Old Florida and the Alligators of Old Cutler Road

I can’t believe that, as a kid, I used to swim in the canals of South Florida. We didn’t even think about it. We used to go “jump off the bridge” on our bikes into the large canal that bisected Old Cutler Road near the old Deering Estate.

Once, Mare Taccolini and I snuck into the 444-acre Deering Estate (southernmost property of the farm equipment magnates, now a museum, purchased by the State of Florida in the 1980s).

It was down its own shady private road off Old Cutler, hidden behind huge antebellum trees dripping with Spanish Moss. We climbed over the high wall that ringed the vast landscaped gardens, wild areas and woods of the ocean-front estate. Dogs surrounded us almost immediately, barking loudly but kept in check by the grounds-manager, who arrived hard on their heels in his pick-up truck. He called them off and into the back of the truck, then asked us if we would like a tour of the grounds, providing we would agree not to break in and trespass there again. We answered yes, of course; the high-walled heavily wooded estate had always looked so intriguingly mysterious and exotic to our adolescent eyes, and this represented a prime adventure and mystery-solving opportunity. He loaded us into the front seat, and drove us all around the estate.

There was a long stately avenue of incredibly tall, majestic Royal Palms to the seaward entrance to the old mansion, with an incredibly old Black man, bent over, tending them. Our friendly guide told us that the elderly gardener had planted those palms, and had always tended them. He was almost a hundred years old. He had been born a slave to the Deering family, been emancipated, then stayed on as a well paid landscaper to take care of his beautiful gardens. The old gardener was spending his retirement years on the estate along with a host of aged Deerings who needed assisted living or nursing home care. Essentially, it was the family’s extremely luxurious family retirement mansion and grounds.

After a thorough tour of the property, we were let out of the front gate by our kindly guide, where we hopped back on our bikes and rode home, curiosity sated for the time being.