The Burroughs Home & Gardens in downtown Fort Myers was constructed in 1901 so is celebrating its 125th birthday this year, with the help of the Uncommon Friends Foundation — part of their mission is preserving the historic home.
The foundation gets its name from the 1987 biography “Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh” by James Newton. While still in his early 20s, Mr. Newton led the development of Edison Park on the other side of downtown from the Burroughs Home and knew the five men in his book.
Alongside historic preservation, the Uncommon Friends Foundation’s mission also includes promoting good character and ethics, and providing scholarships to local students. They also do lots of community outreach and present a summer camp.
We get an update on what the foundation is up to, and get a bit of history on the Burroughs Home and the namesake 'uncommon friends'.
Guests:
Marc Collins, Executive Director of the Uncommon Friends Foundation
Melissa Coon, Burroughs Home Venue Director & Events Coordinator
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Transcript created with Copilot. Please forgive any spelling errors or mistranslations.
Mike Kiniry
This is Gulf Coast Life. I'm Mike Kiniry. Thanks for joining us. The Burroughs home in downtown Fort Myers was constructed in 1901, so is celebrating its 125th birthday this year. With the help of the Uncommon Friends Foundation, part of their mission is preserving the historic home. The foundation gets its name from the 1987 biography called Uncommon Friends, Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carroll, and Charles Lindbergh. That's by James Newton. Mr. Newton led the development of Edison Park on the other side of downtown from the Burroughs home. As a very young man, he was only in his early 20s, and the five men in his book would often gather there, and he got to know them. Alongside historic preservation, the Uncommon Friends Foundation's mission also includes promoting good character and ethics and providing scholarships to local students. Joining me for an update on what the Foundation is up to and to get a bit of history on the Burroughs home and the Uncommon Friends, I'm joined by Mark Collins. He's executive director of the Foundation. Welcome to the show, Mark.
Marc Collins
Hey, Mike. Thanks.
Mike Kiniry
And Melissa Kuhn is the borough's home venue director and events coordinator. Thanks for being here, Melissa.
Melissa Coon
Thank you so much.
Mike Kiniry
So for starters, I think you said before we started, you've been in town for about 5 years.
Melissa Coon
I have.
Mike Kiniry
And how long have you been in town?
Marc Collins
34.
Mike Kiniry
So 2 ends of the coin, but as you got here, how long did it take you to start to realize how deep the history goes here? Because all cities and towns have history, but Fort Myers has some really interesting history that's kind of foundational to a lot of what's going on in the world today.
Marc Collins
It really does. I know when I first moved here, even before I knew what Fort Myers, well, I first heard about Sanibel, because my family that I would After I got here, married into hotels, one was on Sanibel. So I'd heard all about Sanibel, knew nothing about Fort Myers. But obviously one of the first things I heard about was the Edison home. And that was one of my very first stops when I got to town, is to see about the Edison home and the Ford estate. And it is such a big piece of our history here. Yeah.
Mike Kiniry
So how'd you wind up here?
Melissa Coon
My husband ultimately wanted to live by the ocean.
Mike Kiniry
Okay.
Melissa Coon
So we, and COVID was a bit tough there in the Midwest, so he wanted to let's start fresh and we both work for ourselves. So we were very lucky to be able to come down here and those sunsets, that's what grabbed me.
Mike Kiniry
Is history something that you've always been into? Is that part of why you do what you do now?
Melissa Coon
Well, I'm events by trade, but I've always wanted to do everything I do with a purpose. And we'll bore everyone to know how Mark and I became acquainted, but it was truly, I would say, cosmic how we found each other. And I was just looking, you know, I moved here and I didn't know a single soul. You know, I didn't have my community because I left Minnesota. And when I came down here, I just wanted to reach out to see, learn more about the community. And I just started sending random emails.
Mike Kiniry
And he's a good person to meet if you want to know about.
Melissa Coon
The community of Fort Myers. I found truly, truly the gem. And he has helped me. He's helped me build my own community. And everything I, what I love and I tell even my friends and family back home is I get to do what I do for a living, which is event and wedding planning, but I get to do it because it matters. 100% of what I do, my blood, sweat, and tears, it goes back to support the history. And I now feel like I'm part of that because I've been learning just from, you know, because I'm more heavily involved on the borough side, that it really originated with snowbirds. People came from all around the country, especially, up New York, New Jersey area. And I'm one of those now. I'm part of that, good or bad, I'm part of that new great migration. But I get to bring my gifts and talents and get it, and now I'm learning about the history here. And it's... I just love what I do every day.
