A Little History
Beginning with its origins in the early 1970's as a "divided park" [units East of the lake were for families: West of the lake were for retirees]: Skyway Village Estates soon became a family park for people of all ages. Early mobile homes were purchased out-of-state and then resold for profit. Some 60 homes were established in the Park by 1972. As in many parks, "growing pains" provided much in the way of expansion problems, but early owner James Dykxhoorn and his family of ten children arrived to steer the Park on a period of not only solid but reputable growth. A connection was established with Canada through an RV Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the roots of our Canadian culture were established.
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Over a period of time, families expanded and left, and Eventually the Park became an adult park, with some families "grandfathered."
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In 1988, through the energetic efforts of some very capable financial-minded residents, the park was purchased and began its Co-Op history. Shares were offered with an expanding number of Units, and the Park would eventually reach its present 181-unit capacity. Management of the Park is directed by a seven-member Board of Directors, and augmented with the addition of the position of Park Manager in 2011. A new clubhouse was approved, constructed and dedicated by 2010, and paid for in full by 2012. Today, the park operates at capacity, functioning with an active Social Board sponsoring a variety of activities.
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Skyway Village Origins
by Emory Massman, written 2-18-07
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Richard Turner, Charles Whooten and Mr. Firkins of the Auto Dealership in Bradenton planned Skyway Village in 1970. Turner was President of a Manatee Ave Bank and furnished the upfront money through loans to the Skyway Village Corporation. One other silent partner was involved. Each owned 25% of the Corporation. Construction was started and completed in 1971. By January 1972 the park was ready for occupancy. A used mobile home was bought and placed on Lot 13 to be used by the prospective manage. Guessed they figured no one would want that unlucky number. The new manager turned out to be Jesse Davis, a former used car salesman, who refused to live there. The investors then placed a large mobile home on lot 46 and that became his residence. Davis then passed himself off as a partner and he may have been but I doubt it.
To get things moving, Davis made a deal with Max Geppart who owned a mobile home sales office on 8th Avenue just south of 17th Street. Max agreed to put several (around 20) mobile homes on lots of his selection and put them up for sale. No lot rent was to be paid until the homes were sold. Max went up to South Carolina and found several double wide mobile homes out in a field. The former owner had gone belly-up and the homes had sat there for 3-4 years. Max bought them with his wife’s money for $3500 each and towed them to Skyway and set them up. Then he sold them for $12-15000 each. All, but one, of these homes are still located in the park.
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The first new resident home to be moved into the park was placed on lot 50. The owners were Joe Nokes, his wife Jody, and 4 children. All of the lots east of the lake were for families. Lots west of the lake were for retirees. This policy didn’t last long and soon the entire park was for families. The name of the game was “Fill the Park and start the rents coming in.” Another sales outfit from Tampa set up shop on the corner, also owned by the investors, where the 7eleven is now located. They moved a lot of young families in for $500 down. My home was purchased from a third company doing business in St. Petersburg and was the 60th home put into the park. It was p1aced on lot 51 in July of 1972. While this was occurring the zoning board decided there were too many lots west of the lake for the acreage and forced the park to eliminate 3 lots the area.
The problem was that several homes were already in place. The solution was to just eliminate the 3 lots where they could. This is why some people, in that area have larger lots than their neighbors. By 1975 the park was fully occupied and the original investors lost interest The For Sale sign went up and the park was soon sold to Mr. & Mrs. Winters. They moved into lot 46. Their interest in the park was even less than the original investors and conditions worsened. To make matters worse, economic conditions in the country were in a recession and as many lost their jobs they just moved out. They would strip the homes of anything of value, sell the items to get back their $500 down payment and disappear. The Winters only stayed few months then moved out. They became absentee owners turning the park over to a manager who moved into lot 46. Management changed every two to three months for the next three years.
