MANATEE — When Robert Gamble sold his Ellenton mansion and moved to Tallahassee in the late 1800s, he took almost everything in it with him.
So some local residents stepped in and donated furniture for the home at Mansion Gamble Plantation Historical State Park.
As thoughtful as that was, most of the donated items are not from the same era when Gamble lived in the mansion at 3708 Patten Ave. So some Manatee High School students are stepping in to help.
Students at the Manatee High School Center for Design and Construction Academy are researching and designing ideas for renovations at the state park, including redesigning the mansion’s interior.
The plan: to make things more historically accurate.
Students in the academy are enrolled in these courses: drafting, construction, interior design, materials and processes, geometry and American history.
Late last month, 38 of those students, mostly juniors and seniors, toured the state park to gather information for the project.
The students met with Donna Simpson, the park’s historical advisory council chair; Rodney Potter of Pro Build and advisory council member; and Bill Jotham, an engineer from Structural Connections who has worked on several projects at the park.
Students split into teams and gathered data, took measurements and made sketches of the mansion and existing furnishings. This information will be loaded into software programs and used in their classroom work as they create ideas and proposals for future restorations.
“A lot of things about the mansion are unknown because we don’t have a lot of records,” said park manager Kevin Kiser. “When Robert Gamble moved to Tallahassee, he had put everything he had in a house up there and it burned to the ground. It’ll be great for them to do the historical research.”
Simpson, whose grandparents J.R. Wood and Pearl Tyler Wood, owned the mansion from 1914 to 1920, said the state took over the mansion in the 1920s.
“When it was taken over, people would give things to the mansion that weren’t always of that period,” she said. “We really don’t need anything in there after 1865, so we are thrilled these young people are doing this research.”
It was Potter’s idea to have the students get involved in the restoration process. Potter said he hopes the students’ ideas can be incorporated into the project to help identify state funding for construction work.
“I don’t think he realized when he originally posed the idea how well it would fit,” said Frank Brunner, Manatee High career and academic adviser. “It’s not just kids in a shop class. These are kids who have demonstrated a career interest.”
Robert Gagnon, Manatee High School principal, called it a real world experience for students.
“Our staff saw it as an opportunity not only to advance our kids’ skills in an area they hope to be employed some day, but to respond to a community need,” Gagnon said.
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