Celebrating Ocoee's Centennial: 1975-85

In partnership with the city of Ocoee, the Observer is publishing a 10-week series examining each decade of the city’s history. 

The beautiful and magnificent home on Bluford Avenue — later named the Withers-Maguire House for the first two families to live there — has stood near the western shores of Ocoee’s Starke Lake since it was built by William Temple Withers in 1888.

Withers, a retired Civil War general and Kentucky horse breeder, moved to the warmer climes of Central Florida at the advice of his doctor.

Today, it remains one of Orange County’s oldest homes. It still stands at the intersection of Oakland and North Bluford avenues and has been owned by the city of Ocoee since 1983. In 1987, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

AN INNOVATIVE HOME

Withers first visited the Ocoee area in 1884 and purchased 110 acres of the new Ocoee settlement from Capt. Bluford Sims in 1887. A portion of this purchase included the lot on which the Withers-Maguire House was constructed in 1888. The house is of a Stick Victorian architectural style — reminiscent of his Kentucky home — built with Florida heart pine milled on the property and an inviting wrap-around porch. The construction cost of $3,700 included the home plus a boathouse on the nearby lake and bathing tank. The house featured several innovations for its time, such as electrical wiring enclosed in the walls and closets in the bedrooms.

Withers enjoyed his new home for just one year after he and his wife, Martha, and 10 children moved in; he died in 1889 at the age of 64. His wife and family returned to Kentucky and made only occasional visits to the Ocoee property over the next several years.

It sat empty until David Oscar Maguire — a prominent member of the area’s citrus and vegetable industries whose Ocoee home was destroyed by fire — purchased it with most of its furnishings from Withers’ widow in 1910 for his wife, Maggie, and their five children. The purchase price of $5,000 included nine acres of land. Three years later, he died at the age of 63 and his son, Fred Maguire — who later became the city’s first mayor and early bank president — returned home from college and lived with his mother until 1923.

He began renovating the house, adding an attached kitchen to the north end of the house on the bottom floor, as well as rental rooms upstairs to provide a source of income for his mother. Several of the teachers from the Ocoee School lived there as boarders.

The home was in the Maguire family for 72 years, handed down through the generations, and several lived there until their deaths.

After years of declining health, Maggie Maguire died in 1943. She and David are buried in the Ocoee Cemetery.

Fred’s son, Harold, and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, occupied an apartment upstairs for six years starting in 1947.

Maggie Maguire’s youngest daughter, Lillian Maguire, moved into the home when she retired from teaching in 1952. Lillian, who never married or had children, lived there until her death in 1979 at the age of 85.

Before her death, Lillian Maguire sold portions of the family property to the city of Ocoee, which built a City Hall complex, community center and Bill Breeze Park on the land.

When Lillian died, the house was given to Harold and Elizabeth Maguire.

A NEW PURPOSE

Harold and Elizabeth Maguire sold it in 1982 to Ademar Enterprises Inc., for commercial development. The condition of the structure prohibited this, and the city of Ocoee purchased the property two years later with the intent of restoration. 

The structure was in a seriously deteriorated condition, so the city stabilized the building and replaced the roof. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, which made it eligible for grants to help fund restoration efforts. City of Ocoee funds and state historic preservation grants made the work possible. Extensive structural renovation followed by interior restoration occurred from 1992 to 1994, with plans to use the house as a public meeting facility.

THE REVEAL

Ocoee’s planned use was delayed when, in 1995, the city allowed the Ocoee Historical Commission to operate the home as a museum. It was depicted as it was used by the Maguire family.

In 1996, the Ocoee Historical Commission held a “Progress and Preview” open house so the community could see the results of several years of fundraising and city support.

The period dining room — furnished in the Empire-Revival style of the late 1800s — honored Nancy Houston Dabbs, wife of former Ocoee Mayor Lester Dabbs. Dabbs, his children and Dewey Houston donated the furniture.

The parlor was authentically furnished with some original pieces returned to the house by real-estate agent Suzi Karr. The master bedroom was decorated with original furniture courtesy of Elizabeth and Harold Maguire. One bedroom was named in honor of Lillian Maguire, the home’s last occupant.

Nancy Maguire, the great-granddaughter of David and Maggie Maguire, served as the museum’s curator until her death in 2009. As the president of the Ocoee Historical Commission for four years, she was instrumental in coordinating the article on the Withers-Maguire House that appears in the national publication of Great Houses of Florida that was published in 2008.

The historical group continued the tours until 2011.

TODAY

The infrastructure of the house is solid, and the rooms remain set up much like the original home — 137 years later.

Fireplaces with ornately carved mantels are in many of the rooms. The tall baseboards, doors, doorjambs and the staircase banister were built from the Florida heart pine trees that stood on the grounds.

The southwest upstairs bedroom is filled with Lillian Maguire’s belongings and other pieces typical of that era: her headboard and footboard, her secretary and dresser, her golf clubs, a sewing machine, bed cover, rocking chair, crocheted blanket, black-and-white photographs, hat boxes, atomizers and jewelry.

The parlor features elegant lamps and seating, lace tablecloths, photographs, an old photo scrapbook and a stereoscope photo viewer.

Two bedrooms have been renovated into preparation rooms for brides and grooms getting married on the property or at the nearby gazebo.

(Some photos and information are courtesy of the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation and Nancy Maguire's book, "A History of Ocoee & its Pioneers.")