Mike Kiniry
I moved here as a kid in 1980, and I sort of, I knew some of my friends were old-timers. I didn't really know what that meant yet, and I kind of always wanted to be an old-timer. And now I've been here for so long. I'm sort of an old-timer, but not like real old-timers. So Mark, explain the Uncommon Friends Foundation as if you met somebody out in the world and they just said, oh, what is that?
Marc Collins
Well, you mentioned Jim Newton. So Jim was very popular, a very accomplished person here in town, developer. And when he was very young, he met Thomas Edison. Jim was from Fort Myers Beach, lived out on the beach. And all those five men that you mentioned, who were some of the greatest minds of that century, Jim was friends with each of them. They weren't all friends because the age groups don't all match. But Jim had special relationships, and Jim could literally go anywhere in the world, and people knew Jim Newton. Jim was a great connector. So there was the idea with Jim's life and his collections and his knowledge, they would talk about how to make the world a better place for everybody. So the Uncommon Friends Foundation, what we do, we have 4 pillars that you've gone over. You know, we believe in the next, you know, the kids now, that's our future. So we're looking for those people who want to solve the problems, who want to be the inventors. You never know what kind of life you're going to impact. They used to teach the curriculum of the uncommon friends in the school system. They don't do that and haven't in years. And I'm going to say it's safe to assume they never will. So what we did is kept that same curriculum. We've added to it, but we've taken that piece of our puzzle and made it more of a community resource. So we have branched out to the community. You and I were just talking. We started a summer camp. Last year was our first year. We're right in the middle of summer camp right now. But we're teaching those basic principles, life skills of the uncommon friends through our summer camp program. We have community resources that we offer. We work with housing and urban development. We work through scout troops, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts. We just want to be a physically visible piece of the community. And that's not something that's always been a part. as far as I can tell of the Uncommon Friends. This will be my 4th year. This is actually the 33rd year of the Uncommon Friends Foundation.
Mike Kiniry
I watched that video on the website and, you know, Mr. Newton, he, you know, it's one thing to have these life skills that make you be a successful whatever, but his life skills were like honesty and integrity and truth and being dedicated to somebody and things like that. And that's what you guys are trying to get through.
Marc Collins
It is, Mike. when we started talking about doing a summer camp, we called it the life enrichment. Because I know my age demographic, and I would say all of ours, we had things in school. We had home ec, we had shop, we had basic life skills. Last week, our subject was power and purpose and finding your superpower. And we had these amazing kids who just latched on to stories of others.
Mike Kiniry
That was your camp theme.
Marc Collins
That was our camp theme last week. The first week it was basic car maintenance.
Mike Kiniry
Okay, so it's the whole gamut.
Marc Collins
Galloway, yeah. What we try to do are get 6 areas that are so important that, and we asked the kids from, we asked last year what they wanted, and they kind of help us come up with the topics, then we provide a curriculum. They really are life skills, but we want to empower the kids, you know, our campers, that they are the future and they have their whole lives ahead of them.
Mike Kiniry
Let's talk a little bit about the history of those buildings and then we'll circle back around to the foundation. So you guys are now located in the Langford Kingston home.
Marc Collins
We are.
Mike Kiniry
What's it like being in that building all the time? What's it like being in both those buildings all the time, I guess is my question.
Melissa Coon
It gives you goosebumps every time I go into either the Burroughs home or the Langford Kingston house. Because there's just history is in the walls. And I truly get goosebumps over at the Burrows home, especially, but it is fun that our offices are in these beautiful grand former bedrooms. And you know, I'm sitting in here and I just, it does, it just, it's a whole different vibe. And our view couldn't have any, couldn't be any better when you look right outside.
Marc Collins
And I feel like when we go to work, there's a sense, you almost feel honored.
Melissa Coon
Oh, absolutely.
Marc Collins
To be setting up camp. for our offices, we're in these grand.
Mike Kiniry
Aren't there something happening there on site at the buildings?
Marc Collins
Some of them are off-site, like we went to the Imaginary in one week for STEM. We were at Galloway. The rest of them are on the property at the Langford Kingston. We have one huge room. Classroom, we can get about 60 people in there, which accommodates us.
Mike Kiniry
One of the first, I actually, the first story I ever went on as a reporter when I was still an intern was when they moved the Langford Kingston home across the street. And I interviewed like Tommy Doyle, who was the guy moving it and it started raining and we had this, we were under the home mid move because it was raining. How long has the foundation been in that building?
