HOME OF A JUPITER FOUNDER SAVED
Ernie Fidanza says he has a simple motto: “A town without history is like a man without a memory.”
He’s sticking to this mantra by protecting the home built by one of Jupiter’s founders nearly 100 years ago.
In 1924, during a “boom time” in Palm Beach County, Eli Sims built his mission-style house on Center Street in the Pine Gardens subdivision, one of the first in the county. The origins of the neighborhood date back to President William H. Taft.
Sims is considered one of Jupiter’s founding fathers because he was one of 34 male voters who sent a notice to voters on Jan. 8, 1925, to meet the following month to organize a municipal government, according to the volunteer project Jupiter History Web. The town was then incorporated, and Sims became one of the town’s commissioners until his death in 1927. Sims was a contractor and a parishioner of the People’s Congregation Church, now known as the Beacon Baptist Church.
Fidanza, a Jupiter resident, bought the house three years ago for $80,000, according to property records, because he was concerned about losing pieces of Jupiter’s history to developers who might bulldoze it. He owns the property next door, now known as BentoBox Boutique, and a yellow house from the 1930s just behind the Sims House.
“I never wanted to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back for what we’ve done,” Fidanza said. “It was never about me. It was about us. It was about us as a community.”
The house stands out from others just down Pinegrove Avenue — rather than the typical upside-down V-shaped roof, the top of the house looks almost like a crown.
The inside is the opposite of its stark white paint job. Original oak covers the floors of the main room, and rare Dade County pine lines its interior walls and ceiling. Original title paperwork from the turn of the century was found in the attic.
Rather than donate the property to the town, which could be an expense to taxpayers for maintenance and staffing, Fidanza wanted to establish a local historic designation but keep the Sims House in private ownership. He helped create a proposed ordinance that, starting with the house on 322 Center St., would allow for adaptive reuse of historic properties.
Adaptive reuse is using an old property for a different reason than originally intended. The ordinance allows for a property in a residential area to have limited commercial adaptive reuses so long as the property has a local historic designation.
He wants residents and visitors to have the chance to see the house like a museum, but also turn the detached garage into a small restaurant and the backyard into its dining area. “Food retail,” like the sale of cold drinks, inside the house is also a possibility. He’s proposing just 11 parking spaces and wants to promote walking and biking to the establishment. Fidanza said he wants to keep the home in its original condition and make sure the operations have little impact on that.
Fidanza wouldn’t detail the cost of creating the ordinance and restoring the property, but it was “thousands and thousands of dollars,” he said.
The proposal, unanimously supported by the Jupiter’s historic resources board Aug. 20, will go back for a second reading Sept. 5 and then to the Town Council as a quasi-judicial hearing Oct. 16.
“I made a point early on that it’s not about me or my family,” Fidanza said. “It’s about the Sims House. It’s about preservation.”