Historic Winter Garden home suffers damage from nearby drainage issue

WINTER GARDEN  When Christine Burchett Butler and her husband, Austin, talk about the history of their 116-year-old home in Winter Garden, their eyes light up with excitement.

But when they have to talk about the damage they have watched it take on the past couple of years, Christine’s eyes fill up with tears.

The original hardwood floors in the 1901 frame-vernacular home, which once had been restored to their original honey-glazed coloring, are slowly turning various shades of black and white. In front of the fireplace, sheets of plywood cover an area that turned spongy enough to step right through the wood floors. 

And those are just a few of the damages they have experienced in the last couple of years.

When the Butlers bought their house on Tildenville School Road — right next to Meadow Marsh, which once belonged to Luther F. Tilden — in 2014, it had been renovated with some modern touches but retained much of its historic charm and condition.

The house once was surrounded by wooded areas and vegetation to the south and west of the property, which eventually was cleared for development of the nearby Oakland Park community. 

“But when they clear-cut the land, it seems like they forgot to install drainage or anything, because within a few months of living here, we experienced extensive flooding onto the property.”

WHAT HAPPENED?

There were no previous issues with water runoff, but suddenly the Butlers’ gravel driveway washed away because of the flooding, Christine Butler said. Any time they had an inch of rainfall, they could expect up to 3,000 cubic feet of water on the property.

After speaking to Oakland Park’s project manager about the flooding, the Butlers were told it would get fixed. But as some time passed, the Butlers said, their neighbor reached out and asked if they were having flooding issues. The neighbor and his attorney wrote a letter to Oakland Park and developer Crescent Communities stating concerns of drainage and asking what could be done to resolve it. 

Shortly thereafter, the Butlers met with the city of Winter Garden to discuss the issue. After a site visit from city representatives, during which both properties and drainage were examined, the Butlers said the city was able to put a stop-sale on nearby Oakland Park homes until the drainage was fixed.

After the developer built the swales on both the south and west boundaries and installed drainage, the couple noticed the excessive water runoff was no longer an issue. Now, it’s a matter of attempting to recover damages.

“After the swale was dug and runoff stopped, we started trying to contact the developer and got engineers coming out to get reports for how much damage was there,” Austin said.

Crescent maintains the project was engineered properly.

“This phase was built according to the engineered plans that were approved by the city of Winter Garden,” said Thom Cunningham, vice president of Crescent Communities. “Oakland Park continues to be developed in accordance with Crescent’s core principles, including a focus on sustainability and stewardship of the land within the community and the surrounding areas.”

STANDSTILL

Christine said they got mold testing done and a general diagnosis of the state of the floors, among other examinations. Although the true extent of the damage is not yet known, preliminary observations show the floors were damaged completely and some foundation piers had shifted, among other types of structural mending needed. This includes — but is not limited to — lifting the house, replacing the floors and removing everything from the property. Additionally, the Butlers will have to relocate for the extent of the restoration.

“Everyone (who) came out and looked told us the real danger comes in when it starts to dry out, because that’s when the rotting starts,” Austin said. “That’s when the boards start turning white and black, because the saturation is gone and it’s rotting.”

One day, Christine noticed the floor felt soft. As she gently pushed some of the boards with her thumb, she said, it was so spongy her thumbnail was going through it. 

“I called him sobbing, and I didn’t feel safe in my own house,” she said. “These boards can’t be salvaged. We were hopeful when we were talking to the restorationist, and he said absolutely not. There was a point where we wanted to take a couple of pieces and make a frame or something, but they’re so rotted now, we can’t do it.

“We have all the pictures from when the house got listed online, we have pictures of baby Daisy (our dog) and you can see in that amount of time things are starting to change,” Christine said. “There’s a picture of (Daisy) sitting on the floor where my foot went through, and it was perfect.”

Now, the couple said, they just want someone to take responsibility and help fix their home. 

“We’re not trying to get rich off a big development or anything; we just want to live in our house the way it was when we bought it,” Austin said. “We’re really fortunate to have been able to be talking to people who understand. It went from us having a problem and trying to have a conversation, to us trying to get help from (the developer), to getting the city to resolve it.”

“It’s special here,” Christine said. “It’s our little homestead.”

Contact Danielle Hendrix at [email protected].