TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - It was demolition day in Tallahassee.

The Gladstone House near the corner of Monroe Street and Thomasville Road was dismantled piece by piece Monday, despite local historians' efforts to save it.

As a bulldozer ripped down the walls of the building, it exposed some of the antique furnishings still inside, including bureaus, beds and a massive clawfoot tub that tumbled from the top story.

The state of Florida purchased the former rooming house, saying it was a security risk to the governor’s mansion right behind it.

Several people stood just outside the fence today as the old Victorian-style mansion was torn down.

Cheryl Gibbons, a member of the Friends of Gladstone advocacy group, was in tears as she watched the house go down.

“My heart is broken,” Gibbons said. “We tried so hard to save it.”

The Tallahassee woman said she’s admired the house her whole life.

“I’ve seen this since I was a little girl, and I’m 77 now so it’s been a part of my whole life, and to see this beauty destroyed is heartbreaking," she said. “So I’m saying goodbye to a beautiful old lady."

Doug Smith’s family built the Gladstone more than 70 years ago, and he was there to watch its demolition, too. Smith, who now works with the Tallahassee Historical Society, consoled Gibbons as they watched the excavator crash through the walls of the historic building.

He says he’s glad they were at least able to save the Gladstone’s stained glass windows, which were seen stacked away from the destruction.

“I have mixed emotions, but this house was built by my family,” Smith said. “I said if anyone should be crying it should be me, not you.”

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The Victorian house is being torn down to make room for DeSantis' security team.

Tallahassee neighbors say they were in disbelief Monday morning as they watched the demolition of one of the oldest Victorian homes in the area.

Local residents and a handful of state officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, watched as a wrecking crew bulldozed the former Gladstone Mansion in Downtown Tallahassee.

The old family home was built in 1897. It later served as a boarding place for World War II soldiers. Only the mansion’s stained-glass windows were preserved—everything else was turned to rubble.

“Yeah, they’re tearing it down, and I have mixed emotions about it," said J. Doug Smith, a seventh-generation Tallahassee native and the great grandnephew of the man who built the Gladstone home.

The Gladstone at 716 N. Monroe, formerly known as the E. L. White Boarding House, was built in 1897 and is the last Victorian home standing on Monroe. It is currently being torn down by the State of Florida for the sole purpose of improving the view to the Governor's Mansion 1/ pic.twitter.com/bQzC2CpJ7L

— Tallahassee History (@TLH_History) August 6, 2024

Smith said Monday that he’s sad to see it go, but finds joy in the fact that a piece of his family’s home will be kept safe in the Tallahassee Museum.

“I look at the positive part of it," said Smith. "The state is giving us, the Tallahassee Historical Society, the four stained glass windows. And we’ve already made arrangements to donate them to the Tallahassee Museum. So, they’ll still be around for people to see.”

The Gladstone was one of the oldest Victorian homes in Tallahassee. After years of abandonment, the state bought the property in June for half a million dollars. State authorities said they needed the house to be gone, because it posed "significant security issues” for the Governor’s Mansion, which sits directly behind it on Adams Street.

Governor Ron DeSantis has spent $2 million buying up similar historic buildings around Tallahassee to make room for security at the Governor’s Mansion.

The end of The Gladstone, the last of Monroe Street's historic downtown old homes, came shortly after 9 a.m. Monday.

That's when Tom Berger, the deputy secretary of Florida's Department of Management Services, gave the all clear to a demolition crew to begin razing the 13-room Gilded Era mansion.

A heavy-duty excavator moved across the Gladstone’s back yard, scooped up a concrete bench and fountain in its steel blade and dumped them on the back porch of the Queen Anne home.

At that point, Cheryl Gibbons began to cry. The Gladstone served Tallahassee as a boarding house for more than 70 years; Gibbons called it a piece of her “Tallahassee timeline” as it was reduced to rubble.

“I’m 77 years old and I’ve seen this home since I was a little girl every time I’ve gone to the downtown area," she said. "My father stayed here when he was stationed at Camp Gordon Johnston during World War II.”

When the excavator – a compact-looking bulldozer – finished its work in the backyard, a bigger excavator with a huge claw at the end of a crane attacked the back of the house and its three tiers of roofs.

