SIESTA KEY -- Six years ago, Bradenton architect Joe King stood outside the 1941 Twitchell Residence on Siesta Key's Big Pass Lane, just feet from the water, looked into a camera, and said, "This is where it all began."

As an expert on the architecture of Ralph Twitchell and Paul Rudolph, who collaborated on the house's design, King was speaking for a documentary on the Sarasota School of architecture.

Now, the house that "started" the Sarasota School likely will be demolished within two months. And the permit is being sought by King, the man who co-wrote "Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses."

King bought the 2,700-square-foot house in April 2005 for $2.65 million with the "dream" of restoring it.

"Part of it was, I've been involved in so many preservation projects as the scholar/architect guy, and I was like, 'Here's one, finally, where you don't have to arm-wrestle with some developer who has a different vision for the property,'" he said.

It hasn't worked out. King said the house has become "the classic money pit." Virtually all of its mechanical systems need to be replaced, not to mention the kitchen and carport that were damaged by a fire in September 2004.

Pointing at cracks in the block walls, King added, "I can't go broke on this."

'A touch of irony'

For the Sarasota Architectural Foundation and the Save Riverview Committee, both of which include King as a member, the demolition could be seen as a public relations problem at a time when the effort to save the Rudolph-designed buildings at Riverview High School is gaining momentum.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently held a design charrette that came up with a $20 million plan to save the buildings, which the Sarasota School Board wants to tear down as part of its new campus plan for Riverview.

The restoration vs. demolition debate continues to divide the community.

"There is a touch of irony there," said Greg Hall, a Sarasota architect and a leader of the Save Riverview group. "For someone who has the professional standing of promoting Paul Rudolph and the Sarasota School of architecture ... I know that he (King) went into it with his eyes wide open and seriousness of intent."

Today King is carrying a "big" mortgage and paying a $31,000 annual property tax bill.

So he will try to sell the property, likely without the house, with a price "in the high threes" -- as in millions.

"There are reasons why the property is not really marketable with the house on it, in its derelict condition," said King, who is also concerned about the availability of insurance in a post-Katrina world.

"I have an unsafe-structure notice from (Sarasota County) Code Enforcement. Truly, the house is on the county's, and FEMA's, severe repetitive-loss list because it has flooded several times."

The property is in the "V"-zone (as in velocity), at greatest risk of storm surge, and the floor is just 5.5 feet above sea level.

"If someone would like to restore it," said King, "and doesn't mind the fact that water comes through it every few years, then have at it. But we're already in a fairly rarified market here; who's that gonna be?"

Regardless, King is hopeful that someone might step forward to purchase it and tackle the cost of restoration, which was estimated at $500,000 by restoration contractor Pat Ball two years ago.

"It could cost $700,000 or $800,000 now," said Ball. "The house needs everything."

White knight?

Lorrie Muldowney, the historic preservation specialist at the Sarasota County History center, must sign off on demolition permits for historic structures. She says she took a "big gulp" when the application came across her desk.

But she says "there's a big difference" between Riverview and the Twitchell demolition.

"Never has the structural integrity of Riverview been put into question," said Muldowney. "The big difference with Joe's situation is that it (the house) is structurally unsound. The block is deteriorated. The basic structure, even beyond having to be rewired, is deteriorated. That probably speaks to the fact of its location, and that it's older. Ocala block is a durable material, but that exposure to sand and sea, lo, these many years, has taken a toll."

Said Les Fishman, president of the Sarasota Architectural Foundation, "I guess you could say Joe has gotten realistic. You can't save all these buildings," much as his organization would like to try.

Hall, of the Save Riverview group, said the same.

"Not every building can be saved, and even the 'white knights' sometimes come up against things, odds they can't overcome. That might be the case here. I wish the course of action ... would he be able to try to find someone else with the means to save it?"

As for a "white knight" stepping up, King has been there and done that.

Two years ago, at the height of the recent real estate boom, King was a man with a dream to save an iconic structure at a time when "people were not lined up knocking down the door, trying to buy that house," he recalled.

Standing at the door with him was Martie Lieberman, a co-founder of the Sarasota Architectural Foundation and a Realtor. She said she conceded $25,000 of her commission -- "I was happy to do it," she said -- to facilitate the sale and restoration.

"I'm deeply disappointed," she said this week. "This building in particular, the fact that the author, the scholar on the subject of Paul Rudolph, is the one who is choosing to tear down the building ... it makes me very sad."

Mitigating the loss

If the historically designated building has to come down, King prefers to be the one to save what can be salvaged of the design. The demolition permit is contingent on "mitigation" of the cultural and historical loss that would result from tearing down the house.

"I would rather that I be the one to do the mitigating for the loss," said King. "From the point of view of scholarship, I would rather be the one to have the photography done, do the measured drawings of the house, and to do the physical disassembly of it, store it and to provide it to Sarasota County (for possible use in a museum). I feel comfortable doing that."

Like many other Sarasota School houses on open waterfront that have been torn down (and that would be almost all of them), the value of the house is a fraction of the land value -- about 6 percent of the $2.4 million "market value" set by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser's office.

For years, King and others have fought to preserve the aging houses of the midcentury modern architecture now known as "Sarasota School."

A composition of openness

The house is the first one featured in his Rudolph book, which was co-written with Christopher Domin. Calling it "the first project with Paul Rudolph's participation," the essay goes on to say, "The Twitchell Residence, a composition of openness and horizontality, is nestled into the subtropical scrub forest of Siesta Key, with views of the Gulf of Mexico. ... The sandlike color and subtle texture of the lime block, the natural color of the cypress, and the transparency and reflection of the glass all contribute to make the house an integral part of the Florida landscape."

"It's very, very important," said Muldowney, the county's historic preservation expert, "which is what drew Joe to it. He went through the whole process. The preservation board approved and reviewed his rehab plans for the building.

"Joe did months and months, perhaps a year of investigation," she added. "He let me know a couple months ago that it was in much worse shape than he had realized at the time he purchased it. Also, it had had these repetitive losses under the FEMA law."

For Lieberman, the reasons for tearing down the house sound hollow.

"He knew all these things when he bought it -- every inch of that property and how much it would cost to do it and what he could build on and what he couldn't," she said. "Those arguments are surprising to me."

King has never spent a night in the Twitchell house, though he enjoys eating lunch on a lawn chair in the empty great room, with its view ("I don't know how much those lunches have cost me," he says with a laugh).

King admits to waking up in the middle of the night at his Bradenton home, thinking of options -- a county park, perhaps -- for the property. But nothing has worked out.

"I guess that is part of the legacy of Twitchell," he said. "If what you do is build things or design things, you have to be optimistic if you are trying to do something that hasn't been done before. You always have to try to think of possibilities.

"Yeah, I was probably a dreamer."

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