Annual gala to raise funds for Sanibel Historical Museum, Village
Tickets are on sale for the Sanibel Historical Museum and Village’s sole fundraiser for 2019.
This year’s annual gala, “An Evening on the Old Algiers,” will take place on Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. at The Community House on Sanibel. Themed after an old river boat that almost became the island’s first “mega mansion,” the evening will feature dinner, live entertainment and dancing, speakers and more.
“This is our big annual fundraiser of the year,” Executive Director Emilie Alfino said.
Proceeds from the event go toward serving the village’s mission to preserve, share and celebrate Sanibel’s history. The funding covers programming, building and exhibit improvements, and such.
“Each year we try to pick a theme that reflects some aspect of Sanibel’s history,” she said.
The story of the Algiers, a former 155-foot car ferry, and Lathrop and Helen Brown was picked.
“We wanted to pick something that a lot of people didn’t know anything about,” Alfino said, adding that it makes the event fun and educational. “While sad, it’s kind of a unique and romantic story.”
The Browns – a shipping heiress and a New York congressman and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s college roommate and best man – were a Boston couple with a fondness for quirky fixer-uppers. They brought the boat from New Orleans to their beach-front acres on Sanibel in 1959 after buying it at an auction.
It was floated ashore via a trench dug on the beach that is presently Gulfside City Park.
The Browns gave the boat a makeover, retrofitting the exterior with antebellum trimmings, a huge paddle wheel, feathered smokestacks and vintage gingerbread. Inside, they created a palace with Italian terrazzo tiles, French marble countertops and sinks inlaid with gold seahorses and gold-plated dolphin faucets. It had an elevator and a restaurant-equipped kitchen with a new invention: the microwave.
Before moving in, the Browns wanted to sell a home they owned in Fort Lauderdale.
Lathrop Brown traveled to the East Coast to do so and, according to the story, went to a pizzeria, returned with indigestion and died the following day. Broken-hearted, Helen Brown returned to Boston, never to return to Sanibel and never to sleep in her “dream boat,” which was later put up for sale.
Looking to acquire more beachfront property, the newly-incorporated city purchased the Algiers in 1981. But, the boat was dilapidated and beyond repair at that point, so after everything salvageable was stripped and auctioned off, what remained was burned by the city as practice for firefighters in 1982.
The captain’s wheel, anchor and bell from the Algiers is on display at the village.
During the fundraiser, a replica of the boat will be set up.
“We’re going to try and keep it all as glamorous as the boat would have been,” she said.
Volunteers and board members will wear signs saying, “Ask me something about the Algiers.”
“They’ll all have a variety of facts in their head to share,” Alfino said.
The evening’s speakers are Board President Bill Bachman and volunteer Neal Halleran. Their presentations will talk about the museum and village and what it accomplished over the last year.
“And what we hope to do in the coming year,” she said.
Some of the accomplishments include holding sold-out Twilight Talks, funding admissions for hundreds of people for special events, completing the Packing House renovation and more.
For the upcoming year, the village hopes to create a new orientation video, update displays, produce a timeline comparing world and Sanibel events, improve electrical capacity in the buildings and such.
Live entertainment for the event will be provided by Kelly & Shelly.
“We’ve used them in years past,” Alfino said. “They’re really good.”
The buffet dinner will be provided by the Sanibel Catering Company by Bailey’s.
The event will feature an open bar, which is included in the ticket price.
New this year, attendees who make a pledge will receive a gift.
“They’ll be able to reach in and get something as a thank you for their pledge,” she said.
“We had a couple of organizations willing to give us gift certificates, so we decided to use them this way,” Alfino added. “It was just something a little extra, a little something fun.”
Tickets are $135 each and can be purchased at www.sanibelmuseum.org.
They can also be bought by calling 239-472-4648 or by stopping by the village.
“It does always sell out,” she said. “People should reserve as soon as possible to avoid missing out.”
As of last week, about half of the tickets had been sold.
Citizens and visitors are urged to secure theirs quickly.
“It’s a fun event, but it also is a way to help preserve the island’s history – and that’s a very important thing to do because we need to know where we came from,” Alfino said. “Our history is quite different from our present, and there’s no other way to get in touch with our past.”
For more information, contact 239-472-4648 or visit www.sanibelmuseum.org.
The current list of sponsors are Allegra Printing, Times of the Islands, John Grey Painting, Sanibel Captiva Beach Resorts, Bank of the Islands, Congress Jewelers, VIP Realty and the Sanibel Captiva Trust Company. There is also a number of individual sponsors that are supporting this year’s event.
The Community House is at 2173 Periwinkle Way.