Author: Useppa

Annual Useppa Island Members Cocktail Party: Part I

Auspicious Beginning to a New Season

Photographs by UseppaGin 

On Saturday, November 14th the Useppa Island Club hosted its annual Members Cocktail Party. The food was excellent. Platters of lamp chops, oysters, roast beef, and so much more; delicious appetizers passed inside the Island’s Collier Inn and outside on the patio. A saxophonist kept time with the weaving conversations of old and new friends. It was a night to celebrate Useppa.

A Thank You from Bill Marquardt

Long time Useppa Member, Curator of South Florida Archaeology and Ethnography, Director, Randell Research Center Florida Museum of Natural History.

Karen Walker and I were pleased to attend the Members Cocktail Party on Saturday.

As we approached the Collier with our dear friend Ginny Amsler, I couldn’t help but think of the first time I was invited into the Collier dining room. It had been 30 years!

When some palm trees were removed just below the swimming pool, human bones were discovered. Gar Beckstead asked if someone from the Florida Museum of Natural History could come down and investigate. That someone turned out to be me. One of the skulls we discovered became “Useppa Woman,” now on display in the island’s fine museum. I was treated like a king, with cocktails and dinner in the Collier each night, thanks to Gar. Not your typical archaeological experience!

Since then, Karen and I have done many archaeological projects on the island including the discovery of the Calusa Man on Calusa Ridge, and the discovery of the bones from a dog over three thousand years old on a south end dig just two years ago. We have experienced Useppa hospitality first hand, not just from Gar and Tim Fitzsimmons – my first hosts – but from many Useppans, who we now consider our good friends.

Last Saturday, it was good to see some familiar faces, renew acquaintances, and also to meet some new members. On Useppa, we feel at home.

Good music, good food, good friends. A wonderful evening and an auspicious beginning to the new season.

Lazy Fall Days On an Island

Photographs by UseppaGin

Families and friends at the pool, the grotto, on the croquet lawn, on the tennis courts, on the beach… all ingredients of fall on Useppa.

Bocce at Useppa

Photographs By: UseppaGin

Story By: Donald Beckstead

Is is with great pleasure that Useppa Island Club can now offer the excitement of the ancient Roman game of BOCCE!!!

The courts are finally finished and as you can see much fun has already been had on them. The bocce court material consists of one layer of large base rock then by a layer of smaller rock finished with a fine crushed oyster shell surface, which will provide maximum drainage and ease of maintenance so therefore more playing time!

Soon to come will be sod and landscaping to complete and beautify the area, a new playground and covered seating area for people to relax and watch the intense action. We hope that this new amenity will provide years of fun for Useppa Island Club members of all ages!

After the Hurricane

2005: Ten Years Ago on Useppa

Part II

By UseppaGin

Reminiscences about Useppa ten years ago include tales of neighbors opening their homes to other Useppans needing places to stay after Hurricane Charlie’s destructive landfall in August 2004.

Over the winter and through the next summer, loud music was the background to roofers and carpenters rebuilding the century old Collier Inn. Dirty and sweaty, never without a smile, these men knew what they were doing was more than just a job.

Landscapers, craftsmen, Useppa employees, independent contractors, all knew the future of Useppa depended on their efforts. Whether they worked for the Useppa Island Club or individual homeowners, they went beyond what anyone expected.

There was a common feeling on the island that recovery was too big of a job for individual egos. If Useppa was to survive, if the infrastructure was to be rebuilt, if homes were to be rebuilt, it could only be done in a team effort.

Yes, we still had fun. The annual Saint Patrick Day Parade was held. Croquet was played on the beach until we could go back to the lawn. We went sailing. Happy Hours rolled over into dinners at the Tarpon Bar.

Under the leadership of Tim Fitzsimmons and the “Can Do Team,” homeowners, boating members, individual members, accomplished what some thought impossible. The Collier Inn was reopened with a ribbon cutting and party in one year. Thanksgiving was celebrated in its dining room, Christmas carols were sung around its piano. Residents moved into “new” old homes.

Looking at these pictures, it’s easy to look back with soft feelings of nostalgia. We were survivors, but we were lucky. We had the money, the management, and the people. We worked together to accomplish the impossible.

 Ten Years Ago On Useppa

2005

Old Friends with Young Faces

Part 1

Photographs and Story by UseppaGin

Ten years ago Hurricane Charlie was still a recent memory. Houses needed to be rebuilt, the Collier Inn required a major renovation effort. Landscaping needed major work. Working together, we did it all.

These pictures are from a collection of old 2005 Useppa web pages. Familiar faces with a few less wrinkles, grownups who were once island children, croquet on the beach, a Useppa Yacht Club picnic, friends no longer with us, and a gator visitor who added a bit of adventure to a lazy summer day.

Our next posting will include the Collier re-opening one year after the storm, more memories and more Useppans.

Enjoy.

Pictures by UseppaGin and Island Annah

Story by UseppaGin

Casting the net, walking in air, dining on the patio, swimming in the pool.

Labor Day on Useppa