A controversial house built over the water in Cortez is facing its final destiny. Or not.
After Raymond Guthrie Jr. lost his final court attempt to save the stilt-house he built in Sarasota Bay off Cortez, residents of the community began to mobilize to try to save the structure.
After a three-year legal battle with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which owns the waters under the structure, Guthrie was given 90 days by 12th Judicial Circuit Judge Edward Nicholas to remove the 1,200 square foot non-permitted net-camp building built in 2017.
Nicholas issued the order Oct. 8.
In what she called a “last effort” Karen Bell, owner of A.P. Bell Fish Co. in Cortez, reached out to Gov. Ron DeSantis and posted a plea for community support on her “Save the Camp” Facebook page.
Bell posted a copy of a letter she sent to DeSantis on the page, which has more than 800 followers.
“Rather than DEP recognize the historic significance they have been hellbent on having it torn down. Even after showing them aerial photos from the 1920s, 1940s, 1950s and 1970s, that prove the structure was there DEP has not relented,” she wrote.
Bell said the camps are iconic to the community and artists worldwide have memorialized the structures.
“Cortez today is not only a working fishing village, it is a tourist destination,” Bell wrote the governor. “We have managed to blend both industries by developing a symbiotic relationship between the two.”
Bell asked supporters of the camp to write to the governor at governorron.desantis@eog.myflorida.com.
In response to the social media plea, Facebook commenter Christopher Banan wrote, “Cortez village is a truly unique part of Florida commercial fishing history and needs to be preserved. Please help save the net camps, Gov. DeSantis. Our local commercial fishermen deserve it.”
Charlene Parks wrote, “My grandpa was once one of them fishermen (Enoch McCain) Save the Net camps in Cortez !!!”
Bell recalled that at least three structures were built on the same pilings as Guthrie’s stilt-house.
“When I was a little girl, there was a building there used for raising clam seedlings,” Bell told The Islander Oct. 22. “I forget which storm it was, but it was knocked down and all that was left were the pilings. When it was rebuilt, there wasn’t a peep about it.”
Guthrie has maintained that the structure is a historic “net camp,” where cotton fishing nets were stored by commercial fishers for generations, including by his father and grandfather.
“Kathe Fannon also is going to start a GoFundMe page to help with costs of potentially moving the camp,” Bell wrote on Facebook.
Fannon, who is known as Captain Kathe and who runs boat tours in Sarasota Bay off Cortez, declined The Islander’s request for comment Oct. 22.
“I know some people are talking about putting the camp onto a barge,” Bell said of a possible plan to save the stilt house. “I don’t know how they would do that. I think it should stay right where it is.”