Historic Laurel Park home sustains damage from Hurricane Milton

Evacuating just in time to prevent possible life-threatening injury, the historic Laurel Park home of Ron Kashden and wife, Kelly Franklin, sustained damage from Hurricane Milton. The national historic registered Dr. Walter Kennedy House was designed by Dwight James Baum, who design Ca d’Zan, and the on-site supervising architect was Sarasota School of Architecture founder Ralph Twitchell. 

The home was built by Owen Burns in the Laurel Park neighborhood platted by Charles Ringling. Although a century-old Washingtonia Palm and a utility pole appear to have toppled into the upstairs bedrooms, the masonry structure, built in 1926, survived with minimal damage, according to Franklin. 

Photo by Don Baillie

“It is probably the most quintessential and essentially Sarasota structure and place there is in the special place that is Sarasota, and I am glad it survived,” Franklin said of the home at 1876 Oak St. 

Franklin’s mother and her cat were staying in an upstairs bedroom, which is where the roof appears to have been breached, until Wednesday at 6 a.m.. That is when Franklin and Kashden determined damage from Hurricane Milton was inevitable, so all three, and the cat, evacuated to Boca Raton to seek shelter at Kashden’s mother’s home. Along the way they witnessed a tornado cross Alligator Alley in the Weston area north of Miami. 

Also suffering damage was a banyan tree brought to Sarasota by Burns from the Thomas Edison estate in Fort Myers. 

“The banyan tree’s roots are strong and wide, and her crown will come back,” Franklin said. “As for the house, whatever the damage to the structure is, we are fortunately in a position to repair and rebuild. Many neighbors are not, and my heart breaks for those who didn’t have a choice to leave or the means to repair.”

The Dr. Walter Kennedy House is an example of the Mediterranean Revival style of architecture, a prevalent style during the construction boom of.1923-1926. The house and the garage/servants’ quarters were placed on the City of Sarasota’s Historic Register in 1990.