| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 13 |
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previous chapter
CHAPTER 13 PONCE ALIVE IN ST. AUGUSTINE
Jimmie Ponce
Jimmie’s ancestry goes way back many-many generations to the very first Spanish settlers of the Oldest City and his
name sake Don Juan Ponce de Leon.
And as America goes you just can’t be more established than that.
As a young man youthful and jovial Jimmie had a severe life threatening accident and hovered in a life and death
state;
Here is what the doctor, (Dr. Brett), Jimmies doctor at the time and our neighbor had to say; “If Jimmie dies at this
tender young age he will already have lived more than most people do in lives of many years”.
In 1946 after the Ponce family had lived in St. Augustine for nearly 400 years, self- motivated Jimmie Ponce and his
ambitious wife Jackie opened a modest little four unit motel on a quiet side street overlooking a bay named Salt Run
that was at that time where the main channel leading in from the ocean inlet passed.
(In the early 1950s a new channel was cut directly to the open ocean and Salt Run then became a quiet side bay
estuary.)
Jovial Jimmie and hard working Jackie built their meager motel business up slowly over the years with loyal regular
repeat customers.
Jimmie and his enthusiastic faithful hardworking wife Jackie were self motivated determined go-getters and put all
their efforts into the business and even reinvested what little money the business made, back in those early years of
struggle.
Flamboyant and very much extroverted young Jimmie Ponce looked the part of a Spanish explorer and conquistador
because he was indeed a direct descendant from those original settlers of the Oldest City.
Well, nothing could have suited this adventurer better with a persona like Jimmie’s colorful personality. Jimmie was
in his own element when he dressed the part of his explorer ancestors.
Making the best of every situation enterprising Jimmie bedecked in his conquistador outfit was off on a nationwide
publicity campaign to promote St. Augustine and put the oldest city on the map.
How the, “Don Juan Ponce de Leon” of the twentieth century did it seems a mystery until you actually get to know
this, “one in a million” personality.
Jimmie got on numerous national television shows dressed in his outlandish Spanish conquistador outfit and his
prize winning captivating smile coupled with his ostentatious exuberance made him an instant star attraction…and
you could tell he really loved what he was doing; Jimmie was a natural born performer.
This was Jimmie’s niche in life and it was too bad that he couldn’t have made a full time career out of it because he
was a natural ham in front of the camera and the audience always appreciated his personable performances.
Being a very focused and determined individual Jimmie stuck to his vision and forged ahead with his waterfront
resort dream.
There were some lean years and some hard times.
Struggling to stay in business at one point Jimmie even rented his motel to some Flagler College students just to
make ends meet.
That turned out to be one of the biggest setbacks that good hearted Jimmie and his hard working wife Jackie ever
made in their rental business.
The students literally trashed the motel and put the poor Ponce’s out of business.
Well, Jimmie wasn’t the type to just throw in the towel, give up and quit.
He needed money and needed it bad.
For two years resolute and single-minded Jimmie went off to Vietnam and drove a cement truck in the heat of the
battle to put together the money he required to get back in business.
Now, that has to be one very determined and focused character!
So you can see that this business didn’t just fall into the Ponce’s hands…it was built on very hard work and an
unbelievably relentless determination.
Another interesting story of how Jimmie got caught in an additional bind occurred when he was building his Conch
House Marina pier.
After the last cement had been poured and the final construction was completed Jimmie’s next door neighbor just
happened to mention that the new pier was encroaching on his riparian rights. This was a very compromising
situation for Jimmie and his business and the neighbor had Jimmie right where the hair was short.
Take in a partner?
Sell the pier?
Or buy out the neighbor’s house with its riparian rights?
This cost Jimmie plenty of dough and it turned out to be another set back that he really didn’t need.
Not a quitter he again persisted and was subsequently encumbered with overwhelmingly huge bank debt.
I can still visualize Jimmie’s desperate face when Jane and I met him down at Barnett Bank on Cathedral Street as he
anxiously tried to secure the money he needed to keep his beloved business afloat.
He kept smiling through it all and working and eventually the fruits of his efforts paid off in a monument to the family’
s incredibly indomitable determination.
Jane and I got to know the Ponce’s better when we rented a mooring from them back in 1978 to tie our boat Dursmirg
.
