TB:

I am here with Jo Evans, longtime resident of The Meadows. We are here to talk about her experiences living in The Meadows over the years. We want to capture information and anecdotes about what life was like in the early days of the community.

You are from Miamisburg, Ohio, near Dayton originally, Jo. Tell us how you came to live in Sarasota. How did you and your husband discover The Meadows?

JE:

We had friends in Sarasota. They did not live in Sarasota, but they had property in Glen Oaks across the road from The Meadows. It was when Glen Oaks was first built. They bought three condos there in the early 1980’s. My husband and I happened to be in Florida. We went to look at the condos.

At the time, we said we would never move out in the boonies like our friends did. There was not much there in those days. But then we came back in 1990, things looked different. The Meadows was almost built out. It was a beautiful community.

We talked to several real estate people. They said The Meadows was the place to live at that time. So, within a couple weeks, we bought a lot.

Taylor Woodrow had no houses that we liked. They said they usually don’t sell lots, but they did have one lot left in an association that they wanted to sell. If you want to buy that lot, they said, we will sell it to you if you agree to build a house within a year. That’s what we did.

TB:

Is that the house that you live in now?

JE:

Yes. I’ve only lived in one house in The Meadows. So, we built the house. We were snowbirds at the time. We moved here full time around 1994. Soon after, my husband had a heart attack and he passed away in 1998. So, I've been here by myself since that time.

TB:

You knew Frank Taylor, the founder of The Meadows, didn’t you?

JE:

I did. I had a neighbor from London. She knew the family because she had their older son as a student when she was working at the Royal Academy in London. I met his wife. I attended several teas with his daughter, her husband, and their children. They brought their kids to the tea, so I got to meet the whole family.

TB:

Where did Frank Taylor live when he was in The Meadows?

JE:

He lived over in Quail Hollow. That is the only place I have known him to live in The Meadows. He had that house and then they built a second home there for the rest of the family when they came over. They were quite visible. They would come to the country club often, Lord and Lady Taylor. They would eat lunch.

TB:

He went by his aristocratic title?

JE:

I never heard anyone call him by his [common] name.

TB:

No one called him Frank?

JE:

No. I never heard him called Frank.

TB:

What was The Meadows like in those days?

JE:

As you came in the entrance at 17th Street, behind where the big fountain is, there was a wood building. It was a nice-looking building. It was the sales office. They had a scale model of The Meadows in it.

TB:

Tell us about your experiences buying and building a house in The Meadows in those days.

JE:

You really got to know your salesperson. They were very personable. They took good care of you. I know when they built our house, we received pictures of what they were doing, what they accomplished. It was a very well-run organization. People don't realize how big Taylor Woodrow is. I forget how many countries they have been in— something like 25 countries.

TB:

Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest home building and general construction companies in the UK. It was the general contractor for the Chunnel, the undersea rail tunnel between England and France.

JE:

Taylor Woodrow worked on many places in Sarasota County, not only The Meadows. Like, Glen Oaks, across the street, Palmer Ranch, Country Meadows near us on 17th Street west of Honoré. On Lido, they built the Ritz Carlton cabanas, the beach club.

I think when Taylor Woodrow came here, he thought it would be a younger neighborhood. I don't think he thought it was going to turn into such a retirement neighborhood because he had to invest money for schools and things which never happened here.

TB:

I remember reading a quote from Frank Taylor in Alan Jenkins book on Taylor Woodrow, Built on Teamwork. He said, “People who are retired need to live in a community of mixed age groups.”

Jenkins says, the original plan included two schools, a village shopping center, office complex, curvilinear roads (an innovative idea at the time) situated among trees, nature trails, golf courses, and other types of open space.

The Meadows “cluster-housing” plan was designed to offer a mix of home-ownership choices from single-family housing to condominiums. It was like he was building a little city.

JE:

I think he did want to. In one of the books I read, it said Taylor didn't want to build a strictly high-scale community. He wanted one where everyone could live with a mix of prices— single-family houses or condominiums.

TB:

Don Smally, a civil engineer, wrote a book called Sarasota and Me on the formative years of Sarasota County. He said Taylor Woodrow was involved in a lot of infrastructure projects in the community.

