comes another culture that um and I I I certainly know that the House of Refuge didn't realize that they were going to be on top of a miden but it's just another layer of our history and I think that's quite beautiful um

uh I have a video that uh we are very very proud of and it is it's a short video it's about eight minutes long but it takes through takes you through some of the fun tidbits that we do share um in our storytelling and it is it's that one it's very short but um you know history history um is uh sometimes it can be uh a static uh share and and how to we can how can we also encourage further engagement to share that same history and so we've been trying through uh technology also that Jess spoke about earlier we've got Martin Digital we have a lot of an online activity going on to chronicle

to to archive um uh versus relying on the old notes or or old storytelling so uh this was an effort to um uh engage the community as they come on to our campus and so let's watch this for just a second i don't know long before lighouses marked safe passage and ships braved these perilous waters this coastline belonged to the eyes Indians for centuries they lived in harmony with the sea sustained by its bounty their existence now whispered through ancient shell mounds the foundations upon which modern history stands gilbert's Bar named not for any gentle natural formation but for the notorious pirate Don Pedro Gilbert in the early 19th century Gilbert terrorized these waters infamous

for plundering merchant vessels and burning ships to erase evidence of his ruthless crimes his chillingly famous saying "Dead cats don't mu," meant simply "Dead men tell no tales." His reign of terror ended in 1835 as he became the last pirate executed in the United States leaving his name etched permanently into this perilous reef by the mid 1800s shipwrecks along Florida's coast had become alarmingly frequent prompting Sumner Kimble head of the US Life-Saving Service to act in 1876 on Hutchinson Island at top the ancient Isis Mound the house of refuge at Gilbert's Bar was commissioned and number two of only 10 constructed as sanctuaries for shipwrecked sailors remarkably of those original 10 this house of refuge

on Gilbert's Bar alone remains making it the oldest building in Martin County life here was challenging the Florida landscape in 1876 was inhospitable harsh and isolated keepers and their families endured loneliness harsh weather and constant vigilance dedicated solely to saving lives from the sea's grasp with the advent of World War I the House of Refuge was incorporated into the newly formed US Coast Guard in 1915 continuing its vital role in maritime safety during World War II it took on additional strategic importance as a coastal lookout station vigilantly scanning the horizon for German Uboats threatening the American coastline the brave personnel stationed here provided critical surveillance protecting countless lives patrolling the beaches and safeguarding maritime trade

routes over decades the house witnessed countless tales of courage rescuing sailors from vessels like the George's Valentine and Cosmic each wreck a testament to humanity's resilience against nature's fury eventually decommissioned in 1945 by midentury the house stood in silence weathered and abandoned but in the 1950s a group of remarkable women from the Seroptimist Club of Stewart intervened refusing to let this historic gem decay they rallied support raised funds and partnered with the county to breathe new life into its story soon after the Historical Society of Martin County was formed in 1955 and has continuously preserved this vital piece of maritime heritage ensuring the stories of bravery and survival would never fade in 1955 the Historical

Society of Martin County was born its founding mission to preserve and share the legacy of this house through decades of stewardship community events and educational outreach the society has protected the house as a living museum open to all who seek to connect with Florida's maritime roots yet this shoreline is not only known for human history but also for an enduring natural legacy from 1955 to the 1980s marine conservationist Ross Witham known as Martin County's turtle man pioneered efforts to protect endangered sea turtles his groundbreaking sea turtle project here at the House of Refuge significantly bolstered turtle populations leaving an indelible mark on conservation practices worldwide today the House of Refuge stands not merely as a

historical site but as a testament to the enduring bond between humanity and the sea from the indigenous eyes people and the treacherous pirate Gilbert to heroic wartime efforts and pioneering conservation by Ross Wam each chapter echoes along this shore reminding us that history is alive in every wave that touches these sands may the stories told here inspire and remind us of our eternal connection to the sea and our shared responsibility to preserve its history its wild life and its mysteries for generations yet to come my name is Michael Phillips and I am keeper emmeritus at the house of refuge bar this is my 15th year and it's a magical place when you come you never

leave i came 15 years ago and I'm still here this is such a tapestry of history that I just never become bored with it and I guess that's what keeps me going often I'm ask well let me tell you something this is total history every object every window every book is nothing but history and it's wonderful and to learn the history of Florida for someone who's from the Northeast Corridor was really interesting because when I got here I didn't think there was a history only now I know there's thousands and thousands of years of history and that's what keeps me here because I'm always looking for the end of the story i want you to