We had just purchased the Flamingo Apartments in the north city adjacent to the Fountain of Youth tourist attraction
and the apartments were a handyman special that required our diligent hands-on labors daily from 6AM to 6PM and
many times longer.
At the time we had our live-aboard sailboat Dursmirg anchored out in Matanzas Bay near the City Yacht Pier. We
sadly found out that our boat was no longer safe unattended all day.
The live-aboard boating community had degraded miserably.
Looking back at those changing times and some of our boating neighbors, those seedy individuals hanging out
aboard many of the anchored boats just could not be trusted.
Over my lifetime I have found out that you just never know when someone is really doing you a favor.
Our move over to the Ponce’s marina where we swung on a mooring turned out to be a blessing in our quality of life
and improved our standard of living plus we were with the finest people that St. Augustine ever had.
Our move to the Ponce’s definitely made our lives better and we only wished that we had made the move sooner so,
our bay front boating neighbors really did us a favor.
This was the transitional time when the “By the Sea Motel” was just about to expand into the By the Sea Marina and
Conch House Lounge.
Salt Run and the By the Sea Motel were peaceful, quiet and secure and we were very happy to be clients of jovial
Jimmie and his lovely wife Jackie Ponce.
This was when we really got to know this incredible Ponce family.
On the rare afternoons when Jane and I managed to return to our moored boat Dursmirg after a long strenuous day
of hard work and a long bicycle ride to and from our north city property before 6 PM we would invariably be invited to
pause for conversation with the Ponce’s.
At this time Jimmie’s father-in-law, David Swain was living with them and he would love to reminisce about the history
of Florida that this family was such an involved part of.
A story told to us by old David Swain still haunts our memory; the father-in-law to the famous Jimmie Poncé was a
lighthouse keeper and had been stationed at the prominent Fowey Rocks lighthouse near the south end of Key
Biscayne, during that killer hurricane of 1926. His story was incredible, fascinating and captivating.
The description of the wind building, the old riveted cast-iron structure trembling, the hurricane driven water rising,
the storm strewn spindrift screaming and whistling through the shaking structure while the heroic efforts of David
Swain and his associates assisted in keeping a generator set operating throughout the perilous storm. That
hurricane gave every indication of carrying all of them away to the relentlessly raging sea story still haunts us.
The lighthouse workers wrestled their generator up three flights of stairs within the structure just ahead of the
oncoming rise of tidal flood waters and kept the lighthouse light operational throughout that entire storm.
Old story telling David Swain moved to St. Augustine and was the lighthouse keeper there from 1933 until 1944 in
the Old City’s uniquely painted light house with its black and white spiral stripes.
(This lighthouse today seems to be placed in a strange
location. When the lighthouse was originally erected its
location was positioned for the old original pre-1950s
inlet.)
Many times Jimmie would take Jane and I to view the most
incredible collection of St. Augustine area antiques and
memorabilia that he had been collected over an entire
lifetime. This was all the real authentic thing and Jimmie
loved and guarded his assortment of collectables that
were part of the Old City’s history that had been home
to his pioneering family over the centuries.
Nautical treasures were his specialty and I personally had
sold him several ancient anchors dating back to the sailing
ship days when stockless kedges were in use. One of
the anchors I retrieved from Matanzas Bay was nearly
ten feet long. Jimmie personally came over from Salt Run
to our anchored out Dursmirg in Matanzas Bay and
retrieved that classic old anchor with its chain still
attached for his ever expanding collection.
Attention to authentic detail was what the Ponce family prided themselves in and it showed with the service and
treatment they gave to their clients. As Jimmie always used to tell us; “My clients do my advertising for me.”
When you had a drink at their place you could rest assured that it would be the absolute very best served with the
ultimate in class and style, his food was always of the same high caliber. Even the shrimp that he served would be
so big, delicious and fresh that his clients would find their eating experience something to be boasted about and
fondly remembered and they did Jimmie’s advertising.
Jimmie Ponce lived his dreams and made them come true.
I can still remember listening to some of the visionary stories told by Jimmie Ponce as he told of his plans.