The company built the Meadowood wastewater treatment plant on 17th Street. It was a first in Sarasota County— an innovative, closed-cycle system designed to use wastewater to irrigate golf courses. It included a centralized irrigation system to store and re-use rainfall, which is our lake system.

JE:

When we first moved here, there was no community center. Taylor Woodrow set up an MCA office in the shopping village. When they turned the community over to the residents in 1990, the MCA continued to use that building. We held our meetings there. We had a small kitchen. It was that way until we built the MCA building on Longmeadow.

TB:

Did Taylor Woodrow originally build and own the shopping village?

JE:

I think Taylor Woodrow built it then sold it to the people who own it now. We have only had one owner. It stayed in their family.

TB:

What was day-to-day life like in The Meadows when you first moved here?

JE:

When we first arrived, community life was centered around the country club. There was a waiting list to join. We had to fill out an application and wait at least six months. Back then it was expensive to join.

The country club was open every night for dinner. It was full all the time. We also had the Dickens Restaurant, which was part of the country club. You had to have a membership to eat there. Later it was turned into a fitness center.

I don’t know how that building came to be. [It was once a privately-owned establishment called The Country Tower.] It was torn down recently and replaced by the new Community Lifestyle and Wellness Facility (TMCLWF).

People loved to go there. It was informal. There was a bar room separate from the dining room where there was always dancing. It was just a fun place to go.

We also had the horse farm, which was nice. When Taylor Woodrow built The Meadows, one thing Frank Taylor wanted was a riding stable. I don't know if he built it or if it was already there.

TB:

That was located near Stable Lane?

JE:

Yes. It was over near the corner of Hadfield and Longmeadow. You could walk along the fence and pet the horses. It was a very nice stable.

TB:

When you first moved here, you had a new home. Did you have a lot of landscaping and interior work to do?

JE:

The house was landscaped when we bought it. We had to put a certain amount of money into landscaping because of the requirements where we lived.

Of course, we weren't there all the time. We were still snowbirds. We also had to have somebody to maintain it.

With the new house, we had palm trees blow down and other problems. The association would call us on the phone to tell us a tree was down. They called us the Ohio people.

My husband kept busy doing a lot of the work for a long time. He always wanted everything immaculate, perfect. The neighbors used to tease me saying, “He doesn't have you out there cleaning the gutters, does he?” And I’d say, “It won’t be long before he does.”

TB:

What did you do for recreation?

JE:

We’d get up in the morning and take a walk. Stop down where the Fountain View Lounge is now. It wasn’t called that then. We'd go there for breakfast. They had a full breakfast every morning and it was always filled.

We would walk back home or ride our bikes, whichever we wanted to do. We rode our bikes a lot. Sarasota traffic was light in those days. We would ride bikes to the bank, post office, or grocery store. I wouldn't do it now.

We were never people who sat at home. We would go to the beach or explore the county in the afternoon. In the evening, there was always a large group who would gather for cocktails either at the Dickens Restaurant or country club then eat dinner.

I knew everyone in my community when we first moved here. People were very open and friendly. There were cocktail parties to meet everyone. The ladies met for lunch once a month. I was asked to join a bridge group. It was very social.

TB:

Are you a golfer?

JE:

I tried, but we mostly played tennis. The tennis courts were where they are now. There was a huge pool in front of the main country club building. It was a very nice pool. Hardly anyone used it in the winter. I would go down and use it early in the morning. There would often be no one there. I could put my terry robe over my bathing suit, drive down, get in the pool, and be out before anybody got up.

When it was cool, the club kept the pool at a nice temperature. There were usually people there in the afternoon. They served drinks around the pool. When they built the new pool where the tennis center is now, they added a cabana. They turned the old pool area into a parking lot.

There was a lot more activity at the club. They had bingo twice a week, which was very popular. It was difficult to get in. You had to make a reservation one week to the next. It was a fun thing to do. They always had a nice smorgasbord. They had very nice prizes. People bought a lot of tickets. You could win several hundred dollars. People loved to play for that.

