Rosedale Cottage

Rosedale Cottage Hoped to be Part of the Pine Avenue Restoration...

Just a few short weeks after the approval of the Pine Avenue restoration project's second site plan, Michael Coleman, one of the principals of the project, said he hopes Rosedale Cottage can be one of the centerpieces of the Pine Avenue Restoration Project.

The Pine Avenue restoration group now owns the Rosedal Cottage building. Located at 503 Pine Avenue, it was the scene for an event billed as a conversation among neighbors on August 19th of this year.

Rosedale Cottage to be a Feature of Pine Avenue

Rosedale Cottage straddles a portion of the Pine Avenue restoration property line of three side-by side, 50 by 150-foot lots. They form a portion of the vision for Pine Avenue. Michael Coleman hopes that the planning and zoning board and city commission will share his vision for this part of the Pine Avenue Project.

"We’d like to keep the cottage as the center of this section of the project," Coleman said. "We’d put small, single-story shops on either side and then put the two-story shops or offices across the back of the lot. It will depend on getting our site plan approved."

History of Rosedale Cottage

Rosedale Cottage was built in 1913 and played an important role during the very beginnings of the Anna Maria Island community.

The cottage’s first tenants were the son of George Bean and his wife. Bean was one of the founders of the Anna Maria community. Learn more about George Bean and the History of Anna Maria Island.

"The home was owned at one time by the Widow Bean," said Anna Maria Island Historical Society Administrator Sissy Quinn. "She made a notation on a picture we have at the museum that Mr. Roser (of Roser Church) and Mr. Bean cheated her out of the house."

Quinn said there was a divorce, and the Beans went their separate ways. "Mr. Bean, Jr. was quite a dandy, quite a ladies man," Quinn said.

The Rosedale family purchased the cottage and lived there for many years, according to Quinn.

Ed Chiles, who is another Pine Avenue Restoration project principal, said one of the goals of the project is to preserve as much of the small and historic parts of the district as possible. "We want to save Rosedale Cottage. This cottage was built from Sears and Roebuck block," said Chiles. "There was a rock machine that pressed out the blocks and then the buildings were built of that block."

Chiles said there are other examples of Sears block around, including Roser Chapel and many of the buildings in the Village on the north end of Longboat Key.

Privcacy Issues for Residents

Some Anna Maria residents have serious reservations about the entire Pine Avenue project.  Leslie Vandenberg and Patty Hunt live on Spring Avenue at Tarpon, just south of the restoration area. "We don’t want our privacy sacrificed," Vandenberg said to Coleman. "We have a swimming pool in our backyard, and we don’t want to think of people on the second floor of these buildings to be looking at us."

Coleman explained that there would be a six-foot high fence across the entire back of the property and there will be landscaping planted along the fence to add to the privacy. "There will be trees and bushes buffering the project from the neighboring residential areas," Coleman said.

Both Vandenberg and Hunt said they felt a little better about the project after talking with Coleman. "Something will be built there," Vandenberg said. "It’s inevitable. This is probably better than some of the things that could be built there."