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Photo submitted by Meri-lin Piantanida – People stand next to the Osceola Monument that has been set up at Palmetto Hall in Florahome.
Music, vendors and community members filled Florahome’s Palmetto Hall on Saturday as the clubhouse doors reopened to the public for the first time in decades.
The seventh annual Florahome Fall Festival looked different this year because people could walk inside the historic clubhouse and tour 100 years of Florahome history.
Members of the Florahome Parks & Heritage Association spent about five years restoring the building. Association President Meri-lin Piantanida said the group was thrilled to share the building with the public.
“Saving an old building requires an appreciation for the past, but more importantly it gives us hope for the future,” Piantanda stated in a Facebook message.
Group members wanted to thank every volunteer and donor who made the “dream of saving Palmetto Hall a reality,” she said.
The clubhouse, located at the corner of State Road 100 and Magnolia Avenue, opened in 1923. It has since been turned into a museum featuring displays that feature some Florahome families, the town’s railroad history and other slices of history.
Palmetto Hall is open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturdays.
Last weekend’s festival featured local artists, musicians, elected officials and community members such as Melissa McDaniel, the media specialist for the Putnam County School District.
“The festival was impressive, with many different vendors, live music and good food,” she stated in a Facebook message.
McDaniel took a video of the whole event and took many photos inside the clubhouse.
Association members had been waiting since August to unveil the Osceola Monument that sits on the right of the building’s exterior.
The monument is a tribute to Osceola and the “plight” he and his tribe suffered, according to the Heritage Association. It was carved in 1934 by Bart Oster after the granite fell off of a Jacksonville-bound train that derailed in Grandin, the association said.
The monument stood from 1934 to 1975 at the Hope Springs Tennis Court east of Florahome. Warner Weseman, a Florahome native, purchased the monument and moved it to Gainesville, where it stood for almost 50 years.
Association members said in August they thought the monument had been lost for good before the Weseman family donated it to the group this year.
On Aug. 26, Eileen Fulghum and Linda Sullivan, sisters who lived at Hope Springs as children, saw the monument returned to Florahome. Fulghum said she hadn’t seen the monument since she was 4, and Sullivan remembered being 6 when she last saw it.
While watching a tow truck crew carefully place the monument next to the clubhouse, the sisters said, all they could think about was the memories it brought back.
“It’s just overwhelming,” Fulghum said in August.
The whole process took more than an hour, and members of the Weseman family also showed up to support the installation.
“We are especially thrilled to bring the Osceola Monument back to Florahome,” Piantanida stated Tuesday. “It is a remarkable piece of American folk art with an intriguing history. We are very grateful to the Weseman family.”
