Bill & Kathy Maier have been residents in The Meadows since 1978. The following interview was conducted by Jo Evans and Tom Bondur on November 28, 2023.

TB:

We are talking with Kathleen and Bill Maier, residents in The Meadows since 1978.

JE:

Have you lived in the same house since you first moved here?

KM:

Yes.

BM:

Same address, same email, same wife.

KM:

We live in the Arborfield area off Glebe Farm Road.

TB:

How did you come to live in The Meadows?

BM:

When I was in the army, I wanted to live in the sunshine. I had this idea that I wanted to live on the beach with a cabana. I wound up in the corporate world. We were living outside Chicago. One day, we literally jumped in the car and came to Florida.

 All we knew about Sarasota was it on the water and it was near my parents’ friends, who were living in Englewood. We were driving around and found The Meadows. It was just starting up.

TB:

Where were you living before?

KM:

We were outside Chicago for a year and a half. When we met and married, the first year, we were in Connecticut.

BM:

All we knew about Sarasota was it on the water and it was near my parents’ friends. Back then if you had anything you lived on the keys, or at least west of 41. We found this out from a lady banker who became a good friend of ours. If you lived east of 41, you were probably a school teacher, cop, farmer, or whatever. If you lived further east, you were poor or a farmer.

Well, we were driving around out here and found The Meadows. It was just starting up. We found the house that we're in now. It was a builder’s model. It had an assumable mortgage. Most of what was for sale here in those days were builder’s models. 

Honoré was just a dirt construction road. All we had to do was put down whatever we could to move into the house. We really didn't know where we were. When we would tell people we lived in The Meadows, the typical question was, Where's The Meadows? And you’d say 17th Street, and it would be like, What the hell are you doing out in the middle of nowhere?

It’s funny− we recently got a solicitation in the mail with a listing in The Meadows, and the property description cracked us up. It said− strategically located between the Interstate, UTC, and downtown Sarasota. I said to Kathy, you see, if you stay in the same spot long enough, you go from being in the boondocks to centrally located. It’s funny.

Our neighbors on the street were Roger Postlethwaite, who was Taylor Woodrow’s chief planner and general manager; Tom Brown, who was the sales manager; and our next-door neighbor was Alan Shaw, who was the comptroller, bean counter, or whatever. They were the only people on the street.

I remember Shaw said that originally The Meadows was supposed to be mostly single-family homes. But he said, Taylor Woodrow is a British company. All we have to say is that we are going to build condos and they are sold before we start digging. Condos sold like crazy in Europe in those days. In the early years, we would go to the pool and there were people from Germany, England, and Scotland. A lot more than there are now. Florida was a very popular European vacation destination site.

KM:

Our son was just a year old when we moved here. I remember Taylor Woodrow had property set aside for a school site.

TB:

Where was that located?

BM:

I think it was down on 17th Street. There was a gun range across the street. People complained that you could hear the shooting. The Meadows gave the county the school property. Then the county sold the property and moved the shooting range.

JE:

Taylor Woodrow put up money for schools when they were developing. Frank Taylor didn't want The Meadows to be just a vacation, retirement, or resort property. He wanted a planned community.

BM:

There was supposed to be a medical center too. There used to be a school bus stop near where the current MCA building is. It was a gazebo with a fence around it. Eventually, the bus stop was taken out, but it was there for quite a while.

When we were first living here, there was building all over the place. For years, Glebe Farm Road did not go behind our house.

KM:

There wasn’t a road behind us.

BM:

At night, you didn't hear anything− except maybe a frog croaking. We would sleep with the windows open. You could hear birds chirping.

I’ll say one thing about Taylor Woodrow, they didn't tear stuff down. They didn't come here with a bunch of plows and tear all the trees down. They left the natural landscape intact.

KM:

I miss the bobwhite quail. You could hear bobwhite at night. I think they are almost extinct now. They are not around anymore. You couldn't hear traffic or any noises from human activity.

