Everybody knows about Gulfport, the funky little beach burg that claims a bit of mainland Pinellas County's southwest edge. The funny thing is, everybody has a different image of the place.
Gulfport is that retirement community.
Gulfport is that artsy-fartsy place where there's some sort of Stroll or Fair or Look At Our Work Festival every weekend. (No, not Dunedin – the other artsy-fartsy place.)
Gulfport is that beach that tourists don't go to.
Gulfport is that place where all the houses are painted different colors.
Gulfport is that string of bars across the street from the water.
Gulfport is that place where all the lesbians live.
All of these things are true to some extent – well, I mean, all the lesbians don't really live here, or even half of them – but none of these factors alone goes any distance toward defining Gulfport.
Taken together, however, they serve to paint a picture of a community whose identity lies in its eclecticism.
"I think the coolest thing about Gulfport is that the 'identity' is so diverse that you can't really identify it," says Chamber of Commerce member and Gulfport mover-and-shaker Dolly Tickell. "That's why I came here.
"There's a diversity of age, of ethnic background, of occupation. We have a heterosexual population, a homosexual population, we have bag ladies and Ph.D.s."
Standing at the end of the modern concrete-and-metal "T" that is Gulfport's Williams Pier, with your back to the city, you can look across oft-murky Boca Ciega Bay and see a typical contemporary Florida beachfront tableau: the crowded high-rises and barrier-island geography of Isla del Sol and Tierra Verde. Turn around, though, and you're faced with something very different: the connected one-story business fronts and sidewalk promenade of The Little Seaside Florida Town. It's a view straight out of the '50s, encountered with increasing rarity since then.
You're looking at Shore Boulevard. It, and Beach Boulevard, which runs down from 22nd Avenue South to meet it, constitutes the Waterfront Redevelopment District, or downtown Gulfport. And while the City of Gulfport is, in terms of land use, almost overwhelmingly residential, it's this little area that defines Gulfport for visitors – from the intimate, frequently used Catherine Hickman Theatre, down Beach past the brightly colored buildings of the Art Village on the left, past the marvelously refurbished Peninsula Inn & Spa on the right, past the tiny Post Office where the clerk undoubtedly knows everybody's name, past the tourist-trinket shops and cozy restaurants, to Shore and the famous Gulfport Casino, where a left leads to bars and the pier and a right leads to bars and the beach and the jarringly modern Recreation Center. This downtown-that-time-forgot charm has attracted new residents for decades, and inspired in them a fervent dedication to preserving it.
"I came when it was the unpopular thing to do," says Tickell. "We were part of … we called ourselves the new pioneers."
Tickell's family moved to Gulfport around 10 years ago, and she immediately immersed herself in what seems to be the unofficial official pastime/investment option of affluent locals: residential restoration. She bought an abandoned crackhouse located near Gulfport's northern edge (where the city shares 49th Street South's slowly improving urban sprawl with St. Petersburg), and had the whole thing moved not once, but twice, before beginning an ongoing project to return it to its former '50s glory.
"In Gulfport, a buzzsaw is just [the sound of] dollar signs," she says.
The community may be largely opposed to modernizing downtown and the historic neighborhoods, but all the restoration has had the same effect on the city's property values that new construction would have. While Gulfport still looks like the kind of place where a young writer might rent a bungalow for a few months in order to finish a novel in relative isolation, these days he or she would have a tough time making the payments. The average value of a Gulfport home – and there aren't many big ones – currently hovers somewhere around $200,000.
Walking around the city on a weekday, one mostly encounters older residents, hobby artists committing one interesting building or another to canvas, and the odd tourist; it's a scene that bolsters Gulfport's quaint vibe. But one doesn't see the average citizen circa 2005, because the average citizen circa 2005 is somewhere working hard to be able to afford living here.
Lynn Brown, an authority on Gulfport history who's written two books on the subject (and is working on a third – see sidebar), came to the area in 1978.
"In those days, it was the only affordable place in Pinellas County to buy a house," she says. "Things have definitely changed."
Gulfport is less a haven for starving artists than a community that enthusiastically supports the traditional arts in general – hence the twice-monthly Art Walks, the singer-songwriter performances in the Art Village every weekend, the many community events notices in The Gulfport Gabber (Pinellas County's longest running weekly newspaper), the frequent folk and big-band shows at Hickman Theatre and the Casino.
While there are creative twentysomethings in the community, they're mostly apartment-dwellers, many of whom work in neighborhood restaurants like the new Aqua Bella Raw Bar & Grill, which replaced longtime young-scenester hangout Casa Cortez last September. There's plenty of culture, but personable dive bars and wholesome family-oriented resources like the Recreation Center and a city-run skatepark aside, it's by and large the sort of culture enjoyed by those approaching, in or beyond middle age, with the means for patronization.
Tickell is on the mark when she describes the city's identity as fundamentally unidentifiable. This doesn't indicate a fractured community, however, or one in flux, scrambling to define itself. Gulfport is an interestingly eclectic – not to be confused with edgy or bohemian – place. The point where all of its personality traits overlap seems to be an intense pride in this tradition of eclecticism, and a desire to protect it.
When a developer last year announced plans to put eight modern, closely spaced homes on a relatively small piece of land a few blocks off Beach Boulevard, it created the kind of tempest in a teapot familiar to anyone who lives in a neighborhood big on its own sense of character; the term "McMansions" became a local buzzword, and new citywide architectural guidelines were (and are still being) discussed.
But communities must evolve, and it's still unclear exactly where Gulfport is headed.
Brown, the historian, doesn't see any big changes in the near future, a prediction based on both the city's love of its past, and the past itself.
"Hey, it's been here since 1867 without much of a change," she says.
Tickell, on the other hand, sees plenty. She thinks a hypothetical young professional moving into Gulfport today might find him- or herself living in a very different environment in five years' time.
