Jack Kofoed was a longtime South Florida columnist who wrote a daily column for the Miami Herald. For 44 years, he was one of Miami’s most familiar voices, a sports writer, a pulp fiction author and an often-blunt social observer of “The Magic City.” In 1955, Random House published his book, “Moon Over Miami,” with chapter titles like “The Boom and the Bust,” “On Columnists” and “Some Characters You Should Have Known.”
He was an “old-school city columnist-type with a flair for pulp-era hustle.” His beat was Miami, after all, the city that older locals pronounced “my-AM-muh” in that now-disappearing “big water” Okeechobee dialect that New Yorkers still find foggy.
In one of Jack’s other books, “The Florida Story,” published by Doubleday in 1960, he begins his foreword with these words: “It is mid-winter. A blizzard whips New York. Chicago shivers in a razor wind off the lake. Even Los Angeles has topcoat and muffler weather. In the screened patio of my Miami Shores home, I am comfortable in Bermuda shorts and Mexican espadrilles. The sky is blue as a Kerry girl’s eyes, and the breeze in palm and maleluca [sic] warm as her laughter.”
He goes on to describe life “on the beach” across the causeway, where “the playful ones are the tourists.” He acknowledges the “lower part of the peninsula is the state’s show window, its dollar bait, the glamorous and extravagant part of Florida.” But “take a large proportion of tourists away from race tracks, nightspots and cabana gin games, and they’re lost.”
Knowledge of the Sunshine State by these ladies and gentlemen, he argued in 1960, seemed to be hemmed in on the south by Tropical Park and on the north by Palm Beach. “They have no more idea of what the rest of Florida is like than Jimmy Durante has of forces which create nuclear fission."
“If people don’t know anything about a place, or only a little about specialized parts of it, there’s plenty to talk about,” he wrote. It’s sage advice for any reader making mental notes. If you have a story, tell it. None of us can rely fully on anyone else telling our stories for us. And, we all have a story to tell.
Ponte Vedra Beach has never been an island, entire of itself. “Old Ponte Vedra” was not a phrase before the ’80s when a private condo project south of Mickler’s Landing took the name. It was never traditionally used to describe PV proper from the Duval County line down to Corona Road and out to A1A and back up again. This was all before Sawgrass when PV was simply PV.
Ponte Vedra Beach developed very differently than nearly all its peer communities on Florida’s Gold Coast. The City of Miami was incorporated in 1896 while Jacksonville was incorporated in 1832. Today, Ponte Vedra Beach is described by some as an “unincorporated community and suburb of Jacksonville located in St. Johns County,” while others refer to it as a suburb of St. Augustine. Neither is entirely accurate.
But many of us growing up in PV in the 1970s are familiar with the local saying, “If you like it here, you will love it in Palm Beach.” It was that less than subtle nudge southward for any eager achiever overstaying their visit. I can’t imagine anyone in Palm Beach saying the opposite, “If you like it here, you will love it in Ponte Vedra Beach.” This goes against the grain. Almost everything in Florida flows south except the St. Johns River.
Don Mabry perhaps said it best, “The Telfair Stockton people tended to cluster in Riverside, Avondale and San Marco and then Ponte Vedra Beach.”
In his essay, “Ponte Vedra Pioneers, 1934-40,” Don concludes, “No wonder National Lead cut its losses in 1942 and sold its property to Telfair Stockton Company. The locals did not depend upon Ponte Vedra for their livelihood; they had beach houses and a club to enjoy while they waited for better times.” Patience is a virtue.
The authentic Ponte Vedra aesthetic differs in many ways from the Biscayne blues of Ben Novack’s Fontainebleau, separated by 340 miles. The contrast could not be more apparent than when viewed through the lens of authentic historic interiors. There’s always interest in authenticity. The popular Arlington Mod & More Home Tour coming up on Oct. 10-11 wouldn’t be in its 10th year if people weren’t interested. Some things never change. Don’t miss it.
Ponte Vedra Beach architecture has always carried a distinct pattern language combining a modified Monterey colonial with comfortable mid-century modernism in the style of a 1940s traditional coastal vernacular. The surviving examples have earned the label and deserve the acknowledgement, with a historic nod to St. Augustine and the oldest platted street in America. “History comes alive at the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum.”
But more and more, this aesthetic isn’t being built upon through enhancement, but instead, is being replaced entirely. The routine is all too familiar: quick closing, rapid demolition, “ego-tecture,” moving on. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Ponte Vedra style is something else entirely. At its deepest level, it combines practical utility, community needs and environmental awareness in a set of hallmarks that define the PV leisure economy. In Ponte Vedra Beach, leisure is the economy. Its roots are utility over excess, balance and proportion over the dramatic and distorted.
A local Chamber might bristle at the thought of any serious renewal of the winter colony aesthetic, but the intrigue of such an idea can’t be denied. Early photographs of PV tell a very different story, about a very different type of “enclave,” and without these images, new arrivals might think the ballyhoo of tropical South Florida applies to the subtropical innovations of North Florida. It does not.
The neo-colonial pattern language in Ponte Vedra Beach has always mitigated the Gold Coast’s high heel, before things got too far out of hand. A good number of the early pioneer structures remain and should, indeed, be protected. But no one wants to be told what they can or cannot do with their property. That’s counterintuitive. But at a minimum, a community at large can certainly survey its own surroundings. Take an assessment. Architecture is part of a community’s treasury, and it defines a community’s trajectory.
Natural resource conservation is, of course, important and a major goal worth pursuing through education, monitoring and perseverance. But historic preservation, cultural conservation, deserves a seat at the same table. Ted Pappas teaches us this.
Ponte Vedra Beach has no historical district, no local preservation board, and the Arthur Milam House is the only structure listed in the National Register of Historic Places. How’s this possible in a community with such a rich history? Does the average Ponte Vedran recognize why 555 Ponte Vedra Blvd. is such an important property?
Architectural surveys are fundamental. They’re like cookbooks with many contributors, recipes for a “Community of Excellence.” They are tried and true and are the very things that inoculate against homogenization and the loss of community character.
They are not building inspections, Realtor walk-throughs or intrusions on any private property rights. They are “windshield looks,” not as nostalgia for a better time or a type of lamenting over what’s already lost, everyone processes those emotions differently. Architectural surveys are celebrations of a community’s success, not its restrictions. A recipe can’t be shared if it’s never recorded or written down in any meaningful way.
“What is being built today that others will fight to protect in 50 years?” Maybe PV needs a Cookbook Committee to help answer this question. The homes and buildings in Ponte Vedra Beach are not just part of the local story, but they're part of the Florida story. And everyone loves a good story in this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach. Keep the lamp lit, “Ladies Put The Kettle On.”
Jackie Wilkinson’s Famous Praline Yams
1 lb. can yams
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped pecans
Arrange yams in a buttered shallow baking dish.
Dot with butter and sprinkle with sugar and pecans.
Bake at 350 degrees until hot (about 20 to 25 minutes).
Serves 4 to 6.
