All quiet on the Cortez waterfront.
It’s been more than six months since attorney Robert Schermer filed a second motion for a stay of enforcement on a judge’s order that Raymond “Junior” Guthrie’s stilt-house be removed from Sarasota Bay.
The structure remains standing and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which successfully sued Guthrie in 2018 for building the stilt-house over state-owned submerged land, has not filed a response to the motion.
DEP public information officer Shannon Herbon told The Islander in a Nov. 9 email the agency still wants the structure removed.
“The department’s position remains unchanged, but, as you know, we can’t comment on litigation strategy,” Herbon said.
Guthrie said Nov. 11 he wasn’t aware of any upcoming developments related to the lawsuit and that he’s content with the DEP’s inaction.
“As long as they’re leaving me alone, fine,” he said.
In 2017, Guthrie built the 1,200-square-foot house on pilings in the water a short distance from the A.P. Bell Fish Co. docks in Cortez. Guthrie he said the pilings had been used to support structures built by his family for three generations.
The structure — which has a steel roof, electricity, air conditioning and other amenities — drew the ire of the DEP in early 2018, and a judge ordered it removed from the bay in June 2020.
A series of extensions on the order allowed the structure to remain standing.
Guthrie and A.P. Bell Fish Co. owner Karen Bell, who has assisted Guthrie with his legal battle, maintain the structure is not a stilt-house, but a modern net camp.
Historic net camps were barren shacks built over the water in the 19th century to house cotton fishing nets and dotted the Cortez waterfront into the 1960s.
In April, Manatee County commissioners and state legislators outlined a stilt-house preservation plan in letters addressed to DEP Secretary Noah Valenstein.
The letters characterized the structure as a net camp or net camp replica and the plan called for Guthrie to transfer ownership of the structure to a Cortez nonprofit that would modify the exterior to more closely resemble net camps of old.
In July, Guthrie and Bell said ownership of the structure was transferred to Cortez Core, Bell’s nonprofit, in late May or early June.
Alterations to the exterior wouldn’t be made until the DEP laid out their expectations, Bell said July 22.
However, on the rear deck of the stilt-house, Guthrie erected a roof for shade — a second-story deck in July — although he later removed the staircase and second-story railing.
Guthrie told The Islander Aug. 30 the shade roof could be erected and disassembled quickly. It was upright as of Nov. 5.
In the past, Guthrie, friends and family have used the structure for barbecues and other recreational events.
Members of the Cortez community have said they’ve used the structure for net mending.
Boats frequently can be seen docked there.
Guthrie said Nov. 11 his last visit to the structure was about a week prior.