Tequesta : Number - 50/1990 - FIU Digital Collections

10 TEQUESTA
As a result, we have the Homestead Air Force Base rather than a
Chapman Field Air Force Base.
Drafted into the military service in 1943, I wound up with the Marine
Corps at Okinawa. From there I wrote to Colonel Montgomery and
asked him if he would sell my wife and me an acre of land after the war,
as he had sold an acre to an acquaintance who planned to plant a grove.
He replied immediately that he would but added that since the property
had not been subdivided, five acres was the smallest unit he and Nell
could sell us.
Upon returning to Miami after the war, we were unable to see our
way clear to buy and develop five acres of rural land in that area, so we
waited a couple of years to take up the Colonel's offer. Although land
prices had risen a bit in the meantime, he not only charged us the original
price he had fixed but selected for us a piece of property facing
Montgomery Drive that he considered the most attractive five acres he
owned outside his estate.
Although we owned a beautiful piece of property, we lacked funds
to begin building immediately. That, however, did not prevent us from
making plans. First, we had to choose a site for our house, then draw
a plan or find a plan that would fit aesthetically. We tried several sites
and drew a multitude of floor plans and elevations, getting our ideas
from magazines and books as well as from developers' models. While
many of these plans might have been suitable for a city lot, all were
inappropriate for five acres of woodland. Furthermore, there was the
problem of cost. We had to think about the type and size of house we
could afford. Most of our plans, as I recall, would have cost more to
build than we could have hoped to pay for out of my low salary.
Frustrated after exhausting our ideas and our energy, we decided to
rest for awhile. We felt no hurry. Before we could build we had to pay
for the land. The Korean War began, followed by spiraling inflation.
You heard predictions that the value of homes would go up by one-third
within a year. Fearing we might have to wait for years to build if we
failed to do so soon, we went into a flurry of activity.
In the meantime I had drawn a rough map of the property, showing
the approximate differences in elevations and indicating the various
plant communities, particularly the larger pines and the major groups of
saw palmettos. In the southeast fifth of the property was an acre-sized
swale whose lowest part, according to the U. S. Geological Survey, was
four feet above sea level. Along the north, northwest and west borders
of the swale, elevations rose gradually to 10 and 13 feet, the highest area