By james art 
At sunrise Friday, pickup trucks from Great Southern Demolition, Inc., pulled up to The Gladstone, the last of the Gilded Age mansions on North Monroe Street. A plan to remove it for added security for Gov. Ron DeSantis and his family was underway.
A worker in an orange shirt stood at the back door of TJ Mickler’s 13-room family home, built in 1897, and shouted across the yard to his crew: They’re going to need ladders, crowbars, lights and drills to begin the destruction of The Gladstone.
As of Friday afternoon, the house was still standing. How much longer is an open question.
Under Spanish moss-draped oak trees next to the Queen Anne-style home, Bob Holladay of the Tallahassee Historical Society and Steve Shaffer of the Friends of Gladstone watched as workers crossed the yard and entered the three-story house, which had been converted into a World War II boarding house and rooms for rent until 2000
Holladay turned to Shaffer and, hands outstretched, said, “They didn’t even respond to the mayor’s letter.”
The Sept. 11 letter Tallahassee Mayor John Daley wrote to Department of Services Management Secretary Pedro Allende asked the state to work with the civic group to save The Gladstone. Requests for comment on the letter and whether a demolition date has been set are pending from DMS.
The state bought Gladstone earlier this year
The state bought Gladstone in June as part of a project to expand the security perimeter of the governor’s mansion, which sits behind it on Adams Street. A 2022 Vulnerability Study, conducted after a protest in the estate’s front parking lot, recommended purchasing and clearing lots along Monroe Street.
As workers begin turning off utilities, light fixtures, sinks, tubs and pipes, Holladay and Shaffer hope a second letter will buy them the time they need to block The Gladstone’s meeting with the bulldozers.
Another was sent Thursday afternoon by the Florida Legislature’s Committee on Joint Administrative Procedures to DMS. (The JAPC serves as the police for state government rules.) The committee is made up of members of the House and Senate and oversees how executive branch agencies exercise the powers the legislature gives them to carry out their duties.
As the Gladstone project unfolded, the JAPC realized that DMS was relying on a rule it had incorrectly changed, he said. The DMS version of the rule allows the agency to avoid obtaining a City of Tallahassee demolition permit to demolish The Gladstone.
On Thursday, the commission sent a letter to the DMS general counsel to declare the rule invalid. JAPC co-ordinator Ken Plante said relying on this to avoid obtaining a local permit would be “an unauthorized external delegation of authority”.
A request for comment from DMS on the letter is pending. The letter tells DMS that if it wants to legally demolish The Gladstone, it must either get a permit from the city or seek to change the cited rule, which involves public hearings in a fairly lengthy process.
Both options give Friends of the Gladstone, the ad hoc group formed to save the structure, more time to raise money through a GoFundMe account for an effort to buy and move the house.
“People have to follow the rules, government agency or not. I’m thankful that we have institutions like the JAPC to inform them of the rules,” Holladay said.
James Cal is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected] and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on the Tallahassee Democrat: Workers prepare The Gladstone for demolition, part of DeSantis’ security