With a far off look in his eyes you could tell that his imagination held visions of elaborate undertakings of grand
proportion. When you got to know this dynamically incredible individual it became immediately apparent that Jimmie
Ponce was indeed going to live his dreams and make them all come true.
So when Jimmie told of his thatched roof tropical waterfront resort we knew that it would happen. Jimmie also had his
convictions even if he hadn’t quiet figured out just how he would accomplish them. Details would be worked out when
the time came and indeed the time would surely come because there was no turning back from one of Jimmie’s
inspiring dreams.
Above article is from the St. Augustine Record. Jimmie Ponce with his captivating smile is behind the
bar. Authentic memorabilia of St. Augustine's past adorns his Conch House bar.
A proud Jimmie Ponce still puts his dreams into action with no end in sight as he stands overlooking the
very waters of the original ocean inlet his ancestors entered on the epic voyage in the discovery of
Florida in 1513.
Seminole Indians along with a U-Haul rented truck harvested the materials from deep in the south
Florida Everglades to build another of Jimmie Ponce’s dreams that he made happen by ramroding the
project from dream to finish.
I am not exactly sure of how Jimmie Ponce spells his name but in the many published stories about him I find Jimmie
used a lot, and also Jimmy…take your pick…James?
Poncé with the accent mark is the correct Spanish spelling but evidently the American type setters over the years
didn’t have the accented “e” so the name Poncé is spelled Ponce.
This old bronze cannon from the Spanish era of St. Augustine’s past has a direct link to the Ponce family
heritage going back to the first European discovery of Florida.
next chapter
CHAPTER 13 PONCE ALIVE IN ST. AUGUSTINE
Jimmie Ponce
Jimmie’s ancestry goes way back many-many generations to the very first Spanish settlers of the Oldest City and his
name sake Don Juan Ponce de Leon.
And as America goes you just can’t be more established than that.
As a young man youthful and jovial Jimmie had a severe life threatening accident and hovered in a life and death
state;
Here is what the doctor, (Dr. Brett), Jimmies doctor at the time and our neighbor had to say; “If Jimmie dies at this
tender young age he will already have lived more than most people do in lives of many years”.
In 1946 after the Ponce family had lived in St. Augustine for nearly 400 years, self- motivated Jimmie Ponce and his
ambitious wife Jackie opened a modest little four unit motel on a quiet side street overlooking a bay named Salt Run
that was at that time where the main channel leading in from the ocean inlet passed.
(In the early 1950s a new channel was cut directly to the open ocean and Salt Run then became a quiet side bay
estuary.)
Jovial Jimmie and hard working Jackie built their meager motel business up slowly over the years with loyal regular
repeat customers.
Jimmie and his enthusiastic faithful hardworking wife Jackie were self motivated determined go-getters and put all
their efforts into the business and even reinvested what little money the business made, back in those early years of
struggle.
Flamboyant and very much extroverted young Jimmie Ponce looked the part of a Spanish explorer and conquistador
because he was indeed a direct descendant from those original settlers of the Oldest City.
Well, nothing could have suited this adventurer better with a persona like Jimmie’s colorful personality. Jimmie was
in his own element when he dressed the part of his explorer ancestors.
Making the best of every situation enterprising Jimmie bedecked in his conquistador outfit was off on a nationwide
publicity campaign to promote St. Augustine and put the oldest city on the map.
How the, “Don Juan Ponce de Leon” of the twentieth century did it seems a mystery until you actually get to know
this, “one in a million” personality.
Jimmie got on numerous national television shows dressed in his outlandish Spanish conquistador outfit and his
prize winning captivating smile coupled with his ostentatious exuberance made him an instant star attraction…and
you could tell he really loved what he was doing; Jimmie was a natural born performer.
This was Jimmie’s niche in life and it was too bad that he couldn’t have made a full time career out of it because he
was a natural ham in front of the camera and the audience always appreciated his personable performances.
Being a very focused and determined individual Jimmie stuck to his vision and forged ahead with his waterfront
resort dream.
There were some lean years and some hard times.
Struggling to stay in business at one point Jimmie even rented his motel to some Flagler College students just to
make ends meet.
That turned out to be one of the biggest setbacks that good hearted Jimmie and his hard working wife Jackie ever
made in their rental business.
The students literally trashed the motel and put the poor Ponce’s out of business.
