Preserving The Burr Legacy

Back when I was in the fourth and fifth grades I attended Friends Academy in North Dartmouth, Massachusettes One of my best friends at the time was Winthrop Burr whose family owned the Burr Brothers Boat Company in Mattapoiset. I loved boats, especially sailboats, and loved being on the water. I was jealous as hell. My dad owned a furniture store and was getting involved in starting a factory to manufacture Haloween costumes. How boring!

The house in this photograph has recently been restored to greet its one hundreth birthday. That's pretty old for a house in the Miami area! It's known as the Burr House. I asked, and they don't think that they're related to the Burrs that I knew as a kid. Anyway, the North Miami Historical Society got invited over there for the occasion, as did the reporters. The building was restored on the outside but the inside was modified a bit to serve as offices for the low-rise apartment buildings that have been constructed on the one time agricultural land along N.E. 16th Avenue. It's really a shame that so many buildings of that vintage have been allowed to deteriorate, then levelled to make way for huge monstrocities. These old houses were made out of the local coral rock, and the wood was all Dade County pine which is so hard that it had to be cut, fitted, and nailed while still green. Once it dries termites won't touch the stuff. Too tough to chew! Now the place looks spiffy again, good for another hundred years. Our thanks to the Burr family!