My wife and I decided to hang on as long as we could and then walkout throwing a match behind us and just pretend we had never seen the place. We were living in a developing slum. No maintenance was done. There were 60 abandoned homes in the park. The Manatee government began moving in welfare families. Two prostitutes were living and working in the park. We a1so had one or two crack houses and one dealer. When I complained, juveniles living in the park taped firecrackers on my windows and blew them out. We had two murders in the park. In one case the murder victim’s body was found in a ditch over on Canal Road. This crime was never solved. It was just a matter of time before the whole operation collapsed. The lake became overgrown with water plants so that no water was visible. The Manatee Board of Health stepped in and forced a clean up. Air boats using huge rakes cleared the lake and piled the debris on the bank so high you could not see over the top. Trucks then came and hauled the debris away.
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Salvation came in the form of James Dykshoorn, his wife, and 10children. They showed up in and old school bus and saved the park from extinction. He bought the park for $999,999.99.Frankly,I though he must have had an IQ two points less than a rock! I’m later told he had looked at many parks but picked this one because of the land value, now it made sense. Lot 46 was undeliverable at the time so the family lived in the school bus until he could make it liveable. He put all 1O children to work. They cut the grass, cleaned the rec. hall, trimmed the bushes, and anything e1se that need to be done. The two youngest ten year old twin daughters picked up the park each morning. They used plastic bags and a stick with a nail embedded in the end. All the children were enrolled in the Bradenton Christian School. None of the children received any payment for their work around the park. Instead, Jim kept a ledger of each child’s efforts marking down the hours worked. When it came time to enter college they cashed in their time and used the money to put themselves through.
Jim went to work reconditioning the abandoned homes. Many of these homes were then sold to many of his Canadian friends who had stayed with him at his RV Park at Niagara Falls, Ontario. They knew his reputation and had faith in him. The newcomers brought with them their Canadian culture. They, some 30 families, maintained and made improvements to their homes, planted flowers and became very good neighbors.
The family park idea was not working out so well so Jim went to the zoning board and managed to get Skyway changed to an adult park with a minimum age of 45. Families living in the park could stay, but all new residents had to meet the 45-year age restriction. Through attrition we gradually became an adult park. To help things along Jim started buying out non-conformists and troublemakers. Most took his fairly priced offer and departed. Some, who were already mad at Jim wanted to sell but refused to sell to Jim. In these cases, Jim called me and I would go to them with some kind of a story about needing a place for my mother-in-law who was coming south. I would make an offer, buy the place then turn it over to Jim. In one such case things got a little sticky when the bank didn’t want to turn the loan on the home over to Jim unless the former owner signed the loan over to Jim. Jim said, “These people will be evicted so they will be leaving the park. It’s your choice, you can have a repossession on your hands or you can let me pay off the loan and give me the title.” It took the banker about 2 seconds they said, “Give us the money, you get the title.”
Jim’s work ethic just would not quit. He made many improvements. First, he got the sewer plant tuned up so it no longer smelled so bad. Then he installed a red light at the plant site that would light up if the plant went down. He put in the shuffle boards. He got the park laundry going again. When the lake bank started to cave in he built a retaining wall with the help of Jay Austin to stop the erosion. Rents were raised modestly each year. Disaster struck in 1988 when Jim was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. An investor from Michigan offered Jim 2.8 million for the park. Jim had turned his investment into a nice profit of almost 2 million dollars in 12 years, proving you can grab the brass ring with hard work. Jim turned the sale over to his oldest son, Jack, who had just graduated from law school He was working for a law firm the central part of the state.
Jack made a huge error. He sent a letter offering the park the first right of refusal. The letter came to me. Maybe it came to me because I was the only one in the park he knew. He had dated my daughter in the past. He probably was just covering all bases, never thinking we would ever activate it. The offer was good for two weeks and a deposit of $50,000.00 had to be made within that period. I was surprised to get the letter and after reading it went looking for my friend, Warren Whitte. I found him at the swimming pool He read the letter and handed it back to me without saying anything. I said, “Do you know what this means?” He answered “What.” I said “We can buy the park if we can come up with the money. Can you raise 50 thousand in two weeks “He said, “Sure.” Warren went to work on raising the money that day. In ten days he had $50,000 in cash and we executed the offer. Getting the down payment of S280,000 was another matter. This was a little more difficult. We had 110,000 in pledges and cash. Everyone who was interested in this project went to work. One member actually signed up 17 residents by himself. This man was Ivan Johnson. Without his efforts we never would have made it.