"Absolutely," she says. "Just because of the age of the community, it's going to go through a major transition.
"Every community in America cycles. You go from nice young couples that have children, to the children becoming teenagers and you have cars everywhere, to the children leaving and the property owners getting older. Now, you're finding this combination of people pushing walkers, and people pushing baby carriages. The average age is going to drop."
She adds, almost as an afterthought:
"At least, I really hope the young people will be able to afford to move here."
She Knows The Story: Lynn Brown Like any community deeply interested in its own past, Gulfport has more than its fair share of amateur historians – stop into any shop between Gulfport Boulevard and the beach, and you're likely to get more than a little factual arcana along with your purchase. But one resident's personal interest and skills have combined to elevate her to the status of go-to authority on the city's history: Lynn Brown, a former city council member whose involvement with the Gulfport Historical Museum led her to author two books on the subject, with a third on the way.
"[Gulfport has] always been unique, a close-knit community, even through the periods of growth, the building surges," says Brown of the city she's called home since 1978. "It was founded by a clan of fishermen from Key West, and farmers from Georgia. That's part of where the uniqueness comes from … you have these red-dirt farming types, and these seamen coming up from Key West, and they met right here."
Brown has worked with the Gulfport Historical Society, and its museum, for about seven years. In '98, Arcadia Publishing, a small press specializing in regional history, approached the Society and suggested putting out a book about Gulfport's past. Brown dug in, and the resulting tome, Gulfport, was published in September of the following year. The book ended up being more photo essay than in-depth historical account – the museum has an incredible collection of pictures dating back to Gulfport's 1860s origins – but the process intensified Brown's interest.
"I realized it created more questions than answers," she says. "A lot of legends have grown up that needed to be researched and clarified."
Like the one about how Gulfport was planned as a sort of retirement community for Civil War veterans?
"That's a crock," says Brown, laughing. "Veterans' City? That was an outside developer's idea that fell apart. I don't think they sold a single tract. But they got the trolley over here, and that saved Gulfport."
A conversation with Brown is peppered with interesting tidbits like this. And her second book, Gulfport: A Definitive History, is full to bursting with them. Published by History Press last November, A Definitive History takes the reader from the days when the isolated community was first hacked out of the rough, scrubby West-Florida woods up to the '20s, and the aftermath of the 1921 hurricane that destroyed the first Casino, along with the first bridges connecting the mainland with the barrier-island beaches. It's the first of a two-volume set; Brown is currently hard at work on the second, which will continue the story through the post-World War II boom the town experienced in the '50s.
It's a tall order, even for a woman who's researched the history of virtually every old building in the city, and helped to make the Gulfport Historical Museum the fascinating little time capsule it is. (The Museum is housed in what was Gulfport's first Methodist Church, though the building itself is no longer where it was originally erected in 1913 – it was moved across the street for preservation in the '50s.)
"Frankly," Brown says with a wan smile, "I'll be glad to see the end of it."
The Gulfport Historical Museum is located at 5301 28th Ave. S.; hours are 2-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., and 10 a.m.-Noon on Sat. For more information, call 727-327-0505.
Dive In: O'Maddy's Every neighborhood needs a good neighborhood bar, and in Gulfport, beachfront boozeteria O'Maddy's has been filling the bill since the mid-'50s.
A block down Shore Boulevard, H.T. Kane's has accumulated its share of regulars, and the space next door to O'Maddy's has done varying bar business over the years in numerous guises – it was once a famed punk grotto called The Swamp Club, and currently houses the dark, biker-friendly Gulfport on the Rocks. But of the district's several watering holes, only O'Maddy's sports that unmistakable sense of character and lived-in-ness that marks a classic dive.
Mornings, you'll always find a handful of locals shooting the shit, right where the sun and air coming through the open bank of patio doors meet the cool shadows. Sightseers stop in for a cold one throughout the day, as do fishermen, some while their lines are still in the water across the street on Williams Pier. Gulfport's amiable, eccentric, deceptively sleepy daylight-hours vibe is echoed here; there doesn't appear to be a whole lot going on before 5 p.m., but the folks bellied up to the bar are apt to be interesting.
After the sun goes down, O'Maddy's morphs into one of the most popular karaoke bars in the Bay area. The place holds the old sign-up-and-sing seven nights a week (!), and on the best evenings – primarily weekends, and after Thursday's regular "Kill the Keg" quaffing marathon – O'Maddy's hosts a giddily disorienting sampler platter of humanity: hippie kids from Eckerd College mingle with hipster kids from the University of Tampa and Gulfport residents of every income level and fashion sense, while talented regular karaoke "ringers" mix it up on the small, central stage with shy first-timers and buzzed, overdressed businessmen who drove all the way from Tampa to be here.
It might take a little longer to get a drink if your face isn't a familiar one, and getting absolutely hammered is even less of a good idea here than it is in some other bars. (O'Maddy's participates in Florida's Responsible Vendor Program, which basically means the bartenders WILL cut you off when they think you've had enough.) But even so, O'Maddy's comfortable, casual aesthetic and always-interesting clientele have made it a favorite not just in Gulfport, but with dive-bar aficionados across Tampa Bay.
O'Maddy's is located at 5405 Shore Blvd. S., and is open from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m. seven days a week. Call 727-323-8643 for more info.
Learn to foxtrot: dance lessons every Tuesday morning at the Gulfport Casino (5500 Shore Blvd. S.)
Hear veteran and upcoming singer-songwriters at Hot Acoustic Nights V, April 9 at the Catherine A. Hickman Theater (5501 27th Ave. S.).
Take an Art Walk, first Friday and third Saturday of every month at the Gulfport Art Village (2908 Beach Blvd. S.).
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2005.