BM:

When our kids were young, there used to be a big Halloween Trick-or-Treat party with a costume contest where the old MCA building was in the shopping village.  Kathy helped organize it. That was fun.

I was on the Fourth of July committee. We used to have fireworks down by the shopping village. We did it every year when Taylor Woodrow controlled the place. I remember saying to Roger Postlethwaite, It’s really nice of you Brits to have a celebration for us throwing you out. I don’t think he really knew what the Fourth of July holiday was.

KM:

We were the only area that had fireworks. The county did not have fireworks. Everyone came to The Meadows. We used to have water skiing in the little pond behind the shopping village.

BM:

On the Fourth of July, I used to wake up in the morning, put blankets, chairs, and things into my car. I would drive over to the shopping village then walk home. Then the family would come over later. Otherwise, you would have to park far away from the shopping village.

The fireworks were not shot off at the lake. They were shot off further back in a safe area away from the crowd closer to the country club. People gathered in the shopping village parking lot to view the fireworks.

JE:

Did you join the country club right away?

BM:

No. I think it was 35 bucks a month when we joined. Remember Taylor Woodrow was still running it. The country club was just a marketing tool for them. I joined around the time our daughter, Kathleen, was born in 1992.

JE:

Did you pay an initiation fee?

BM:

No. There was nothing then. I think it was just a monthly fee.

JE:

When we joined there was a waiting list. We had to pay $7500.

BM:

When the club went private in 1989, we had to pony up. Yeah 

TB:

I didn’t golf. I played tennis. After I joined, I played with a group, about eight of us, almost every Tuesday and Thursday night for 25 years.

One of the things that Roger Postlethwaite told me was that the reason we have a nice tennis center here is because Frank Taylor was a tennis enthusiast. Golf was just a marketing tool to him.

JE:

Do you remember all the tournaments we had here?

BM:

I used to volunteer to work the tournament desk where the players would check in. I forget the name of the lady who ran the tournament desk. It was a long time before she would allow me to keep score.

JE:

Agassi played in the tournaments. Monica Seles practiced and played here. She lived with her family in Longleat Woods.

BM:

I have a good Monica Seles story for you. She was the nicest kid. I'm way in back on Court 12 hitting balls with my son. Monica is there with her dad. He had the most god-awful shorts on you have ever seen− about 800 colors.

My son and I are taking a break, sitting on a bench, drinking water. Monica sits down with us− very unassuming. She was probably 18 years old. I said to her, Aren’t you the number one tennis player in the world? She kind of nodded. I said, Why don’t you buy your dad a decent pair of shorts?

Well, my son is embarrassed. My mouth is always quicker than my brain. She started giggling like a teenage girl. She said, I represent Fila [the international sportswear manufacturer]. Those are women's shorts. We all had the best laugh.

BM:

We used to have a citizen patrol here. We had security, but it was geared more towards the construction sites. Believe it or not− people were coming in here and making off with refrigerators and stoves out of the models. I don’t know how they did it.

KM:

They took the copper out of the air conditioners. They’d pull it out of the walls.

BM:

Kathy was the week captain. They had two evening shifts− 8 to 10 and 10 to 12.

KM:

I had the walkie-talkie at our house. I was base control. Bill would go out with another volunteer in a vehicle.

BM:

We had a magnetic safety sign on the vehicle door identifying us as the citizen patrol.

KM:

If something suspicious occurred, they would call me and describe what was happening. If it was an emergency, I would call the Sheriff's Department. It went on for several years.

BM:

One night I went out with a guy who had been a park ranger in New Hampshire or Maine.  He said there was a panther roaming around. He wanted to get a picture of it, but he never did. We had wildlife all over the place in those days. I couldn't mow my lawn without running into a bunch of snakes.

The best thing about having the citizen patrol was you got to meet other people. You were more aware of the layout of the community. We tend to be isolated in our own little areas now.

