When Natural Disasters Threaten Modernist Icons

When Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the Southeast this fall, they left communities in western North Carolina and along the Gulf Coast of Florida reeling from destruction that will likely take months and cost billions to recover. For a number of residents in Sarasota, Florida, specifically, the question of how they might move forward both in the wake of the damage and with an eye toward future climate disasters is more complicated because of the historic nature of many of the area’s houses and civic structures built in its eponymous regional architectural style that emerged during the post–World War II housing boom.

When Milton made landfall in early October, it was near Siesta Key, a barrier island just south of the western Florida city and its surrounding suburbs. Between the 1940s and ’60s, the area was a playground for a group of architects including Ralph Twitchell, Paul Rudolph, Victor Lundy, Gene Leedy, and others who cultivated a movement that came to be known as the Sarasota School. Typically, the Sarasota School (sometimes referred to as Sarasota Modern) buildings these architects designed employ horizontal, open-plan structures and large panes of glass to let natural light and air flow through, and—unlike newer buildings in the region—all sit fairly low to the ground, making them especially susceptible to the storm surges and flooding that follows.

Paul Rudolph’s 1952 Sanderling Beach Club on Siesta Key, known for its single-story cabanas with low-vaulted ceilings and sheathed plywood construction, was destroyed by Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region in late September, about two weeks before Milton hit. Max Strang, an architect who lives in the private Sanderling community and serves on the committee for the clubhouse and cabanas, broke the news to the public with a series of photos of the ruined structures on his Instagram stories. He was in Italy when Helene hit so he asked a community worker to check on the buildings in the early morning hours after the storm so that he could assess the damage. "He called me on the phone and just said, ‘They’re gone,’" Strang says. "I was like, ‘What do you mean, gone?’ and he said, ‘They’re just completely gone.’"

The Rudolph-designed cabanas weren’t the only structures affected by the storm in the Sanderling community—Strang estimates that out of 115 houses, about 80 percent were significantly flooded or damaged, including his own—though they’ve certainly gotten the most attention. When first responders attempted to remove the cabana debris, like broken glass and cracked and displaced slabs, someone tipped Strang off. He hopped on the phone to Architecture Sarasota president Morris "Marty" Hylton, who was able to get someone into the neighborhood quickly with a drone and a terrestrial Lidar scanner to document what had happened to the buildings.

Strang says that, while the loss of the cabanas is a tragedy, "everybody [in the community] knew that maybe it was living on borrowed time." In his eight years living nearby, he says about four or five different storm events have swept over the area, each of which brought some damage or flooding. The beach has eroded over the years, too, meaning rising water and pounding waves could get to the structure even faster. In Sanderling and on Florida’s barrier islands, Strang says, "we’re living on the leading edge of climate change and sea level rise."

Nearby on Siesta Key, the Revere Quality House, designed in the late 1940s by Rudolph and Twitchell and restored in the mid-2000s, and billed as "hurricane-proof," took on four feet of water but survived the storms. The 1948 Healy Guest House (also known as the Cocoon House), also by Rudolph and Twitchell, also reportedly flooded.

The Sanderling Club members haven’t yet decided what it will do about the cabanas, in part because they’re all still dealing with their own homes. Strang says he expects Architecture Sarasota to take a leading role in the conversation, though he says it’s not as simple as just raising some money and following the original blueprints. As a start, the preservation nonprofit has dedicated its 11th annual Sarasota MOD Weekend (this November 14 though 17) to a revised theme, Restoring A Sense Of Place. The new disaster response initiative aims to support property owners, local organizations, and agencies in getting the documentation, condition assessments, resources, and guidance necessary to recover significant buildings damaged by natural disasters and adapt them for longer-term resilience. (All net proceeds from the MOD Weekend events will be used to support the initiative.)

"The question isn’t, can we rebuild these? but, should we rebuild these?—at least in the same way," Strang says. "If we adapt them for higher elevation or storm surges or high winds, can they still maintain the spirit of Paul Rudolph’s original design?" There’s also the question of whether another destruction is inevitable, a query that’s relevant not only on Siesta Key but all over the region. "It’s kind of a canary in a coal mine for the rest of the structures in Sarasota," Strang says.

Lorrie Muldowney, the immediate past president of the Sarasota Alliance For Historic Preservation, says that "almost anything from the ’50s or ’60s" in the region has experienced six different flooding episodes this year, including the aforementioned Hurricanes Milton and Helene, as well as Tropical Storm Debby. While the Sarasota School architects were clearly conscious of the environment in which they were building—the homes were designed for air-flow, with sun shades and beautiful views—they couldn’t really have anticipated the effects of climate change. With storms intensifying and sea levels rising, it’s becoming increasingly clear to those invested in the Sarasota School vernacular architecture that they’re going to have to repair what’s been damaged while simultaneously preparing for what’s to come.

"It’s everything that people did to their homes in the ’70s and ’80s that we’re having to peel back now. We were going to anyway, but Mother Nature came in first and said: Time for a real renovation."  

In some sense, the flooding may have made some of those changes easier. If all your drywall has to be replaced because the murky waters made it moldy, then you might as well move your electrical outlets up to the recommended six feet above the floor. "You really have to work to make these structures, these neighborhoods, more resilient than they were before," says Hylton, who worked for the National Park Services’ historic architecture preservation team before coming over to Architecture Sarasota about two years ago.

For architecturally significant buildings, making structural changes can seem a bit daunting, but experts agree that it doesn’t have to be. Alterations can be made to a home that respect its original architectural integrity—or that even throw things back to how they once were, like replacing wooden kitchen cabinets with metal ones. Jonathan Parks, a local architect who’s worked on a number of Sarasota School buildings, says he’s often found that a midcentury building’s original features are the ones that weather the storms the best. Metal window frames, for instance, fare much better than wood, and concrete homes meant for evaporative cooling typically don’t risk a catastrophic collapse. "Twitchell and Rudolph were ahead of their times in terms of resiliency or survivability," Parks says. "It’s everything that people did to their homes in the ’70s and ’80s that we’re having to peel back now. We were going to anyway, but Mother Nature came in first and said: Time for a real renovation."

Not all the changes have to be major, either. The 1948 Lamolithic houses, which Rudolph and Twitchell built on Siesta Key using a special poured-concrete technique, were originally designed without perimeter privacy walls. Since then, locals have realized that the development’s walls can act as a defense against rising flood waters. If a homeowner can invest an additional $15,000 or so to buy an Aqua Fence to put around the house when a storm approaches, that’s even better.