Cortez residents rally to save net camps, a picturesque part of their waterfront
The Cortez community is making a last-ditch effort to save the Guthrie net camp, a small building sitting on stilts behind the A.P. Bell Fish Company in Sarasota Bay.
Karen Bell, one of the owners of A.P Bell Fish Co. and Star Fish Co. Market and Restaurant, has been fighting for years to save the net camp. She has lots of community support behind her, but that alone won’t be enough to hold off the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP wants the net camp torn down by Jan. 24.
Raymond Leslie Guthrie Jr. built the net camp in 2017 on sovereign submerged lands owned by the state of Florida. Building on sovereign submerged state-owned lands requires a lease from DEP’s Division of State Lands and no such lease appears to be associated with this property, a state DEP official told the Herald in 2017.
Long-time residents of the fishing village say, however, that net camps have been built in Sarasota Bay along the Cortez shoreline since the 1920s and 1930s, originally to store cotton nets. At one time, there may have been as many as 20 net camps. Now there are only two, plus a few pilings, reminders of structures long gone.
The Guthrie net camp, and one behind Star Fish Company, are the only survivors, and they have each been rebuilt several times over the years. Guthrie previously said he was only rebuilding a net camp that had been on the site for decades when the DEP intervened in 2017.
In October, Bell wrote to Gov. Ron DeSantis, asking that he intervene to stop the DEP from requiring that the Guthrie net camp be removed.
“The west camp, known locally as the Guthrie Camp, was rebuilt by Raymond Guthrie Jr. It had been his grandfather’s camp and as mentioned before it had been rebuilt at least three times that I personally recall. When Mr. Guthrie rebuilt the camp this time it was in the same spot as the one before it. In fact, the salvageable pilings were reused. For most of the village this was nothing unusual. Just like the east one having been rebuilt, it was just another camp being repaired,” Bell wrote to DeSantis.
“Cortez today is not only a working fishing village, it is a tourist destination. We have managed to blend both industries by developing a symbiotic relationship between the two,” Bell wrote.
Cortez is a favorite location for artists, who often include the net camps in their paintings.
“Finally, a group of us decided as a last resort to reach out to you. We understand that you and everyone are dealing with a lot considering the pandemic and its effects on our lives and economy, but we do not want to lose this part of our heritage. Please, please help us protect these last two remaining net camps in Cortez,” Bell wrote to DeSantis.
To date, DeSantis has not gotten involved in the controversy.
In 2018, the Manatee County Commission sent a letter to the DEP supporting replica historic net camp structures along the Sarasota Bay waterfront, noting that they were an integral part of Cortez’s standing on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Reconstruction of these historic structures provides the appropriate viewshed to understand the cultural context of the village. Given historic photos documenting the presence of of multiple camp structures, the reconstruction of this single structure to recapture the essence of the historic Cortez Fishing Community should be supported with the appropriate state permits,” the commission’s letter, signed by former chair Priscilla Trace, recommended.
In her letter to DeSantis, Bell said she had sought to intervene, as upland property owner, in the DEP action against Guthrie and had personally spent more than $30,000 to hire an attorney.
“I finally had to withdraw my suit as I could not afford to continue fighting,” Bell said.
Bell has asked to appear before the Manatee County Legislative Delegation on Jan. 6 to ask for a 120-day extension on the DEP order. She believes that might be enough time for the legislature to put something into law that would preserve the net camps.
Similar structures are allowed in Lee, Pinellas, Monroe and other counties, Bell said.
“I don’t care who owns it. I just want it left alone,” Bell said Wednesday.
Kathe Fannon, 59, a tour boat operator and Cortez resident, agrees.
“Number one, it is part of our heritage. Cortez is the last working fishing village left in Florida. I haven’t met one person yet who wants the net camps to go. It is one of the pieces of Cortez that you would never see again,” Fannon said.
“People enjoy seeing them. I don’t think it is asking too much just to leave them alone. They mean so much to us. It breaks my heart to know they might not be there anymore,” Fannon said.
County Commissioner Carol Whitmore said she has been going to Cortez for more than 50 years and that the net camps have always been part of the landscape.
“History is important to me and I support the net camps 100 percent,” Whitmore said.
For more information about the effort to preserve the net camps, visit the Keep the Camp Facebook page.
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
