The Golden Gate Building, built in 1925, is an historic real estate and land development office building located on Florida State Road A1A at 3225 South East Dixie Highway (corner of South East Delmar Street) in the unincorporated community of Golden Gate south of Stuart in Martin County, Florida. It was built by the Golden Gate Development Company to serve as the sales office for its 200 block subdivision called Golden Gate. which was a re-subdivision of a part of the 1911 subdivision called Port Sewall. The Florida Land Boom, however, collapsed before it could be used as such. In 1926, it became the Port Sewall Post Office and it was later used as a church and then as an art studio, before being abandoned and falling into disrepair.
In 1989, the Golden Gate Building was listed in A Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, published by the University of Florida Press.
In 2002, the Board of County Commissioners of Martin County bought it in order to prevent its destruction. Renovations which began in 2005 were directed first to shoring up the four walls which were in serious danger of collapse. Exterior renovations were completed in 2008 with a $48,000 grant from the state and it is anticipated that the interior will be restored by 2010. The Friends of the Historic Golden Gate Community is spearheading the renovation efforts. Plans call for the 2-story 2,200-square-foot (200 m2) building to be increased to 4,000 square feet (370 m2) with the new space to be used to provide amenities such as the bathrooms necessary for a public community center.
Famous quotes containing the words golden, gate and/or building:
“What are we hoping to get out of it, what’s it all in aid of—is it really just for the sake of a gloved hand waving at you from a golden coach?”
—John Osborne (1929–1994)
“And we, barely recalled from sleep there, sense
Arrivals lowing in a doleful distance
Horny dilemmas at the gate once more.
Come and choose wrong, they cry, come and choose wrong....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)