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A House Surrounded

As the city spars with deep-pocketed developers, will a vertical horizon obscure the historic Stranahan House?

A A A Comments By Jeff Stratton Thursday, Feb 7 2002

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Sherri Cohen

The Riverside Hotel addition (right) blocks the morning sun from the Stranahan House

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"This is the fun part of the tour," Tonking announces to the group, opening the tall, narrow French doors to the porch outside of Ivy's bedroom. The oak tree's rotund base splits off into five thick, sprawling branches, each festooned with dangling air plants. Across the river, northbound traffic rises momentarily on Federal Highway before plunging into the tunnel underneath the river. Opposite Ivy's window is the huge ventilation shaft for the tunnel, and traffic noise whooshes out of its speaker-like enclosure. Everyone's neck cranes to follow the huge parking garage rising across the street. "We're not too happy about the Riverside," Tonking says as she leads the group to the balcony's west face, "but we can't do anything about that."

Across the roof of the Hyde Park Market looms a brand-new office building on Las Olas and an even taller bank going up behind it. Two red construction cranes ascend above them, dwarfing a tall royal palm tree -- a wedding gift to the Stranahans -- that sits in the garden just two feet from the wall of the market. Underneath the tree is a carpet of philodendrons, ferns, and mothers-in-law tongues, as well as tangling vines that coat the protective wall of the grocery store. How the demolition of the market could take place without removing this foliage isn't answered by staring.