Friends of Seagate Inc.

Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Sarasota, Florida. The historic preservation group lead local efforts protect historic property in the Sarasota-Bradenton area from commercial development. The group later expanded its scope to include environmental conservation. Its most notable project was the preservation of Seagate, the former home of Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn, and its later owners, Mabel and Freeman Horton. (Horton was a civil engineer who proposed the construction of the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay.) In 2002 the organization tried to secure Rus-in- Ur'be, an undeveloped parcel of land in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a local park; however, as of 2014, real estate developers intend to build condominium units at the site. History In the late 1980s Kafi Benz founded the Friends of Seagate, a nonprofit historic preservation organization, to champion the preservation of portions of Seagate, a historic, property in Manatee County, Florida. Preservation projects The Friends of Seagate is best known for its efforts to preserve the Seagate estate along Sarasota Bay. The bay-front property was acquired by the State of Florida in the early 1990s. The present-day, Powel Crosley Estate serves as an event rental facility. A parcel of the property is the present-day site of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus. Seagate's distinctive weathervane atop it tower was th inspiration for the organization's logo.