1674-15 Louis (Red) Snedigar •
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21,.Ig40 . J
Behind the Front Page h j
•By ELLIS HOLLUMS
Executive Editor, The Herald
STRANGE how one will fall into reminiscent mood occasionally
without having intended to dig back into the past.. Yesterday
morning in this space I was talking about the zoning ordinance
'and how Levi Gardner was being heckled by Jack Manny. Well,
over at Miami Beach Louis F. (Red) Snedigar has opened up a
Florida fruits store that is so swanky you'd think it was a beauty
salon or a new bar—if it wasn't for the oranges all over,the place.
On Collins avenue it is, and in®
that very spot not so many years maybe two, on Collins avenue. He
ago was the fashionable residential built a cottage of driftwood from
section of the Beach. Just a few the sea, and resided there in lonely
blocks south on the ocean front was splendor. Percy didn't like to be
the late Carl G. Fisher's beautiful crowded in. his homesites, and
home. Then came the move north- when swanky and expensive homes
ward on the Beach,and Collins aye- began going up in the neighbor-
nue south of Twenty-third street hood, he became discontented with
was overtaken by apartments, the whole thing. -
hotels, businesses of various kinds. So Red bought his house and a
And the trend northward has con- large part of his property. Percy
tinued to this day.'Hotels now are departed for Cat Cay to get away
snuggled smack up against the from it all, and then left there'
beautiful Firestone estate and no- later, when somebody built a house
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. body thinks anything about it. on the island. -He died recently on
But Red Snedigar's fruit store re- one of the out islands of the Ba-
minded me that for 21 years Red hamian group.
hasn't lived anywhere in Dade Red took over the Cavil property
county except in that same block in 1919 and has lived in that same
• where the store is located. lie came block for the last 21_years. When
here first in the summer of 1912, gorgeous,hotels began to go up
member of a professional baseball around%him, Red didn't care. He
nine. He was attending Stetson Uni- helped support their ,night clubs,
versity and made his expenses of teas four times elected mayor of
college by playing baseball. On the Ati`anlrBea h, dealt in real estate,
same team were Ben C. Willard, T. and still doe`s, his business and his
E. Price, J., Herman Swink and home address being in the same
Robert R. Taylor, jr, who now is place. •
Dade'county solicitor. Except for • . ,
Taylor, it was their first glimpse L7E sold off a piece of the prop-
of Miami. 11 erty and the Miller hotel was
•They liked it, and in the summer erected on it,and finally a few years
of 1913 returned with the same ago,Red himself yielded to the on-
team and saw Miami had grown ward march of business and built
considerably in a year. They all an apartment house on the site of
graduated from their various col- his first and only home in Main:
leges in the spring of 1914, and Beach.
with one accord turned their faces By that time the Cavill home it-
. ! Miamiwards, leaving the old Flor- self had become almost a museum
Ida State Baseball League-corn- piece, tiny and unpretentious as it
pletely in the lurch. was. Red didn't want to dismantle
—+-- it, and when Bun Gautier came
VVWILLARD obtained desk space in along and offered to buy it,and re
the law offices of Mitchell D. move it from the property without
Price. Swink managed to get room tearing, it down, he made a deal.
In the law offices of John Gramling, Bun loaded the thing on a barge,
while Snedigar went,into the law and towed it around to San Marino'
•offices of Shutts, Smith & Bowen. island, one of the Venetian group,
• Price hung up his shingle as :a where Ben Shepard, widely known
lawyer. None of them had jobs, lawyer and an assistant city attor
• please understand,' in the sense ney of the Beach, owned a lot.
that they were on a pay roll. . It squarely in the middle of the north
was find some law business to do half of the island.
or starve. They didn't starve, and And there you'll find Percy
all of them have lived usefully in Cavill's driftwood house today, al-
the community. most hidden in the lush tropical
But Red Snedigar''s living.quay- vegetation, surrounded on all sidel
ters was what we were talking by ornate homes of the rich-occu-
about. He bought the property from pied' by Ben Shepard, who likes
the late Percy Cavill, a champion the comfort of the place and the
Iong distance swimmer, who had associations it brings to m}nd. .
migrated to the Beach from Aus- Red is still living on the site of
tralia. He was an eccentric fellow, his first home, but it is a.moderr,
well liked by those who'enjoyed stream-lined apartment building,
his exhibitions of swimming in the and he is.still doing business In
old Royal Palm hotel pools, and the same block, real estate, rentals,
later in old St.Johns Casino on the insurance, an Florida fruit—and
Beach. he buys practically all his fruit
Early in the development of the from growers who produce it within
Beach he bought a whole block, 12 miles of Bartow, his birthplace.