Well, Jimmie wasn’t the type to just throw in the towel, give up and quit.
He needed money and needed it bad.
For two years resolute and single-minded Jimmie went off to Vietnam and drove a cement truck in the heat of the
battle to put together the money he required to get back in business.
Now, that has to be one very determined and focused character!
So you can see that this business didn’t just fall into the Ponce’s hands…it was built on very hard work and an
unbelievably relentless determination.
Another interesting story of how Jimmie got caught in an additional bind occurred when he was building his Conch
House Marina pier.
After the last cement had been poured and the final construction was completed Jimmie’s next door neighbor just
happened to mention that the new pier was encroaching on his riparian rights. This was a very compromising
situation for Jimmie and his business and the neighbor had Jimmie right where the hair was short.
Take in a partner?
Sell the pier?
Or buy out the neighbor’s house with its riparian rights?
This cost Jimmie plenty of dough and it turned out to be another set back that he really didn’t need.
Not a quitter he again persisted and was subsequently encumbered with overwhelmingly huge bank debt.
I can still visualize Jimmie’s desperate face when Jane and I met him down at Barnett Bank on Cathedral Street as he
anxiously tried to secure the money he needed to keep his beloved business afloat.
He kept smiling through it all and working and eventually the fruits of his efforts paid off in a monument to the family’
s incredibly indomitable determination.
Jane and I got to know the Ponce’s better when we rented a mooring from them back in 1978 to tie our boat Dursmirg
.
We had just purchased the Flamingo Apartments in the north city adjacent to the Fountain of Youth tourist attraction
and the apartments were a handyman special that required our diligent hands-on labors daily from 6AM to 6PM and
many times longer.
At the time we had our live-aboard sailboat Dursmirg anchored out in Matanzas Bay near the City Yacht Pier. We
sadly found out that our boat was no longer safe unattended all day.
The live-aboard boating community had degraded miserably.
Looking back at those changing times and some of our boating neighbors, those seedy individuals hanging out
aboard many of the anchored boats just could not be trusted.
Over my lifetime I have found out that you just never know when someone is really doing you a favor.
Our move over to the Ponce’s marina where we swung on a mooring turned out to be a blessing in our quality of life
and improved our standard of living plus we were with the finest people that St. Augustine ever had.
Our move to the Ponce’s definitely made our lives better and we only wished that we had made the move sooner so,
our bay front boating neighbors really did us a favor.
This was the transitional time when the “By the Sea Motel” was just about to expand into the By the Sea Marina and
Conch House Lounge.
Salt Run and the By the Sea Motel were peaceful, quiet and secure and we were very happy to be clients of jovial
Jimmie and his lovely wife Jackie Ponce.
This was when we really got to know this incredible Ponce family.
On the rare afternoons when Jane and I managed to return to our moored boat Dursmirg after a long strenuous day
of hard work and a long bicycle ride to and from our north city property before 6 PM we would invariably be invited to
pause for conversation with the Ponce’s.
At this time Jimmie’s father-in-law, David Swain was living with them and he would love to reminisce about the history
of Florida that this family was such an involved part of.
A story told to us by old David Swain still haunts our memory; the father-in-law to the famous Jimmie Poncé was a
lighthouse keeper and had been stationed at the prominent Fowey Rocks lighthouse near the south end of Key
Biscayne, during that killer hurricane of 1926. His story was incredible, fascinating and captivating.
The description of the wind building, the old riveted cast-iron structure trembling, the hurricane driven water rising,
the storm strewn spindrift screaming and whistling through the shaking structure while the heroic efforts of David
Swain and his associates assisted in keeping a generator set operating throughout the perilous storm. That
hurricane gave every indication of carrying all of them away to the relentlessly raging sea story still haunts us.
The lighthouse workers wrestled their generator up three flights of stairs within the structure just ahead of the
oncoming rise of tidal flood waters and kept the lighthouse light operational throughout that entire storm.
Old story telling David Swain moved to St. Augustine and was the lighthouse keeper there from 1933 until 1944 in
the Old City’s uniquely painted light house with its black and white spiral stripes.
(This lighthouse today seems to be placed in a strange
location. When the lighthouse was originally erected its
location was positioned for the old original pre-1950s
inlet.)