Sandi Brooks, a retired Leon County Schools employee, was among more than a dozen residents, state officials, and law enforcement who gathered under a grove of oak trees and watched a crew from Great Southern Demolition rip apart the walls of the Victorian mansion.

“This is just tearing me up. This is a piece of Tallahassee history that nobody, or evidently none of the higher-ups, cares about anymore,” Brooks said.

Brooks wore a T-shirt proclaiming, "Tallahassee, it's where my story begins." She added, “More than 70 years ago.”

How did we get here?

The state bought The Gladstone in June for $567,000 after a Florida Department of Law Enforcement vulnerability study found that the house, now vacant and fenced off, posed “significant security issues” for the governor’s mansion, which sits behind it on Adams Street.

Last month, a group of preservationists organized as "Friends of the Gladstone" pleaded with city officials and the state to delay the demolition long enough for it to raise money to move the 3,287-square-foot home.

Also in September the Legislature's Joint Administrative Procedures Committee (JAPC) told DMS, the state's real estate manager, that it was improperly considering The Gladstone's grounds part of the mansion's perimeter, which would otherwise exempt it from city permitting requirements.

DMS attorney Douglas Dolan, in a response to JAPC coordinator Kenneth Plante, respectfully disagreed with JAPC’s assertion. The two exchanged another round of letters without resolving the difference of opinion.

When asked for comment Monday, Berger referred a reporter to DMS’ communication office, which did not respond to phone calls and emails.

Berger declined to provide his name or any information to Bob Holladay, president of the Tallahassee Historical Society and part of the Friends of Gladstone group, or others watching the demolition. “There’s been a lack of communication (from DMS) since the beginning of this,” Holladay said.

Holladay said the destruction of the Gladstone represents “a lack of imagination,” saying state officials "find it easier to eliminate a historic building rather than come up with some sort creative use of them. We could have done that here, if it had been approached earlier. But there was a lack of communication.”

Doug Smith, great-grandnephew of Peter Theodore Mickler, who build the Gladstone as a family home was among the spectators. He said he wished the money could have been found to move the house. He managed to rescue four stained-glass windows and will donate them to the Tallahassee Museum.

“And for that, I’m extremely grateful. At least we’ll have something that the public can go and see. And I have old photographs of the house, I’m going to donate those to the museum as well,” Smith said.

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.

Whitney Burleson used to work in the software industry, sitting at a computer all day. Now, you’ll find her outside, where she loves to be, tending her crops and caring for the chickens.

Burleson founded Neighbors Farm, located on a quarter acre of land in Northeast Tallahassee, where she lives with her husband, James, and their two children.

“I got tired of going to the grocery store and seeing a lack of good food,” said Burleson, who also makes her own soap, sourdough bread and cookies. “We’re able to have an impact on what we eat, not just for our families but for the neighbors and people around us. And we can teach people to do this.”

You can learn how Burleson transformed her front yard into a space devoted to growing produce at the 17th Annual Fall Farm Tour on Oct. 12 and 13.

About 45 destinations will be opening their doors to the public for free, giving visitors a chance to meet the people who produce food in our region. These sites include farms, ranches, groves, wineries, gardens, nurseries – even an apiary – in North Central Florida and South Central Georgia. About a third of the destinations are new to the tour.

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“The focus and goal of the tour is for people to see active farms and sample products or produce” said Majken Peterzen, executive director of Millstone Institute for Preservation, which has been the Farm Tour host since 2016.

Although Millstone Institute is the tour organizer, the Madison County Tourist Development Council and Johnston's Old Fashioned Meat Market are the grand patrons of the 2024 Fall Farm Tour.

Oct. 12, incidentally, is National Farmers Day so what better way to celebrate both new farmers and those who have been working the land for generations.

“In general, I would say that small farms are one of the fastest growing industries in North Florida and South Georgia,” Peterzen said.

Many of the farms offer workshops, kids’ activities, free samples or products for sale, and most of all, a behind-the-scenes look at our agricultural world.

Here are some of the highlights

● Schmoe Farm in Quitman, Georgia, will be offering hay rides so you can see the farm’s chickens, turkeys and ducks. There will be other vendors and a mini farmers’ market. It’s at 1548 Greenville Hwy.