come here because I want to tell you a story i want to tell you an amazing story starting with Indians then to pirates then to armies then to Germans then to turtles come here and let me share our story with you now a lot of these pictures that we're seeing in this video um are from our home of history that was put together by Sandra Thurlo and I've told Sandra this before that she's one of my local history heroes and um and I I salute you because now we put a little twist on it and gave it a little animation um and also from our archives and uh that was a neat project to be

working on and when you come to the house of refuge uh we like to start out with videos um just to give a nice orientation because the house is small and we uh have grown our our engagement now with the community has has really um brightened and uh we've even had as many as 65 70 people coming through the house of refuge so um being the keeper of the house and being uh entrusted with engagement and how the flow goes you know it's our our lifeblood which are our our dosient and then we split our time with our video which is very important um and uh then we do the tour of the house but

so we are in the middle of a giant well-needed restoration and I have to um thank everybody that helped put this together This was the county this was the historical society it was the House of Refuge and we um were able to win um monies uh with the commissioners it was a 3-2 vote and it's it's an interesting thing and just to talk about that for a second not everybody feels the way we do about history which was shocking however there was there are a lot of people that are fiscally quite conservative and they don't understand that value of what it is to put our history out into the universe we have to we have

to it's up to us and we are those stewards and um hello um I've got Flaggler we could tribute to Flaggler behind us but um it it it's it's it's true that um money is always money and working for nonprofits um we're always maybe a day late and a dollar short but we try really really hard um and and that's where we are right now the historical society um in Martin County was awarded $1.8 million for the restoration that's going on right now um the the Tradesman Group is a group out of Ohio it is a a female-owned company which I I I like um and uh they are all craftsmen of their own um

focus so we've got people who are very much involved with just the wood you know and we're people who are involved with the the historical significance of materials that are being used at the house of refuge have been used at the house of refuge jade pine we can't use it anymore um and here we are and you know the house of refuge has gone through many phases of restoration or maintenance and the maintenance is where we're shifting the chapter right now because the county owns the campus the county owns the building and the historical society with our 70 years we are the stewards of that history and I think that um uh it's it's you

know there's there's there money is money but it was finally necessary to do this restoration so that we have it around for more for further generations it's very important so um here they are they came they came uh in July and it has been a very slow meticulous process and as Jess said I am boots on the ground i am dealing with the the the contractor and and the different disciplines as well as the county as well as reporting back to the House of Refuge but I'm also trying to keep the engagement alive and how am I doing that i'm doing it with a social media platform um and so even though we're shut um

I'm still trying to reach out and touch i put some cards out here that um I hope that you guys will take a moment to take a look at something called Chronicles of a Restoration um with my hard hat I go out there and I talk to the different disciplines and say "What are you guys doing today?" Um where are we in the process and so um you will you will discover that in fact we can do we can do uh number six would be a good one um lead paint paint that is peeling off the house because of where it is the geography of it we are um uh subject to incredible weather and

so how do we even keep the paint on the building so um we're dialing back tens and tens and tens and tens of years which I think is really fantastic what is the process well there is a process and because we are um on the National Register of Historic Places it is our duty in maintaining that designation to do what the guidelines are and so here is an example welcome back to Chronicles of a Restoration my name is Katherine Larson and I am keeper of the house today we're learning about the paint removal process over the decades layer upon layer of paint has built up hiding the original wood beneath several methods were tested each

with care for both the structure and its history okay so we have to strip this paint and because of the age of the building there are limited things we can do but this is a chemical peel process so we put this um paste on here and the paste is acostic and then we cover with this this paper the paper is like think of it like parchment paper and uh the paper just sticks to the paste and it prevents the uh the the paste from drying out overnight you leave it on here for 12 hours 24 hours if necessary and that keeps the uh the the the costic in the paste in the doing the work

that it's supposed to do morning we come back we remove the the the paper and it will lift most of the paint off of it with it then we do a little light scraping with plastic scrapers we're very careful not to use metal scrapers here because this wood is so soft we don't want to damage the wood again we started yesterday and we just did an a preliminary test it seems to work and now we're going to extens areas and uh we'll know more tomorrow as you can see the work is meticulous and this is not something that they can do just overnight this is uh a process that they are still working on and

this we're into the second month of just the paint removal it's exterior as well as interior um also what is going on right now they've taken out all the windows and all the doors and they've taken some of the architectural elements from the exterior of the property and they sent it to their uh woodworking um um facility in Ohio and they are in a controlled environment and they're painstakingly uh peeling back a lot of hurt replacing where they can with materials in kind um because we it's very important to us and designation is not just the physicality but it's also historical significance um it's another layer of how um an a a landmark can be

