Letter at issue in dispute over estate

The Busch estate's owner argues there is clear evidence the property long was used chiefly for business, not pleasure.

By AMY WIMMER

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

ST. PETE BEACH -- Decades ago Denny Long, the man who would be president of Anheuser Busch Inc., had just started as an assistant to August Busch III.

The company was hosting a convention in St. Petersburg, and top executives were staying at what the company called "the boat and the bay house," a complex known today as the Busch estate, the property at the center of a Pass-a-Grille zoning controversy.

Long, who spent the night down the road at the Happy Dolphin in St. Pete Beach, was to join company leaders one morning for the drive into St. Petersburg.

"For some silly reason I overslept, got there just in time to see the entourage leaving, and it was such an entourage," Long said this week from his St. Louis office. "I had to turn around and follow them in my dinky little car throughout the entire area, and it was embarrassing for me."

Long, who spent 35 years at Anheuser Busch and also spent much time at the Pass-a-Grille complex, said the anecdote should illustrate that the "boat and the bay house" was more for business than pleasure, though it was a pleasurable place to conduct business. Builder John Da Silva, who worked at the complex as a youngster, has purchased the estate and wants to turn it into a corporate time-share retreat.

Da Silva's proposal has met opposition from Pass-a-Grille residents who resent the business nature of what Da Silva wants to do there. Many voiced that opinion at a City Commission meeting two weeks ago and even brought along their own St. Pete Beach historians to counter Da Silva's claim that the estate was a business-oriented enclave, not a personal retreat, for August Busch Jr.

Da Silva is particularly concerned about what became of a letter Long wrote to the city in February, detailing the property's historic use as a corporate getaway. But when Da Silva went to City Hall last week to request a copy of the letter, it was not filed with the stack of letters from residents who oppose his project.

In fact, Da Silva said, city staff had to seek out the letter in several different files, eventually finding it in a miscellaneous correspondence file. Da Silva believes Long's Feb. 3 letter would have answered the questions of many people who spoke out publicly against him, and he questions why the letter from Long, whom Da Silva believes is the premier authority on Anheuser Busch's history at the complex, was difficult to track down.

City Clerk Theresa McMaster said city staff searched 15-30 minutes for the letter. "What it boiled down to is if we produced it, we produced it," she said.

McMaster said the city clerk's office did not maintain a file on the Da Silva property when the issue first came up because it did not recognize the magnitude of the project. Now the staff is going through various files, collecting information on the Da Silva project to compile one large file.

"That may be just one piece of paper that we didn't get to yet," McMaster said.

Da Silva says Long's valuable recollections should settle the questions about the estate's history.

"All the bantering back and forth are all negated by that letter," Da Silva said. "It was never read. It clears up everything, everything entirely. That it was rented, that it was a business, and names some people who stayed there."

City Manager Carl Schwing said the letter would have done little to defuse Da Silva's opposition. "Last Tuesday would have happened with or without that letter because the issues are forward-looking in terms of concerns about any type of commercial use in a residential area," Schwing said.

Da Silva said he felt attacked at the most recent commission meeting, where residents said Da Silva had embellished the history of the complex to make it sound as if more business than pleasure had occurred there.

He plans to address the commission again on Tuesday, trying to refute some of the statements his opponents made two weeks ago. He believes many of them simply misunderstand what he is trying to do with the Busch estate.

He plans significant remodeling to two buildings and wants to demolish a third. The proposal would require a special exception to allow a small conference center in the residential neighborhood.

Da Silva says he will agree to let the special exception expire in 12 years.

"Everybody can dislike my project. They can even dislike me," Da Silva said. "But if you call me a liar, I'm going to . . . say something."

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