Many times Jimmie would take Jane and I to view the most
incredible collection of St. Augustine area antiques and
memorabilia that he had been collected over an entire
lifetime. This was all the real authentic thing and Jimmie
loved and guarded his assortment of collectables that
were part of the Old City’s history that had been home
to his pioneering family over the centuries.
Nautical treasures were his specialty and I personally had
sold him several ancient anchors dating back to the sailing
ship days when stockless kedges were in use. One of
the anchors I retrieved from Matanzas Bay was nearly
ten feet long. Jimmie personally came over from Salt Run
to our anchored out Dursmirg in Matanzas Bay and
retrieved that classic old anchor with its chain still
attached for his ever expanding collection.
Attention to authentic detail was what the Ponce family prided themselves in and it showed with the service and
treatment they gave to their clients. As Jimmie always used to tell us; “My clients do my advertising for me.”
When you had a drink at their place you could rest assured that it would be the absolute very best served with the
ultimate in class and style, his food was always of the same high caliber. Even the shrimp that he served would be
so big, delicious and fresh that his clients would find their eating experience something to be boasted about and
fondly remembered and they did Jimmie’s advertising.
Jimmie Ponce lived his dreams and made them come true.
I can still remember listening to some of the visionary stories told by Jimmie Ponce as he told of his plans.
With a far off look in his eyes you could tell that his imagination held visions of elaborate undertakings of grand
proportion. When you got to know this dynamically incredible individual it became immediately apparent that Jimmie
Ponce was indeed going to live his dreams and make them all come true.
So when Jimmie told of his thatched roof tropical waterfront resort we knew that it would happen. Jimmie also had his
convictions even if he hadn’t quiet figured out just how he would accomplish them. Details would be worked out when
the time came and indeed the time would surely come because there was no turning back from one of Jimmie’s
inspiring dreams.
Above article is from the St. Augustine Record. Jimmie Ponce with his captivating smile is behind the
bar. Authentic memorabilia of St. Augustine's past adorns his Conch House bar.
A proud Jimmie Ponce still puts his dreams into action with no end in sight as he stands overlooking the
very waters of the original ocean inlet his ancestors entered on the epic voyage in the discovery of
Florida in 1513.
Seminole Indians along with a U-Haul rented truck harvested the materials from deep in the south
Florida Everglades to build another of Jimmie Ponce’s dreams that he made happen by ramroding the
project from dream to finish.
I am not exactly sure of how Jimmie Ponce spells his name but in the many published stories about him I find Jimmie
used a lot, and also Jimmy…take your pick…James?
Poncé with the accent mark is the correct Spanish spelling but evidently the American type setters over the years
didn’t have the accented “e” so the name Poncé is spelled Ponce.
This old bronze cannon from the Spanish era of St. Augustine’s past has a direct link to the Ponce family
heritage going back to the first European discovery of Florida.
next chapter
the 110 foot tall cast iron structure was put together to stand up to
the raging elements. We have used that unique navigational marker
to light our way many times over the years and have always been
inspired by the heroic story of Jimmie Ponce’s father-in-law each
time we passed by and saw that distinguished one-of-a-kind aid to
navigation.
An indication of the ferocity of that 1926 storm came from the
description of the outside of the structure after the storm when the
crew could finally venture out to survey the conditions. To their
amazement there was not a single trace of paint to be found
anywhere on the entire outside of that cast iron structure that was
then brilliantly shining because of the violent sandblasting the
lighthouse tower had received by that killer hurricane.
This was the hurricane that sent large ocean going freighters into
the downtown of Miami.
the raging elements. We have used that unique navigational marker
to light our way many times over the years and have always been
inspired by the heroic story of Jimmie Ponce’s father-in-law each
time we passed by and saw that distinguished one-of-a-kind aid to
navigation.
An indication of the ferocity of that 1926 storm came from the
description of the outside of the structure after the storm when the
crew could finally venture out to survey the conditions. To their
amazement there was not a single trace of paint to be found
anywhere on the entire outside of that cast iron structure that was
then brilliantly shining because of the violent sandblasting the
lighthouse tower had received by that killer hurricane.
This was the hurricane that sent large ocean going freighters into
the downtown of Miami.