placed on national register of historic places So um you know it then becomes interpretation of what is material in kind and jade pine it's uh is just not there anymore and so a lot of the exterior of our porches we have a lot of jade pine and the beauty of that is that it has withtood the test of time so um this is a huge undertaking uh the house what is old will be new again but she'll still be old uh and with that we the house um the house has a a basement we are now calling that the exhibit hall it used to have artifacts down there and it was a part of our

museum experience um and we uh have absolutely uh we are um delighted um thankful that one of our local artists actually he's not a local artist he's a national artist and international artist his name is Ralph Papa ralph Papa has had an exhibit over at the Elliot he exhibits all over the place he's a plan air artist and last year we did something called coastal colors and it was my effort to um put more artwork of the house of refuge out into the universe which is also a treasure so you know it may be painted today but tomorrow it will be something to be cherished again like our history uh anyway he has dedicated himself

to a 50 foot by 6 ft mural that reflects the foul weather shipwrecks why we're here um and it's been called the Tempest like the Shakespearean play The Tempest The Fury the Wild the craze of um um in this instance the sea um and so it's going to be an immersive experience with all the sounds of being in a shipwreck and that's very exciting for us so that's going to be the Tempest and that's going to open up hopefully soon march 10th is the designated day um uh that we celebrate for our 150th anniversary which is tremendous that is huge i'd like to be around for another 150 years um but uh this the the

experience immersive experience seems to be a very very exciting journey for a lot of people who are out there um looking for history and feeling it and really understanding why we're there upstairs in the apex of the museum there is a lot of beautiful space and uh in doing coastal colors again this year inviting plan air artists to use the house as the muse once again um we are very excited because we decided that that was going to be a place where we can show art that is revolving around maritime art oceancapes seascapes um sailing and and so that's going to be very complimentary so there are things that are going on we're not sitting

idle while the House of Refuge is shuttered right at the moment there's a lot going on we've got the 150th celebration which is tremendous and um uh we have our exhibit the the the Tempest and we have coastal colors and um we're definitely trying with social media keep it alive for everybody we're still here and we're still active um but this restoration is tremendous and um we're we're celebrating that as well um let's see i'm trying to think this is Ralph Papa now ralph Papa is a planire artist slash engineer his career was an engineer in New York and he has graced us with this legacy piece and we are celebrating him as well if

you just have a look here I just want to point out that Ralph is 86 oh he's 86 and he is a solo for him and he would not let me on the ladder he's the inexhaustible Ralph Papa he's actually he's a he's tremendous so lucky for this but the the mural is going to be a storm it's not going to be like that right it's combination but this is just an opening he's very happy with this but um the mural is the the top portion is the storms the tempest the thunder the lightning the ships down below you have the tranquility of the sea so it's a it's a collaborative um story in its

own right because he starts out with the dawn and then he goes through the into daylight but but burdened by storm and then it comes back out again to um the the the end of the day so you'll see it's a it's a it's a beautiful piece during during all this you'll be hearing the audio um with a tour um of all the sounds of the crashing waves the wind the thunder the lightning uh the the flapping of of the sails and it is um it's going to be a a a very uh strong walk so as you're walking through this the exhibit hall you'll be have you'll have Ralph Papa's mural to the right

now this was completely donated and this is just outstanding for us and I I I just I treasure this but love to paint on like birch wood panel that doesn't war this is this is perfect this is even better than anything I think it'll be a great project it's good to be here on the start of it and also particularly great to be here with the construction crew because I like the action of other people working as well and being dispersed the most important thing to me is having all of these panels up on the wall at the same time so I can see the scene grow cuz I'm the kind of painter that doesn't

paint at one spot and then just expand i paint the whole thing together so a little here a little bit there there and do this the sky or what have you it's going to be exciting heat heat heat heat oh my gosh I love him so much we We're honored to have this he He's charming and um upstairs with the gallery it's going to be called the overlook because it over it overlooks the Indian the Indian River Lagoon and then it overlooks the ocean um and uh he's going to open that up for us too with some of his work and we're thrilled about that so we've got um we got a lot ahead of

us but the 150th I think is is the the our biggest celebration our biggest goal and this restoration project um is going to breathe new life into the house uh and uh I hope that everybody will come and spend some time with us and I I thank you if you guys have any questions I'm happy to answer i would love to know how you did the movie and are those the pictures that the guy with the artificial intelligent did the book were using it and how'd you get the little turtles to move and all isn't that fascinating okay this is all AI uh software it is creative software we're in that new generation where you

can bring these things to life a lot of the pictures that were uh in the video um are stills and they are in our archives and some of them came from Martin Digital we did a deep dive to try to complement our history as best we could but to bring some animation which is which is intriguing and it's it's our history it's our time right now so this is uh it's it's been fun the a the AI the particular software that he's the fellow used he's a he's a videographer down um down in West Palm he's very talented and he did the videos that were shown at the House of Refuge um that we've been

