- Crews demolished the historic Gladstone House in downtown Tallahassee on Monday.
- The Florida Division of Management Services says the FDLE believed the home posed security issues.
- Lead and traces of asbestos were also flagged for reasons the home was not saved.
- Watch now to see what parts of the home will be sent to the Tallahassee Museum for preservation.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
If you drive down N. Monroe St. just past the Capitol Building, you may notice a piece of Tallahassee history now looks like this.
I'm Alberto Camargo in the downtown Tallahassee neighborhood.
This used to be where the Gladstone House stood. I spoke with neighbors. They say the home is a piece of Tallahassee that won't ever be brought back, but they are making an effort to keep it alive in a different way.
The Florida Division of Management Services made the call to tear the building down.
The DMS has gone on record saying it takes historical preservation seriously, but the home was a safety risk due to lead paint and traces of asbestos.
One neighbor watching the final moments of the home has ties going back to its very beginning.
"This house was built sometime between 1895 and 1897 by my second great grand uncle."
Doug Smith says his family moved out of the home in the 1920s.
The home later became a boarding house during World War II.
As a former president of the Tallahassee Historical Society, Doug knows the value of saving even the smallest bit of history.
"We're preserving a piece of the house. The house is not here and it's going to be an empty lot. But at least we got something out of it and something the public can see."
That something: four stained-glass windows. Doug says the state donated them to the Historical Society. Now the society will donate the windows to the Tallahassee Museum in Southwest Tallahassee.
Doug says it's the one positive takeaway from losing a piece of history.
“It’s kind of like a death in the family, you grieve and then you go on.”
The Tallahassee Museum says the windows were taken in for preservation purposes. That means the windows won't go on display just yet.
In downtown Tallahassee, Alberto Camargo, ABC27.
