page_title: Seagate (Manatee County, Florida)
section_title: Preservation efforts
hierarchical_section_title: Seagate (Manatee County, Florida) / History / Preservation efforts
caption_attribution_description: Category:Friends of Seagate Inc. scan of part of a photograph showing the breeding pair of eagles in their registered nest during 1990 on the Seagate property at Sarasota, Florida (in Manatee County however); typical of eagles, the distinctively larger of the two is the female; the massive nest is located in the canopy of a mature slash pine tree in a stand dated to the mid-1800s; eagles actively maintain several nests in a region and move their breeding location about to prevent predation
context_page_description: Seagate, also known as the Bay Club, is located along Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, Florida, and was the former winter estate of Powel Crosley Jr., a noted Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist and entrepreneur. Crosley had the 11,000-square-foot, Mediterranean Revival-style home built in 1929 for his wife, Gwendolyn, on 45-acre of land along Sarasota Bay that was platted in 1925 for a failed subdivision. New York architect George Albree Freeman Jr. designed the home; Ivo A. de Minicis, a Tampa, Florida, architect, drafted the plans; and Paul W. Bergmann, a Sarasota contractor, reportedly built the two-and-a-half story, cast stone and stucco home in 135 days. Gwendolyn Crosley died at Seagate in 1939. After allowing the Army Air Corps to use the home for airmen who were training at a nearby airbase during World War II, Crosley sold the property in 1947. Freeman Horton and his wife, Mabel, bought it the following year. The Horton family lived on the estate from 1948 to 1977. The Campeau Corporation of America acquired the property in the early 1980s, intending to develop it into condominium units and use the residence serving as the development's clubhouse, but its plans failed.
context_section_description: Seagate was saved from commercial development by the efforts of adjacent residents including Kafi Benz, who opposed several ensuing proposals for development. Benz founded Friends of Seagate Inc. (a local, nonprofit preservation organization) and initiated a campaign for Seagate's preservation. Benz and her group also began a fundraising effort for its acquisition. In addition, Benz published an illustrated guide to Seagate in 1988.
  In 1991 the Manatee County Commission paid $1.6 million for 16.5 acres (6.7 hectares) of the original subdivision along the bay front that contained the structures built in 1929 for Crosley and his wife with the intention of preserving and renovating the estate. The University of South Florida purchased the remaining 28.4 acres (11.5 hectares) for $2 million as a site for future expansion of a satellite campus. After New College of Florida separated from the University of South Florida in 2001, the satellite campus for the Tampa-based university vacated the New College campus on the nearby Edith Ringling estate and built a separate campus of its own on the eastern portion of the Seagate property. The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus opened its new facilities in August 2006.
caption: Documentation of a breeding pair of eagles in a registered nest on the Seagate property
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