People driving east on 20th Street – Route 60 – this winter likely have noticed work underway on a big, dilapidated frame house at 9th Avenue, a few blocks west of U.S. 1.
The bulky two-story building and a smaller house that sits behind it are not architecturally distinguished, but they have an undeniable charm, even in disrepair, and an amazing history.
Known to many as the Gifford House, the main residence is the oldest house in Vero Beach, built by Henry Gifford on his 160-acre homestead in 1887, more than 30 years before the city was founded. According to County Historian Ruth Stanbridge, Gifford’s wife, Sarah, a student of Italian and Latin, gave the area its name – Vero – Latin for “in truth” or “speak truth.”
Over the years, the building served as the area’s first post office, established in 1891, the first general store and as a railroad ticket office.
Current owner Hala Madi-Shalhoub bought the .35-acre property for $119,000 in late 2016 and is now fixing up the historic buildings with plans to move her family into the main house. Longer term, she hopes to open a bed and breakfast.
Plans call for new metal roofs on the buildings, repairing and replacing the siding, and repairing the windows and doors. Workers are also adding a porch to the smaller house, in keeping with its original look, and reinforcing the foundation, tying the house to concrete pads.
The renovation is being done by Christopher Dales, owner of Coast to Coast Builders of Florida.
Madi-Shalhoub tasked Dales with salvaging as much as possible of the historic home and using similar materials and style for things that must be replaced.
“This is a very personal project for me,” said Madi-Shalhoub, who found the house when she and her daughter, Mayssa-Rae, were scouting old homes in the area – looking for something they could renovate and breathe new life into.
When they zeroed in on the Gifford House, they didn’t know anything about the history of the building, but they knew it was the project for them. “When I saw the look on my daughter’s face – that was it,” Madi-Shalhoub said.
The family bought the property in a heartbeat – and then it sat for a year while they figured out what they were going to do with it.
“All I knew was, I’m going to save it,” Madi-Shalhoub said, even after walking inside to find an absolute mess. The interior was in ruins with bathroom floors rotted and eaten away by moisture.
A large bee colony discovered in the smaller house was relocated to Fellsmere. The family retrieved five gallons of honey, which has been stored in numerous mason jars. “It’s delicious!” Madi-Shalhoub said.
“There’s so much charm, but so much disaster,” she said of the property.
Estimates to fix up the homes up completely were “astronomical” and beyond the family’s means, so they’ve opted to harden the buildings – make them air and water tight so they can be insured – to start.
“At least it won’t fall apart,” Madi-Shalhoub said.
The main house is approximately 1,736 square feet, not counting the 220-square-foot open porch. The smaller house is about 864 square feet. Both buildings are two stories, though the main house has a spacious attic with enough headroom that it could be finished as a third level.
“The outside is coming along,” Madi-Shalhoub said, noting that the exterior is her primary focus for now. Colors and other details are still being determined but the main house will not be white as it currently is.
“I have all these ideas – I don’t know [exactly what the finished design will look like],” she said.
She would like to open a bed and breakfast at some point, but zoning could be a problem.
Vero Beach Planning and Development Director Jason Jeffries said the property’s underlying land use designation is mixed-use. It is zoned Professional Office and Institutional. Single-family dwellings are permitted but a lodging establishment is not.
Jeffries said getting the site rezoned would be a several-month process, requiring an application to the city’s planning department. The applicant would need to submit a site plan supporting a change of use. Bed and Breakfast is categorized as a “guest/transient use.” And, the site plan would need to show a parking lot and landscaping and other such site improvements.
The process would include public hearings before the Planning and Development Department as well as City Council.
Madi-Shalhoub said she’s not concerned – yet – about the property’s zoning. She said it’s possible the zoning could be changed with time and the “right crusade.”
In the meantime, she’s planning on moving her family to the Gifford house and using the smaller house for guests when the buildings are fully renovated. She hopes the smaller house will be stabilized by summer. The larger house isn’t in as bad a shape and could be done sooner.
After learning the history of the property from Stanbridge, Madi-Shalhoub decided she wants to pay homage to the Giffords once the houses are restored. The entryway of the main house has the feel of a hotel lobby, she said, flanked with two walls. She wants one wall to have memorabilia pertaining to the Gifford family. The other wall would represent her family.
“This is going to be a legacy,” her son told her. “It’s priceless.”
Stanbridge said the Gifford house once stood where the 2001 building stands today and was relocated less than 1,000 feet within the homestead – which extended from where the East Coast Florida Railroad tracks are today to the lagoon – to make way for construction of what is now called the “Twin Pairs” of 20th Street, where Route 60 splits into separate east-bound and west-bound roadways. The house and homestead pre-date the railroad.
The house survived re-location and has weathered every tropical storm that blew in during the past 130 years, including the hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, and now is getting a new lease on life, a continuation of its long story.
“These old houses are so tough,” Standbridge said.
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