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Parting ways -- and parting shots
By By DAN DeWITT
© St. Petersburg Times, BROOKSVILLE -- When Eddie Money walked into the music room of the Chinsegut Manor House, he began -- as he does in every room -- to tell the story behind it. Margaret Robins had a grand piano, but not enough space in the dining room to accommodate it, Money said. When her husband, Col. Raymond Robins, left for an extended evangelical crusade in Australia, she had a wide door cut between the dining room and a side porch, then had the porch enclosed by an exterior wall. "Col. Robins came back from Australia and he said, 'What happened to my veranda?' And she said, 'Well, it's my music room now,"' said Money, 59, who is retiring after working as an employee at Chinsegut Hill for 10 years. The Robinses, wealthy Hernando County residents who owned the house for several decades, "had a really strong marriage," Money said. "But they also had a lot of knockdown, drag-out fights, and they had a knockdown, drag-out fight over this room." As he prepares to retire, Money said he wants to be equally honest about the more recent history of the Manor House, including his sharp objections to the way it is being run. The University of South Florida operates the house and the grounds around it, north of Brooksville, as the Chinsegut Hill Conference Center. It is included in a category with several of the school's other properties, among them parking lots and bookstores, that are designed to pay for themselves. USF officials say they have built modern cabins and made other changes because Chinsegut needs to compete for customers with similar facilities around the state. "What Eddie does not understand is that our only income is from renting cabins and the Manor House," said Richard Mason, the current manager of the facility. "Eddie doesn't understand how the university operates." Money contends that USF has spent too much on the cabins -- and plans to spend even more on other improvements -- while neglecting the Manor House, the second-oldest building in Hernando County and one of the most historically significant in the state. "In the last 40 years USF has really desecrated the house. They've let it deteriorate to the point where it can't be restored, and they've changed it to the point where it's not worth restoring," Money said. "They want to turn it into a mini-Disney World. ... They don't know history, and they don't appreciate history. To them, this is just another piece of real estate that can be exploited." Along with continuing health problems, this difference of philosophy is the main reason Money says he is retiring -- a step his bosses have encouraged. "I'm disappointed. I feel like I've wasted 10 years of my life here," Money said. Even the administrators who have suggested that it is time for Money to leave acknowledge he knows a great deal about the history of Chinsegut Hill. The only person who knows more, possibly, is Lisa von Borowsky, the former gardener at Chinsegut and a close friend of the Robinses, who helped found the county's public library and pumped money into one of Hernando's banks during the Depression. She is 97 years old and in failing health. "Eddie has certainly devoted his life, at least the last 10 years of it, to the facility up there. He became friends with Lisa and has had an opportunity to absorb her knowledge and her love for the place," said Dick Wingard, an auxiliary services coordinator for USF. Soon after Money came to Chinsegut Hill as its manager in 1991, he said, he met von Borowsky as she wandered the grounds one Sunday morning. "That's how she worshiped. She liked to commune with the trees," Money said. She began telling him stories and later gave him photographs, documents and artifacts. Money, who has a master's degree in history from Florida Atlantic University, originally planned to use the material to write a book about the Robinses. Though he has now given up on the idea, mostly because he thinks they were relatively minor figures, he says he is still in a better position than his superiors to talk about the couple's wishes for their property. Raymond Robins talked about donating his home for educational purposes for decades, beginning in 1928, when he broached the idea to his friend President Herbert Hoover, Money said. USF eventually gained control of it in 1960 and began using it as an educational retreat. Gradually its use has evolved. The university now rents it out for community meetings, corporate get-aways and weddings. None of the uses, Money said, have much to do with education. "One of the things the Robinses stressed, they wanted to preserve the house for the children of Hernando County. They wanted them to be able to see how people lived in the 19th century," Money said. Walking through the house, Money pointed to ways the university has failed to maintain the house: Azalea bushes are choked with potato vines, and the plaster walls in the main stairwell are crumbling. The university is also guilty of historically insensitive scrimping, he said. Vinyl siding covers a section of a wall in the rear of the house. The peak of the roof runs straight across the entire length of the house, after the university removed a widow's walk and a ventilation system that the Robinses had installed. The original floors, which had been damaged by termites, were made of heart pine. They have recently been covered with synthetic hardwood flooring. "They just glued this stuff over it," he said. "It looks really tacky." Mason, who has managed the property for the past two years, said most of the changes are temporary. Putting up the vinyl siding was a way to prevent further damage with a relatively small investment. The synthetic flooring is intended as a short-term fix to allow groups to use the house. "I'd be glad to restore the floors if Eddie can come up with the money," Mason said. The university sank about $500,000 into the Manor House in the mid 1990s, he said, and that work essentially saved it from falling down. The roof was replaced, the porches rebuilt, and steel and wood girders were installed to shore up the house's foundation and internal structure. It has spent about $50,000 annually on renovations in the past two years, and has taken care to make sure the work is true to the history of the house, he said. The painters chipped down the paint in the first-floor rooms to find the original color, and then matched it in the new paint. The seven new cabins built on the west side of the house in the past five years were expensive, costing about $100,000 each, but necessary because they replaced uninviting 20-year-old double-wide mobile homes, Wingard said. For the same general reason, USF is working on plans to add to the dining hall, install restrooms and possibly build facilities for horseback riding. "The university is in a position where we need to generate funds from sales. We had to upgrade to support an educational facility," he aid. "We have a nice place up there, but what would we use it for if no one could stay here? We've had to accommodate preservation of the facility and make it a usable facility for educational purposes." In one way it is clearly serving a more vital educational role than it once did, Mason said. He removed the "no trespassing" signs that once greeted visitors as they started up the hill. The public -- and especially the school groups Money speaks of -- are now welcome to walk the nature trails or tour the house. What may be lost is the lessons that could be taught by a carefully restored house itself, said Money, who has bought a house in Brooksville and hopes to continue his education at Florida State University. The room just to the left of the front hallway at the Manor House, Money said, is a good example. In the 19th century, in the days before sophisticated anesthetics, it was used as a dental office. In 1954, Raymond Robins died in this room. Some visiting USF students ask him if Chinsegut Hill is haunted, he said. "I usually tell them no, that stuff is ignorant. But if there were spirits in the house, they'd be in this room, because this is where all the pain and blood was." - Staff writer Dan DeWitt covers the city of Brooksville, the environment and politics. He can be reached at 754-6116. Send e-mail to dewitt@sptimes.com.
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