I wrote this piece for The Gainesville Sun.
Sarah Matheson would have lost her home to fire if not for the quick response of her neighbors. “It could have been much worse,” she would later write. “My sincere thanks go to the many friends who rushed to help.”
That was in 1985 when Sarah Matheson was, for all practical purposes, Gainesville’s reigning matriarch. A woman whose family roots in this city stretched back to pre-Civil War days.
Now, nearly 40 years later, her beloved home is again at risk. And, once more, its fate depends upon a timely community response.
Now it is not so much fire as the erosive forces of water, temperature and mold that threaten the Matheson House. All part in parcel of the inevitable aging process of a structure that has withstood the North Florida elements for 167 years.
Which is to say that the Matheson House is showing its age.
Water stains on the ceiling bespeak a leaking roof. When Hurricane Helene came to visit it left a calling card in the form of a deluge that cascaded into the front of the house.
The house’s antiquated heating and cooling system can’t keep the mildew at bay. And the bathroom floor has grown soft and soggy due to aging plumbing.
In one room you can look down through the cracks between floor boards and see daylight shining through.
“The house is probably going to be closed for up to two years while we try to get grant money and then do renovations,” said Salvatore J. Cumella, recently appointed executive director of the Matheson Museum.
The Matheson intends to apply for a $1 million state historic preservation grant to help repair the house. But qualifying for that grant requires a local match of $125,000.
To restore the Matheson House the museum has launched a capital campaign with a goal of raising $200,000. So far the campaign has raised just over $10,000.
“You know, it took a community to preserve this house and get it to what it is now,” Cumella said. “Now it’s going to take a community to keep it going.”
He added “One thing I’ve been been really happy with since I’ve taken the job is that we have lots of people coming forward who want to partner with us. Right now we’re working with our partners trying to figure out how to orchestrate all of this.”
Built in 1857, and as one of the three oldest surviving houses in Gainesville, the Matheson is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“It helps tell the multi-generational story of the Matheson family as well as that period of the city’s growth,” Cumella said. “It really tells the story of early Gainesville.”
While the house is closed the museum will host a temporary exhibit featuring objects from the house and from Sarahs Matheson’s personal collection, including some of the mementos she acquired while doing missionary work around the world.
The house was built by Alexander Matheson, who moved to Gainesville from Camden, South Carolina before the Civil War. Mark Barrow, Matheson Museum founder, says the family’s South Carolina roots account for some of the house’s unique architectural features, especially the distinctive white columns that adorn the front.
At that time “a lot of the houses in South Carolina had columns running from the ground up to (the top of) the porch,” he said. “And that was absolutely unique in these parts.”
The elder Matheson eventually returned to South Carolina. His son, J.D. Matheson, prominent local merchant, Gainesville Council member and for a time city treasurer, moved into the house in 1867.
His son, Chris Matheson, was an attorney who would become Gainesville’s longest serving mayor, from 1910 to 1917. He was also a member of the Gainesville delegation that traveled to Tallahassee to pitch the deal that brought the University of Florida here.
Chris was born and died in the same bed in the Matheson House. More than 40 years after his death, Sarah, his bride and lifelong companion, would also pass in that bed.
Altogether, members of the Matheson family occupied the house for the best part of 140 years. When Sarah died, in 1996, she gifted her home to the Alachua County Historical Trust, which she helped found. Today it remains the crown jewel of the Matheson Museum complex.
A restriction in the house deed, Barrow said, stipulates that the “house can never be used for anything but a museum.”
“Everything in the house is still just the way it was when Sarah left it,” Barrow said. “I really love that part of the story.”
More information about the Matheson’s capital campaign, and how to donate, can be found here.
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