People had a lot of parties and entertained more than they do now in their homes. There was always someone inviting you to their home. We would go to someone's home for drinks and hors d'oeuvres and then go out to eat. We didn't only eat at the club. We went to different places in Sarasota. We went downtown or out to Longboat Key.

TB:

There wasn’t much on University Avenue in those days. University Avenue was just a two-lane road 25-30 years ago.

JE:

There wasn't anything. Going to the airport was like going to the country. SRQ was just a small airport. There were very few flights.

We could get a flight out of Cincinnati into Sarasota twice a week, but it was on the weekends. Then it started flying out every morning during the week like a businessman's commute. The flight took a little over two hours. We used to get that flight all the time to come down, but the airport was so small.

There were no hotels. I think the dog track was there. There were some things on US Route 41, Tamiami Trail. There used to be a French restaurant at the corner of University Avenue and Route 41. The district wasn't the best place to go in Sarasota. But there were a few businesses there. Nothing like it is now.

TB:

The Meadows was more isolated in those days. You didn’t have a lot of services clustered around you. You didn’t have The Mall at University Town Center. Community life was more insular.

JE:

Yes. That’s true. We did have a little grocery store. We had a small Publix and the post office off 17th Street, but there wasn't much else around.

I enjoyed it. We could ride our bicycles everywhere. Circus Road was always there. It was easy to ride on the sidewalks and go wherever you wanted.

There was the little English shopping center, Tallywood Centre, on 17th Street. There's always been a few businesses in there.

TB:

My understanding is that Longmeadow was originally owned by Sarasota County, The Meadows owned Honoré Avenue, and we arranged a swap.

JE:

Yes. When we first came here, you couldn't go through on Honoré Avenue. It wasn't open. It stopped at Longmeadow.

People kept telling us that it would never go through. We knew it was going to go through because they were building the interstate and it would eventually get connected.

The county has an easement all through that area. Eventually, Honoré will likely become a full, four-lane road.

Another problem is people using Longmeadow to cut through from 17th Street to Honoré. I know that there is nothing we can do about it.

A lot of people ask me, why don't we put a gate up? We can't if we don't own the shopping village. We cannot box businesses in. That is one reason we have never been gated.

TB:

When did you start getting involved in volunteer work and committee work? When did you join the board?

JE:

I started volunteering in 1999. My husband passed away in June, 1998 and I felt I had to get myself busy. I started volunteering where I live in Scarborough. I was on the board there. I was Treasurer, Secretary, Vice President, and President for several years. Then I got on the Maintenance Committee.

I was also on the Certified Emergency Response Team (CERT). We had to take a Sarasota County course. We trained for disasters and hurricanes. We trained where the police train. We had to put out fires. We would go into a building with a fire and learn how to put it out just like a fireman. We took rescue training out on the water. We trained in disaster simulations on the airport tarmac like we had an air emergency. It was very involved.

We all had backpacks, hard hats, and vests. We had drills twice a year. You wouldn't know when. You would be at home. Someone would call you. You had an area that you were responsible for and you had to get ready to go.

TB:

Did you ever have to respond to a real situation?

JE:

No. But we were ready.

TB:

What about what about hurricanes?

JE:

We had a few tropical storms. We did respond to that. But that was typically just tree limbs down on a power line or something like that. We had a full emergency response team in The Meadows. We were still operating in the old building at that time.

When we built the new MCA building, the county decided to use that for their headquarters in the area. They did for years.

TB:

When did you serve on the MCA board?

JE:

I was on the board for six years. Bob Friedlander became president of the board in 2013. He was co-chair with me on the Maintenance Committee for several years. After he got off the board, he moved away. He and I worked very closely together. We put up a new sign on 17th Street and the signs on Honoré Avenue.

TB:

The sign on 17th Street that was replaced a few years ago?

JE:

Yes. The sign was replaced as part of the Renaissance development project, which began in 2017. That is when the new construction of 17th Street entrance happened.

TB:

What did you like best about the early days living in The Meadows?

JE:

I think everyone was in the same boat. When we moved in, we were the youngest ones in our community. Everyone else had been here four or five years. You don't come here until you retire. My husband and I both retired before we were 62. We were younger than most. But everyone was looking for friendship. I think that's why we were all so close. I remember that best.

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