Marc Collins
The foundations had the building for a while. They never really used it. So when I started, the Burroughs was one gift. And then I can't remember who was mayor, but they kind of gave the Uncommon Friends charge of running the Burroughs home.
Mike Kiniry
Might have been the Wilbur Smith era.
Marc Collins
Anyway, I know he saved it. I know Wilbur, you know, Billy saved the Burroughs home. Anyway, when I got there, it didn't make sense because those are two separate gifts, the Uncommon Friends Foundation and the Burroughs. And if you read the charter with the Burroughs family of what they intended, I thought you can't run a non-for-profit out of here. We basically have two non-for-profits is what we do. But we moved everything Uncommon Friends out of the Burroughs home and into the Langford Kingston. We've got a gift shop in Langford Kingston now. It's called an Uncommon Place. We're developing a museum because we want the Burroughs home to be what they wanted it to be. We're working on a new project upstairs because we have this huge area. It'll be a gallery to show pictures and stories of what life was like. So when you're asking what's it like to work in there, I know once you walk in and you close that door behind you, really do feel like you've just stepped back into time. And it's just such an honor that we can be a part of that. Absolutely.
Mike Kiniry
So it was built in 1901. Tom Hall, who's our arts reporter, he's also a local historian, he gave me all kinds of great details. It was built from a Sears Roebuck catalog kit that was shipped to Punta Gorda and brought down by boat.
Marc Collins
Absolutely.
Mike Kiniry
And it's like a mansion. So I guess that tells you what Sears Roebucks was selling in their catalogs 126 years ago.
Marc Collins
It was not Timex watches.
Mike Kiniry
Yes, and you know, and I guess Mr. Murphy owned it until like 1914 and then. Mr. Burrows took over, and then his daughter Mona had it, and then she's who gave it to the city. Most people who know it either have driven by during Christmas and seen all the people walking across the street, or they've been there for like a wedding. Let's bring you in now. Talk about the things that happen there week in and week out. Is it all events? Is it also nonprofit uses, things like that?
Melissa Coon
All of the above. When I say an event, an event is a gathering, which goes back again to the whole vision that we had with Jim Newton that we are still gathering, we are still collaborating. So yes, we do sell, we do rent the venue for weddings, for fundraisers, celebrations of life, baby showers, I mean, any milestone type of event. And the proceeds for that, which again, that's part of the do good, feel good, is that goes right back to our historic preservation, and it allows us to keep maintaining and keeping that history alive and thriving. But also what I consider an event is our weekly tours. We have, we offer historic tours Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So either they can do a docent-led tour, which we have very sharp, full of information, professional volunteer docents, and they do tours, or people can come, which we get during snowbird season, we get inundated with, hi, I mean, this place looks really cool, and they do the self-guided tour. The house is open, it belongs to the community. And since I joined the non-profit. now, we're looking about 3 1/2 years ago now, that Mark and I have been working to try to develop more ways to open those doors. Because it's funny, I get, we have proms there as well. So I, for example, I had a, recently we had a couple come through and they're touring it to see if they want to get married there. And she said, I've been dreaming about this since I was 17 years old because I had my prom here. and just to watch their eyes light up to see that this is now a full circle and they are born and raised in Fort Myers and they get to use this property for all those type of important milestones. that's where those goosebumps keep continue for me. It's like I can help make that happen. So whether you are visiting, which we bring a lot of visitors that are here in Fort Myers during our tourist time, and then a lot of locals rest of the year. So yep, doors are open and it is so amazing that we can keep what Mona Burrows asked is that we must use it to continue her family's legacy as well as she's wanted parties. So I can do both for her.
Mike Kiniry
This is Gulf Coast Life. We're talking today with Mark Collins. He's Executive Director of the Uncommon Friends Foundation. Founded in 1993, its mission is part historic preservation of the Burroughs Home in downtown Fort Myers and part inspiring future leaders toward excellence of character, a spirit of innovation, and a sense of purpose. I'm also joined in studio by Melissa ****. She is Burroughs Home Event Coordinator. The Burroughs Home was built in 1901 by a Montana cattleman named John T. Murphy. It's one of the few surviving mansions from the Fort Myers Gilded Age. The foundation is celebrating the Burroughs Homes 125th birthday this year. So we're helping highlight that, but also highlighting the other work the foundation does. So let's get back into the foundation stuff some more. So scholarships, that's a big part of what you guys do. I looked on the website. It's not just a scholarship. It's like you guys are either providing or managing a ton of scholarships.