We had one month to secure the $170,000 balance! We had promised to return all moneys to the residents if we failed. We called a meeting the day before the due date. We did not meet our goal We were still $40,000.00 short. I was worried. I said to Warren, we were going to have to return the money. We were in trouble. We would not get the $50,000.00 earnest money back. Warren just looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about it.” On the day of the meeting people filed in and found seats. Warren stood up and opened the meeting. He had a big smile on his face. I don’t know if he planned this or it was a spur of the moment decision, but he said, “Good news folks. We made out goal and we will be buying the park.” I was stunned. There was a great deal of jubilation in the audience. The mood was euphoric. When they settled down Warren said, “Anyone who wants to join us can sign up now. A line formed and we now had the down payment and more. We never looked back.
This was another surprise for Jim he had already accepted the Michigan man’s down payment and he wanted it back plus an extra 10,000 for his trouble and expenses. Jim gave him back his money but not the $10,000. He threatened to sue everyone involved. Our attorney, Jim’s Attorney, Jack, and the Michigan man got together. The three decided we would pay 1/3. Jim would pay 1/3 and the injured party would eat 1/3. The Michigan man went away. Much cheaper than a law suit! Fran Ferris and I were Co-treasurers. Fran was well versed in money matters and I had the computer skills to keep tract of the money. We had full paid members, non-members that were renting, and many members that were paying off their balances. I developed a spread sheet to keep track of all three categories. Fran figured we would have to raise the rent for non-members to $210 a month to survive. When the non-members got their notices they objected and brought suit against the members.
Now it was time for a second salvation. It came in the form of Robert Madden. A real estate broker from Lakeland showed up one day looking for the park owner. He happened to run into Robert Burke who at the time was the head of the non-member group. Mr. Burke sent him to see me. Fifteen acres adjacent to the park was available for park expansion for $45,000. We could buy it and have more lots to sell. I told him we were in no shape to do anything because of the lawsuit. He put his hand up and rubbed his chin a little then said, “I know a man I think can help you.” This man had just finished setting up Piney Point when their residents bought their park. He said to organize a meeting with the non-members and have 5 members for each side at the meeting. The meeting was arranged and the two men with their wives showed up at my house. While my wife entertained the ladies we three went to the meeting. Madden conducted the meeting and got nowhere, the non-members were not interested in talking. They pretty much just sat there and left the meeting without comment. The two men picked up their wives and left the park.
Fran and I discussed our dyer circumstances and pretty much figured we were not going to survive. The non-members had us on the ropes and we didn’t know what to do. After talking for a while we came up with the idea to give Robert Madden a call. We invited him to a business lunch and he accepted. We had lunch with him in Lake1and and then went to his office and spent the afternoon hashing things out. He said we could survive with $180 from the renters, maybe even less. Robert Madden became active in our cause. He had several private meetings with the non-member. One of the things he did was to have a meeting with the non-members before a state mediator. This time the non-members wanted to ta1k, foolishly, we did not. The meeting went nowhere and the lawsuit went on. It is debatable to who won. The renters won the battle but lost the war. We paid the renters expenses, but the Judge gave us enough of a rent rise to survive. With Madden’s help we made it work. It took a lot of work. All the members pitched in.
We had a garden club for the grounds, a social club that took care of the recreation hall, and garbage collectors. All were volunteers. We were becoming solvent through the sale of more memberships. Jack Dykshoorn refused to let us pay down the land contract. He said the contract was for a monthly payment or a complete pay-of. We to the banks in Bradenton, none of whom would loan us any money. Madden found a bank in St. Petersburg that was interested in making us a loan. We borrowed enough to pay off the Dykshoorn and lowered the interest in the bargain from 10% to 8.5%. With the money now coming in we were able to begin paying down the loan. Vi Smith became president of the Board. Vi was one of our better presidents. She conducted tight meetings and was in full control sticking to the agenda. Also she had another plus, she had an eye for curb appeal. She is the one responsible for the white fence around the park and the sea wall around the lake. Much was done during her administration.