using for years it was time it was time to to redo them and this was just an outstanding um uh storytelling for us as well so we're visual we're audio we are storytelling we um and of course we have our little old lady out there on the rocks with her stockings falling down no longer so uh there's there we're we're thrilled yeah anybody else how do you when when it will be completed they said six to eight months okay so it's like a stinky onion when you peel back one of the the layers they're finding something else and so um that that in it in its own right is a journey but um there's a

lot that goes into it you have uh the architectural lands you have the engineers you have the county you have permitting you have insurance you have the employees now we're sharing some of the tradesman group craftsmen with the skaya right now so the team will be down there the team will be up here it depends on what they're finding in that stinky onion and it's sometimes it's pretty wretched wretched so um March 10th is the date that I put on them because that's our 150th so I'm every day I'm like are you are you still on board is this happening and of course Jess um is uh working very hard to bring um a lot

of our exhibits together we've got another one that we're working on too it's going to be while while we kept watch what else was going on in the world relative to what was going on here and I think that's kind of a neat layer of information um uh so uh March 10th hopefully hopefully March 10th and um really hard to plan and she's got so many wonderful things planned with the Coast Guard with the Navy with the auxiliary the 150th is a really big deal and uh we have the commander of the Coast Guard the auxiliary here and we're going to do a water rescue we're going to have um one of their 44s out

there we're going to have some of the rescue ships the current day um to share with everybody uh we'd like to have a ceremony opening up the house in celebration with the powers of be in our community which there are many um and have a day of celebration where we have you know live entertainment and transportation back and forth because if you guys have been out to the house of refuge you realize that parking is a you at a premium right and so but it's really beautiful because you know the Elliott and and the house of refuge are sister museums And uh we were able to secure a shuttle which brings people in and brings

people out but for the 150th I want a big bus i want everybody to come and to be able to enjoy a celebration because it is a celebration um so six to eight months is what they said so that's a moving target anybody else curious curious anybody curious well as what Jess had said it's uh you know it's a little intimidating being in here because the Heritage Museum is you know I've had to I came over to the Heritage Museum to find out information about the House of Refuge because I'm a DC girl and all of a sudden I found myself in this position i thought I have to do a deep dive and so

I came and I went through your collection and uh I was delighted and I with bits and pieces I've learned a lot and uh um I'm very happy to be here and thank you very much thank you Gary katherine thank you for being here today and sharing this with us jess you know y'all are wonderful mhm um you talk about preserving history and that's important we have to preserve what was what has been given to us but at the same time you're making history and I hope that 50 years from now someone else is in this chair but 50 years from now people are looking back at what you have been able to do with

the House of Refuge at this time so that's there for them and their time because it's not a static world no we we move on and too often we lose what has been given to us so your efforts to preserve and protect it are greatly appreciated and thank you very much i'm afraid that 50 years from now you can be sitting back looking at somebody else reflecting on all your efforts you put into it all of us i'm going to be hanging out you guys by then we'll be doing the thing right on down the line it's amazing to me how generations revolve and it's the circle of life and we're here to take up

where the fight that you guys are have been fighting all this time we're we're all moving forward we're doing it we're doing it all together and thank you for this collaboration and the camaraderie between the two museums and and Port St lucy History and the other people that are in the same space we've got to work together we got to raise our voices together to make sure that it all comes and stays and we will and we'll continue to do that i encourage like I said earlier I encourage all of you to share the word uh talk about what we're doing here go online and stay updated on what they're doing at the at the

house uh and of course be there for the grand opening whatever it is yes right right thank you everybody yes thank you guys so much only Yeah before before you get up and run one more commercial we have an open house on December 6th at the museum from uh 10 to 3 uh we invite you to come by we'll have music we'll have light refreshments we'll have tours we'll have a tram tour from the city and we will be wrapping it off that gorgeous basket you see over there uh full of and I'm not going to try and list what's in there but there's some wine there's some chocolate there's some gift certificates gift cards

from local businesses uh tickets are one for five three for 10 and 10 for 20 yes don't have to be present to win we'd like you to be present but you know give us your phone number on your ticket and you know you'll get we'll call you santa Claus will be together how can I forget santa Claus will be there oh yeah also we'll be participating in the city holiday parade Christmas parade on the 5th uh Friday the first Friday of uh December so and it amazes me every time we do this and we see the turnout all along East Ocean Boulevard is fabulous so it's worth it's worth the the wait in line again

thank you all for coming out tonight uh I know it's a bit nippy outside but it's warm in here with uh with your friends and the information thank you