JE:

Some people don’t even know that there is a part of The Meadows on the east side of Honore.

Did you ever meet Lord and Lady Taylor?

BM:

Sir Frank? Yes, I did. We met them at a function. There were about thirty people there. I would run into him occasionally at some event or activity.

I used to write a column for The Meadoword. The title was− Who Asked Me?

TB:

What year was that? The online copies of The Meadoword go back to 2008.

BM:

It was way back when the Meadoword was just a four-page newsletter. It didn't have ads.

I wrote one about when we first moved here about the people on our street− Postlethwaite, Brown, and Shaw. I forget what happened to them. Some of them probably went back to England. I think Postlethwaite moved to another neighborhood in The Meadows.

JE:

Yes. They moved to Highland Oaks Circle. I know because they tried to sell us their house. They were finishing up here at The Meadows and moving on to Jacksonville.

Taylor Woodrow had a very good sales force. I liked every one of the sales people.

BM:

We didn't have much to do with their sales people. We had a realtor bring us in here. I remember the sales office used to be down near the 17th Street entrance. It was a round building. It had a map in the middle of it. They asked the residents to vote on whether to keep it or not.

JE:

They should have kept it as the administration building instead of renting a building over in the shopping village.  It was nicer than what we had over there.

BM:

There was a horse stable in the parking lot over at the tennis center. There was also Greenwood Stables over on Hadfield Drive. The one at the tennis center was a full-blown riding center with horse stalls. They started having the annual garage sale and things there. At one point, they voted on whether to keep it or tear it down. I wanted to keep it. Tear out the stalls. You could have barn dancing or events like the garage sale undercover.

TB:

This was something that Taylor Woodrow built?

BM:

No, it was here. It was part of the farm. It had a riding center. It was a business.

I was on The Meadows Homeowners Association board in the mid-1980’s. That was funny too, because they were all retired golfers except me.

KM:

I was 30, Bill was 32 when we moved here. We had our little guy, Billy.

BM:

We knew a lady named Edna who was on the board. She said, We need some young people. I said, Okay. So, I get on the board. It’s all retired golfers. They were always saying things like, I was over on the 14th fairway... It's over by the eighth green. Finally, I had to say, I don't know what you guys are talking about. Can you use street names?

JE:

Lots of people tell us that. Most of the people were golfers in those days.

BM:

A lot of people move here when they're the age we are now. All they know is the club and golfing environment.

JE:

I was the youngest one on the street when we came here. We were around 62. We weren't even retired yet. Now I'm the oldest person there. I'm the only original owner.

KM:

That's how we are. We're the only original owners.

BM:

It's kind of fun when people move in and I'll say, You are the eighth couple that has lived here. We had a young couple that lived next door to us for about 10 years. They had two young boys that are like our grandsons. I used to say to them, When we moved in, we were a young couple surrounded by old people. Now we're the old couple, and you're the young couple.

I remember being on the fire station committee. Rob Robinson, who was an employee at the time, said the county was going to put a fire station over where Aviva is. There was nothing there. We need residents to be on the fire station committee.

The people on Lacey Lane did not like The Meadows. They had farms back in there and had probably been there for God knows how long. They didn’t want anything to be built in there. I can understand how they felt.

The thing I said to the Lacey Lane people was something is going to be built there. You can't stop it. Would you rather have a 7-11 in a little strip mall? Or would you rather have a fire station? I thought a fire station was the least objectionable choice. No, they were adamant. Nothing is going to be built there.

Ultimately, Kobernick House went in there in 1993. Later, it became Aviva.

KM:

There was no Interstate 75 back then. It took three hours to get to Orlando when we took our kids to Disney World. We had to go through Arcadia and Wauchula.

BM:

My favorite was County Line Road, which became University Parkway. I remember there was a termite-infested stop sign where the road ended about where I-75 is now. You didn't need it because nobody was ever out there.

