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.
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.