● You can watch cows being milked before noon (central time) at Marianna’s Cindale Farms and see where products are made. The creamery will be serving its homemade ice cream and coffee. The farm is at 3958 Old U.S. Road. The creamery is at 2884 Jefferson St.

● Tallahassee’s Millstone Institute will be creating a sustainability/artisan village featuring demonstrations such as woodwork, basketry, making grits and pottery and a long list of vendors. The Millstone kitchen will be open as well. It’s at 6500 Old Millstone Plantation Rd.

● At Rocky Soil Family Farm, owned by Kiona and Chris Wagner, wander along with the chickens, visit the gardens, bakery and smokehouse. A master chef, Chris Wagner will be making dishes from ingredients out of the garden. Rocky Soil is at 3137 Waukeenah Hwy. in Monticello.

● Louise Divine and her husband Herman Holley, will be demonstrating how to make cane syrup at their 89-acre Turkey Hill Farm in Tallahassee. The farm also grows ginger, turmeric, roselle and satsumas and will have apples from Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge, Ga. There will be farm tours at 11 am., 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday. The cane syrup process begins in the morning (weather permitting).

Divine, co-founder of the Red Hills Small Farm Alliance, said she got the idea for a farm tour when she and Holley saw one during a trip to North Carolina in 2006.

Tour keeps growing organically

“We thought, ‘What a great idea,’ “ Divine said. She suggested the tour to New Leaf Market, which ran it for many years before the grocery store closed, and Millstone took it over.

“Every year, the tour gets bigger and bigger, growing organically,” Devine said. “It’s now much broader geographically but it’s remained true to its original purpose, which is to connect the community with their local food source.”

Moccasin Grove is a Tallahassee farm that easily connects to the community with its yearly pumpkin patch. The family farm will be open on Saturday and Sunday, offering five varieties of U-Pick pumpkins along with a corn maze and a corn pit for games.

Ryan Bass, owner of Moccasin Grove with wife Lizz, worked in construction for five or six years before going into farming. He works at Griffin Farms in Georgia as well as having his own farm.

Moccasin Grove also grows peaches, watermelon, sweet corn and their prime product, strawberries. “We have two acres of strawberries. We baby them during the winter until March when they can be picked.”

Sharing tips with home gardeners

The farm is a way to create the best life for his son, age 2, and his triplet daughters, born on Mother’s Day, Bass said.“Farming is something I always wanted to do,” he added.

Watching people enjoy the food they’ve grown “is rewarding in itself. They can come out and pick our brains.”

Whitney Burleson of Neighbors Farm is also interested in helping home gardeners during the farm tour.

“You can have direct access to people growing your food,” she said. “If you have a question about composting, just ask. Do you have trouble with something, just ask. Farmers are more than willing to share what they do and what they struggle with. You have open book access.”

Depending on the season, Burleson grows sweet potatoes, 10 varieties of tomatoes, broccoli, kale, lettuce, carrots, Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens and flowers. She also makes her own soap as well as sourdough bread and cookies, using eggs from their chickens.

Burleson will be presenting workshops on “Tools & Techniques for the Home Gardener” at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday and “Walk the Garden with Whit” every hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Sunday. Her children will operate a lemonade stand, with boiled peanuts.

The Neighbors’ Farm tour has “more of a home gardener vibe than a people with a tractor vibe,” Burleson said. “Not everything is perfect and dreamy but we can show people what they can do in their front yard.”

Rochelle Koff writes about food and dining at TallahasseeTable.com, on Facebook@TheTallahasseeTable and Twitter @tallytable. Reach her at TallahasseeTable@gmail.com.

Tips for the Tour

First, read the Farm Tour booklet, a guide to all the destinations and their schedules. You can download the guide at https://tinyurl.com/vh3f92wk

For questions, contact millstonefarmtour@gmail.com or call 850-294-3918.

Don’t bring pets but do carry suntan lotion, bug spray, water, a tote bag and cash in case the farm doesn’t take credit cards.

Bring a cooler if you intend to buy meat or produce.

Don’t feed farm animals without permission.

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