I told them we lived in an area called The Meadows. They have a restaurant upstairs called the Dickens. It’s now the Regency Room.  Back in those days, the only way to get up to the restaurant was an outside staircase, which was nuts considering how much rain we have. I told them, They require men to wear a jacket. They present the lady with a rose on a pillow when she enters.

He says, How do I get there? Well, how would you tell somebody coming from Longboat Key in those days?

Go out 301, which was a mess. Then come down 17th Street, which was worse. That and Cattlemen Road were the worse streets in Sarasota County. It was all industrial back then. It's still commercial.

We get a phone call a few days later from the guy and he says everything was wonderful. He couldn't have been more grateful, but I’ve got to tell you one thing. While we were driving down 17th Street after coming out 301, I said to my wife, I can't believe this guy sent us on such a wild goose chase. By that time, he said, he couldn't believe that there was going to be this fancy restaurant down at the end of 17th Street so far out in the boondocks.

JE:

It hasn’t been that long ago. If you went to the club to the Regency room, you had to wear a jacket. If you didn't have a jacket, they would give you a lovely one.

BM:

Now you go through the Regency room and there are people in jeans and shorts at dinner time.

JE:

The used to have a sign on The Meadows property even over at the tennis courts that said, Jeans not allowed on country club property. And the men could not wear a shirt on the outside. Your shirt had to be tucked in. On the golf or tennis course, you had to tuck your tee-shirt in. The men had to have sleeves and a collar on their shirt. The women could be sleeveless, but they had to have a collar. It was very strict.

TB:

When was the country club building built? Was it here when The Meadows first opened?

BM:

Taylor Woodrow built it after we were already here. When we got here, the golf courses were here. There wasn't much else. The country club building wasn't here.

My neighbor and I used to go out and play golf at night. We would play three to six holes. After a while, it started becoming a golf club. It went through several cycles.

Taylor Woodrow built The Dickens Inn and turned it over to private management. It was originally called The Country Tower. I have a postcard of the restaurant with that name.

It was here before the country club. It was open to the public. It was a full restaurant with a bar. They had entertainment at night. It was very popular with the young people.

JE:

We went there a lot on Friday nights. They had a band and dancing.

Do you remember bingo at the club? It was very popular.

KM:

Yes. They had a dinner with bingo.

BM:

Wasn't it about 9 or 10 bucks? Something like that. It was the best $10 buffet in town

JE:

You ate dinner and then stayed for bingo. With everybody buying drinks, they made money off it.

It was very reasonably priced. You couldn’t get in if you just showed up. When the night was over, you made a reservation for the next one if you wanted to get in.

TB:

Were you on the board in the early days?

BM:

I wasn’t on the MCA board. I was on the Taylor Woodrow Homeowners Association board. The MCA board then was Roger Postlethwaite, Taylor Woodrow’s general manager; Tom Brown, the sales manager; Alan Shaw, the comptroller. All Taylor Woodrow employees except one resident, Hugh Wrigglesworth, who got re-elected or re-appointed every year.

TB:

Do you remember when Taylor Woodrow handed control over to the community?

BM:

I think that happened around 1989 when they handed over the country club. I can't remember exactly.

JE:

When I moved here in 1990, there was already an MCA. They had the office over in the shopping village.

BM:

There was a long period when our kids were in school where much of our social and recreational life was outside The Meadows community. We didn’t go out to eat a lot in those days. The kids enjoyed going to the pool. I played tennis.

We were very involved in our church and school activities. I was parish council for seven years as President. I was a lector at church.

KM:

When the kids were in school, I was a stay-at-home Mom. I was in the Junior Women’s Club. I was a scout leader. When Bill started his business, I was in the women’s owner network.

TB:

Thanks for talking with us. It’s been a lot of fun. You provided us with some great stories about what life was like in The Meadows during the earliest days of the community. I’m sure people will appreciate having this information.

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