Construction of West Palm Beach started pulling boards off
the inside, he saw the unusual sight of pine heartwood half
chewed away — unusual because the wood is so hard it
will bend a nail.
“Our biggest challenge was the tremendous deterioration
of the interior wood,” he said. “It was greater than
we expected.”
Workers had to jack up the floor to straighten out the
house, shoring up the second floor with steel supports so it
wouldn’t fall in while they worked on the ground floor,
replacing studs with new wood.
They found that the two-sided fireplace, which opened
into the kitchen and into the living room, had some fake
wooden bricks replacing the real ones. The wooden ones
were painted to look like bricks, and it doesn’t take much
guessing to figure out who might have done that.
“It was Bean,” said his former manager, Don Brown, who
lived in the house with the famous artist from 1969 until
Backus’s death in 1990 at the age of 84.
Backus had been living and painting at his dad’s old boat
yard just down the street, but sold the land to the city for its
power plant. He wanted to be close to his old location so
people could find him, Brown said. So he bought the old
Platts place from its then-current owner, the Christian and
Missionary Alliance, which had built an addition on the west
PRESERVATION
Who owned this house?
• Bought from Fla. Canning Company April 8, 1896: Lots
2&3 in Block X. Located one parcel west of Indian River.
• House built 1896 by Dr. Clyde Phillips Platts and his
wife, Clara.
• Rented by Dr. C. Ernest Van Landingham after Dr. Platts
died on June 2, 1907.
• Sold by Clara Platts to St. Lucie County Welfare Assoc.
on Aug. 15, 1946.
• Sold to John and Lois Mertz of Freeport, Long Island,
on March 20, 1952.
• Sold to Southeastern District of the Christian and
Missionary Alliance on Jan. 22, 1954.
• Sold to A. E. ‘Bean’ Backus April 21, 1960. 122 Ave. C
(now Backus Ave.)
• Sold to Don and Mary Ellen Mitz Brown for $10 on
Dec. 5, 1986.
• Sold to Everett and Sophia Ives of Glen Allan, Va. on
Dec. 29, 1993.
• Sold to Sean Murray and Harold Austgen Jr. of Fort
Pierce on Dec. 20, 1996.
• Sold to Patty McGee, owner of Archie’s Seabreeze, on
June 27, 2002.
• Sold March 12, 2004 to Beverly Bailey Watkins.
• Sold June 23, 2005 to Main Street Fort Pierce Inc.
Source: Main Street Fort Pierce from documents compiled
by Patty Reynolds.
Photos: Courtesy of Main Street Fort Pierce, Nancy Ingle,
and St. Lucie County Historical Museum
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A.E. BACKUS MUSEUM AND GALLERY
A.E. “Bean” Backus holds forth in his studio. Backus died in 1990.
PHOTO BY NANCY INGLE
Windows were removed from the Backus House and later were replaced
with replicas of the originals. The front door, given to Backus by Waldo
Sexton of Vero Beach, was sent off for restoration.