Marc Collins
We do. We really focus on non-traditional scholarships.
Mike Kiniry
What do you mean by that?
Marc Collins
Non-traditional, trade school. We believe in trade school. We also believe in if someone has gone to school, their life situation's changed. Maybe they don't test well. So we have a whole system where they submit applications. I think, I was thinking this morning, my first year, I think we only had like 14 applications. This year we had 113 applications.
Mike Kiniry
Does it have to be local students?
Marc Collins
Collier Lee, our basic Southwest Florida area, Charlotte. So we've seen the need go up, but our scholarship dollars have really raised. We also work with other non-for-profits. And people say, why would a non-for-profit give you money? Like Lark or Pace, Valerie's House, we match their gift 100% as an organization. Us being uncommon friends, that shows a partnership. We're huge on partnerships. We love working with our community partners. They get huge discounts when they rent the Burroughs home. But that provides for our scholarship. This year, I think we, I can't really remember off the top of my head, we just finished the scholarship term. We have some, like with Lark, that has very specific criteria, but it's a good, strong scholarship. And like I said, we double what they give. So it really makes a great impact.
Mike Kiniry
I saw the name Burn Davis was attached to the scholarships. Was she part of how that all got off the ground?
Marc Collins
I believe Burn.
Mike Kiniry
Cindy and Burn Davis Art Center right down the street for people who recognize the name.
Marc Collins
She was on the founding board. Her niece, Alexandra Brimner, is still on our board and very much part. That was for, it started off, I believe, for school teachers scholarship. Now we've generalized it. But Burn really started the scholarship program. She put up the funds to really put that into play.
Mike Kiniry
How are you guys funded nowadays? I mean, like, what is your primary source of funding? Is it donations?
Marc Collins
It is donations. We're very heavily, we don't get any state support.
Mike Kiniry
City of Fort Myers support you guys somehow.
Marc Collins
We're a city-owned property.
Mike Kiniry
Or city-owned property, so there's that.
Marc Collins
So that's a huge piece. And the city, you know, we just went through, I had been in this job for maybe 2 weeks when Hurricane Ian came through.
Mike Kiniry
Which was a lot to get back up off of, yeah.
Marc Collins
It really took its toll. Mel had just started shortly, about six months after I was. Mel had never worked with a city government or any type of government on a project. And so when we got there, she made a beautiful list of this needs to be done, this is falling apart, the front porch is falling off, you know. And she said, now when will we start? And we were just learning each other's personalities. You know, she's from Minnesota, I'm from Alabama. She's like, here's a checklist. Now, when will we start? And I said, oh my God, you're going to be miserable for a while. Nothing happens fast. So it really took us three years to get the house. It is absolutely stunning now. Took us a while to get started, but once the city did with the builder, it is just spectacular. They've got fountains going that I've had long-term Fort Myers born and raised here say, we've never seen them work. So everything is just really gorgeous.
Melissa Coon
It's pristine and we're so grateful for the support.
Mike Kiniry
I live east of downtown, so whenever I go through downtown, I get to drive by it, so I've driven past those two homes a million times. Edison Awards, you guys are doing something with the Edison Awards?
Marc Collins
We have a good relationship with the Edison Award. We haven't exactly figured out what the overall piece of that is. Frank is amazing and his team. What they've typically done is done an Uncommon Friends cruise on Tim and Sandy, Stillwell, Youngquist, and they'll have a lot of the winners of the event. So we're there. We tell them about what we do. We always do swag bags, give them a book.
Mike Kiniry
You're adjacent to them.
Marc Collins
Right, correct. It's like a piece of the puzzle.
Mike Kiniry
I presume you've seen the statue in downtown Fort Myers.
Melissa Coon
Oh, yes.
Mike Kiniry
That was made by DJ Wilkins. I used to be his neighbor. I didn't know anything about him all the years I lived next to him. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, you're the guy that did all things. Wow. So what's coming up? You guys, you sent me that PDF. I mean, you guys have some events coming up.
Marc Collins
We do. We've got quite a few events that are coming up between now and the end of the year.
