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:
“Nor envy’s snaky eye, finds harbour here,
Nor flatterers’ venomous insinuations,
Nor cunning humorists’ puddled opinions,
Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury,
Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance,
Nor causeless duty, nor comber of arrogance,
Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us,
Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise;”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“... what’s been building since the 1980’s is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That’s what will last after this flurry on family values.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)