Seagate, also known as the Bay Club, is located along Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, Florida, and was the former winter estate of Powel Crosley Jr., a noted Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist and entrepreneur. Crosley had the , Mediterranean Revival-style home built in 1929 for his wife, Gwendolyn, on of land along Sarasota Bay that was platted in 1925 for a failed subdivision. New York architect George Albree Freeman Jr. designed the home; Ivo A. de Minicis, a Tampa, Florida, architect, drafted the plans; and Paul W. Bergmann, a Sarasota contractor, reportedly built the -story, cast-stone-and-stucco home in 135 days. Gwendolyn Crosley died at Seagate in 1939. After allowing the Army Air Corps to use the home for airmen who were training at a nearby airbase during World War II, Crosley sold the property in 1947. Freeman Horton and his wife, Mabel, bought it the following year. (Freeman Horton was a civil engineer who proposed the construction of the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay.) The Horton family lived on the estate from 1948 to 1977. The Campeau Corporation of America acquired the property in the early 1980s, intending to develop it into condominium units and use the residence serving as the development's clubhouse, but its plans failed. The Crosley home and of adjacent property were formally added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1983.
Friends of Seagate Inc., a local, nonprofit preservation group led efforts to preserve the historic property and its remaining undeveloped land in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Manatee County, Florida, government purchased acquired the home and of the property in 1991 for $1.6 million; the University of South Florida purchased the estate's remaining for $2 million for future expansion. The present-day Crosley home and of land are operated as an event rental property. The university's tract of land that was part of the former Seagate estate, included in the national register nomination, is the present-day site of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus.
History
Property location
Archaeological studies made at the site in late 1980s/early 1990s suggest that the Calusa inhabited the area during the archaic period. Nearby fresh water access is documented in early plats that may have been constant, since adjacent middens attest to a long period of occupation. Allan Horton, a longtime resident of Manatee County and a former resident of the Seagate estate, described a distinctive structure on the property as a compacted, raised earthen platform that was elevated evenly at to , with a perfectly circular diameter of . The structure reportedly resembled the ancient dancing or ceremonial platform that archaeologists had discovered elsewhere in the state. An entrance sign for a drive-in theater, the landmark that Horton used to locate the structure, was demolished on an adjacent parcel, making the potentially ancient structure's location difficult to find. Also, a path for electrical service poles that traversed the area had disturbed an area with mounds nearby, possibly destroying the structure in the process.
The site of the Seagate property was once part of Hillsborough County, Florida, which was established in 1834, following the United States' acquisition of the Florida territory from Spain in 1821. Seagate's location is also associated with Sarasota, Florida, because of its location south of Bowlees Creek, the natural land transportation barrier. Seagate bears a property address and a postal designation of Sarasota; however, when Hillsborough County was subdivided to establish additional counties, governmental oversight for the area went to Manatee County, Florida, which was subsequently subdivided to create more counties, including Sarasota County, Florida, in 1921. The arbitrary line chosen to delineate Manatee County from Sarasota County was drawn at the southern boundary of Seagate and everything to the north remained within Manatee County. Sarasota addresses remain from that line to the creek.
Development in 1929
In 1929 a wealthy industrialist named Powel Crosley Jr. purchased a parcel of bay-front property and had a built a winter retreat along Sarasota Bay for his wife, Gwendolyn B. (Arden) Crosley. The property was the site of a proposed subdivision platted in 1925, but it failed to be developed during the Great Depression. Sea Gate, the subdivision's name was contracted to Seagate over the years, including the name of Seagate Drive, the estate's original driveway, which leads to the Crosley home.