Melissa Coon
Absolutely. Oh, I'm happy to. Yeah. Event person. Tell me. So as we did speak to that, the scholarship mission is 100% privately funded. And the kind of, I'm going to say for a lack of a better word, a firewall between our other mission, which is historic preservation. So we, they're both that we are constantly simultaneously supporting. The advantage, I guess I would say with the borough's home is that because being able to get rental sales by being able to use the property in all those different ways we discussed, that helps fund kind of that mission and keeping that going. But as you've heard and seen the tremendous amount of work that was put into it, and now it's our job to keep that beautiful. So we do, we decided, because there are, we have so many facets to our organization, that as people are saying, if they learn about the Uncommon Friends, they may say, well, I'm really more fascinated about scholarships. or I'm a teacher, or my children, or they have always been involved. We have a lot of people that come in doing our tours, and they just geek out over the history of it. So we have a lot of our history buffs. So because we do have people that are interested in maybe one more or the other, we decided this year, rather than doing a typical gala or fundraiser, that we're going to break it into smaller events, little bite-sized things for people to experience things in different ways, to learn about us in different fun ways, and to be involved. So because of that, we have three events right now, July, August, and September, focused on scholarships. So we have a dinner on July 28th with our lovely partner, Harold's, at Harold's Restaurant. And that is a beautiful experience. So we have that going. And then in August 19th, we are doing a backed by really popular demand that people loved. We tried it last year at the Langford, but we have Crave Culinaire, which is a beautiful partner of ours that they work events with us, but they're partners with us at Uncommon Friends. We're hosting a dinner over at the Burroughs Home, but supporting scholarships. So there's a nice little cross-pollination.
Marc Collins
And everybody knows Harold and Brian are just both.
Melissa Coon
That's, I mean, I've learned that. Yeah, people hear that.
Mike Kiniry
I recently met Harold via Three Song Stories and he and Harold is amazing. He's a good guy.
Marc Collins
He is just amazing.
Melissa Coon
And then in September, we're honoring our scholarship recipients and the program itself. We're doing a luncheon over at the Langford. It's very busy on the scholarship side. And then on the historic preservation side, we are going to be doing a really unique I'm calling it a magical cocktail party. It's a little bit of a tease. We have some really interesting things planned in October. October 16th is our, we're going to be doing a historic preservation event at the Burroughs, really opening that up for people to, who are really involved in that. They can tour the property. We get all the time, oh, I've been seeing it, never been here, but I drive by every day. Or, you know, people are like, I really want to see the work that's been done to that property. We have a lot of passionate folks out there that I get messages from on social media, grateful that we have keeping this history alive. And then we have, there's a series that we've been doing for, I guess it's like our second or third year now. We call them our Adeline Burroughs tea series. So in honoring of the matriarch of Mrs. Burroughs, we do a tea, high tea, over at the Burroughs home. And we're going to do a Halloween theme this season.
Mike Kiniry
Do people get dressed up?
Melissa Coon
People do. Oh, the fascinators. and the hats and me being from the north, I'm like loving this. I'm like, I bought myself a big old tacky hat. I love it. So that's a really fun one. So we're going to be doing a Halloween themed tea. And again, that 100% does support the foundation efforts. And then the last big thing we're doing this season, and this is we did this two years ago. Last year, we had to take a pause because the property was closed for seven months during the renovations. But we opened the house up for the holiday season. As people know, They love seeing the Burroughs home and now the Langford home decorated for the holidays. So not only both can be decorated, and we're going to be doing our holiday house again with our partners at the Fort Myers Women's Club this December, but we as a nonprofit are going to be hosting a big holiday community festival. It's going to have many different facets and It's the whole day. It's just the property's going to be open. We'll have holiday vendors and food trucks and music and Santa maybe making a visit. And the house will be open for people to visit and see it beautifully decorated for the holidays. It's just a great way and it's free admission for anybody who really wants to see part of their history and see it in a beautiful way.
Mike Kiniry
As somebody who, like I've said, grew up here, if you want to get a real slice of downtown Fort Myers history and Fort Myers history, I encourage you to go by and see the things. And I guess the foundation's been around long enough now that it's part of the history, too.
Marc Collins
It is.
Mike Kiniry
My last question is, you mentioned that the curriculum is not really being taught in the schools. If somebody's listening and they're a parent or a teacher and they want to get a hold of that, you guys distribute it somehow.
Marc Collins
You can go on the website. Our website basically has everything we've talked about.
Melissa Coon
Uncommonfriends.org.
Marc Collins
Yeah, www..uncommonfriends.org. Thank you, Mel.
Mike Kiniry
Nice job, both of you. Mark Collins is executive director of the Uncommon Friends Foundation. Thank you, Mark.
Marc Collins
Thank you.
Mike Kiniry
And Melissa **** is the Burroughs Home Event Coordinator. Thank you so much, Melissa.
Melissa Coon
My pleasure. Thank you so much.