VERO BEACH — For a sport that involves facing backward while moving forward, the Indian River Rowing Club hasn’t looked back since a Vero Beach City Council vote shot down the club’s plans to build a boathouse near the Barber Bridge.
Immediately after that March vote, a donor stepped up with the group’s first major donation – $30,000. And word came from another organization that a centrally located site on the lagoon may soon become available.
“It’s tied up in some legality at the moment, but one door is shut and another might be opening. That’s good news,” said Shotsi Lajoie, the club’s building committee chairman.
The club had been in talks with the city informally for two years and Lajoie said she had found officials to be generally supportive of leasing the club an acre of MacWilliam Park, to the north and east of the Barber Bridge. The park is zoned for marina use.
“I really thought we had this in the bag,” said Lajoie.
But more than 100 people showed up to protest the idea, and presented a petition with 600 signatures. Their concerns were mostly over traffic congestion and infringement on a 7-acre area currently used by dog owners who let their pets play off the leash.
“It was a nightmare,” said Lajoie. “People thought we were trying to use city money for a private club. This is a non-profit. We’re just volunteers bringing this gift to the community. We weren’t called liars, but that’s how we felt. I went home a little shell-shocked.”
Despite optimism that the boathouse may soon find a home convenient to beachside rowers, the club has decided not to hold this year’s National Learn to Row Day demonstration at MacWilliam Park, as it has for the past two years. Instead, it will be held at the C-54 Canal in Fellsmere, the site of the boathouse they currently share with the Sebastian River High School rowing team. The event is a week from Saturday.
Rowing clubs typically are formed as umbrella organizations that raise money and build boathouses for other groups to use. In the case of Indian River Rowing Club, its boathouse would hold not only the boats of the masters’ rowing team, but the boats of middle school and high school teams, as well as visiting rowing teams that come to Vero over school breaks to train.
Dr. John Kastendiek, a recently retired dentist from Sheboygan, Wisc., who winters in Vero, gave the money unconditionally.
“They can use it however they see fit,” he says. Another account for money specifically to build the boathouse has been opened at Indian River Community Foundation.
The rowing club’s brochure got to Kastendiek long before the petition circulated by opponents of the boathouse.
Two years ago, club president Betsy Nolan was driving around Central Beach passing out information in hopes of recruiting new rowers.
“She saw me sitting out front reading,” recalled Kastendiek.
The 68-year-old Chicago native is an avid cross-country skier, cyclist and canoeist; tall with an athletic build, he jokes that Nolan targeted him as a potential strong rower.
“She parked and got out of the car and let me know about the rowing demonstration in the park the following Sunday.”
Kastendiek had never tried rowing until the Vero club approached him, though he watched the event at the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
He and his wife, Lindy, have been coming seasonally since 1989, buying a house in 2007. This year their stay was from October through May.
He rowed with the club five times this spring at the C-54 Canal.
Along with the exercise, rowing has a neighborly appeal, he says. On his street alone, there are four in the club, including Lajoie.
“They are extremely welcoming,” he said.
While he had seen Lajoie, a psychotherapist and an artist in Tiger Lily Studios and Gallery, hauling her boat down the street to the river, it was her televised appearance before the City Council that caught his attention.
“I was so impressed,” he said. “I can’t praise Shotsi enough. She puts in lots and lots of hours and I thought I could do a little something to get them going.”
“Vero Beach has a lot of great things, but nothing like that,” he said. “I always envisioned it would be so neat to have a four- or eight-man racing shell going underneath the bridges here.”
The free National Learn to Row Day demonstration is June 2 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The C-54 canal is just north of downtown Fellsmere. For more information including directions to the site, visit the club’s website at www.IndianRiverRowingClub.com, or call (772) 231-9794.
In addition, two extended workshops will take place this summer: June 4 – 16 on Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8:30 a.m.; and July 9 – 21, Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8:30 a.m.
The cost is $120 per program.
Registration is open to the first 16 participants ages 18 and up.
For more information, call Trina Smith at (772) 473-9514.
