Illustration of Rotonda West showing the Gulf access and the layout of the land.
of it from 1985 to 1990, when ABC bought
the franchise back and carried it through
1994.
As Rotonda started to build out it was
obvious that the original space needle idea
wasn’t going to happen, nor was there going
to be seven golf courses, but eventually fi ve
were built.
The biggest problem the Cavanaugh
Leasing Corporation faced had nothing to
do with space needles or golf courses, it
had to do with their promise of deep-water
access to the Gulf of Mexico for its residents,
and the new concern about the environment
that “plagued” the builders in our country …
especially in Florida.
In the 1950s and ’60s people from all over
the country were realizing they could buy
a lot in Florida and have their own vacation
home. Most of these buyers didn’t just want
their water at the beach, though, they wanted
it out their back door. Builders began to
32 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE • November/December • 2021
create canal communities and called the lots
“waterfront property,” which they were … in
a sense. The haphazard building methods
and artifi cial canal dredging hither and yon
caught the attention of ecologists at the
federal level, as well as quite a few concerned
Florida-born citizens.
In the early 1970s legislation was passed
by Congress to curtail this type of building
and wetland destruction, which meant canal
communities were also on the chopping
block. The Environmental Protection Act of
1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the
Endangered Species Act of 1973 all quickly
changed the way that Florida builders did
business, and that included the Cavanaugh
Leasing Corporation.
While the corporation had initially promised
32 miles of navigable waterways stocked with
fi sh, and each home overlooking a canal, golf
course, landscaped green belt or recreational
waterway, and with each homeowner