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Keep out: Glades settler dreads showdown
with state over land
(Note from Cindy Kemp: This is the best article I've seen about Jesse.
If you visit the online/original website for the article, you can
click on the "related links" to hear part of Jesse's
interview and see photos. Well done, Roberto Santiago! You've captured
the essence of the man. Jesse's new website is http://www.jessejhardy.com Please
be sure to check it out, too.)
July 6, 2004
By Roberto Santiago rsantiago@herald.com
or 954-538-7112 (Broward office)
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132
305-350-2111 or 1-800-HERALD5 (1-800-437-2535)
To submit a Letter to the Editor: HeraldEd@herald.com
If Hollywood central casting ever needs a wise-cracking, bearded backwater type, it will find a movie star in Jesse James Hardy. But the stereotype would come to a screeching halt about a hundred yards past the mosquito-infested yard of his cluttered, hand-built home. Visitors would see a sophisticated, 4-year-old quarry operation on Hardy's property, deep in rural Collier County, that brings Hardy $2,500 to $3,000 a month. But now he has to stop the state of Florida from taking the 160-acre spread he has owned since 1976. It's a battle heading for an August 31st showdown, and only a legal miracle will prevent the government from taking his home and business. ''When the government wants your land, they say either take the money or we evict you. That ain't much of a choice,'' said Hardy, 68, who was born in Port St. Joe and lived in Miami for years before moving near the Everglades. The state claims Hardy's spread, in a subdivision called Southern Golden Gate Estates in Naples, stands in the way of its ambitious $8 billion Everglades restoration project -- which will flood land from Lake Okeechobee south to the ocean, artificially turning it into wetlands, and, theoretically, restoring a pollution-free water flow. The state first offered Hardy $711,725 in 2002. He refused. It upped the offer to $4.5 million this year. His answer was still no. The issue will come to a head in six weeks when the state probably will force him out by eminent domain. But Hardy insists that no amount of money will make him move. He loves living in the nearly impossible to find mosquito-, bear- and snake-ridden area that he bought 28 years ago. "There are things more important than money. How about living your dreams?'' Thirty years ago, Hardy, a hard-drinking, disabled, former Navy SEAL with a high-school diploma, was bouncing around Miami as a vegetable-stand owner, used-car salesman, real-estate agent and property appraiser, when he came across the property. ''After years of having to live around so many people and dealing with crime and race riots and all that, I decided I needed to find a place where I could be left alone,'' he said. "I figured no one would want to live here but me.'' He built his home, dug and paved the roadways. Along with money saved from his odd jobs, his disability income, about $3,000 from his Navy pension, and more odd jobs around Collier, Hardy was able to pay off his $60,000 mortgage in five years. In the 1980s, he said he made money money from stone-faced Cuban Americans who needed a secret place to practice invasion maneuvers. ''I don't think they ever got around to invading Cuba,'' he said. He had no electricity, plumbing, sewer or phone service. And he never went out at night. ''It was a living hell,'' Hardy said, describing his first 10 years of living without even a generator to provide electrical power. "You know what screaming meemies are? It's a da**ed sand gnat! They'd come through these screens at night and eat you alive.'' But it was home. He owned it. And he knew every inch of the 160 acres. He now has some modern conveniences: a generator provides electrical power to run the air conditioner and heat water for laundry and bathing. He has a septic tank and a large indoor bathroom. He has a 31-foot sailboat he keeps docked in Naples. He even has a cell phone. Hardy doesn't know if he will be able to keep his home and business, but he has the backing of some friends, people such as Pat Humphries, who educated Hardy on his rights; Sue Murphy, who created a website called jessehardy.org; retired Navy SEAL Captain Larry Bailey, who wrote a bluegrass song, The Ballad of Jesse Hardy, which helped turn Hardy into a local folk hero; and legal support from the Naples-based Property Rights Action Committee. Nine years ago, life changed for Hardy. He became a surrogate father of an infant boy, Tommy. The child's mother is Tara Hilton, the niece of a woman Hardy used to date. The child's father abandoned Hilton, and she asked Hardy if he would be Tommy's father. 'I held that baby and he smiled at me. I said, 'Yes, yes,' '' smiled Hardy, his blue eyes softening. ' 'Of course, I will. I'll be his daddy.' '' The three have been living together ever since. Hilton works at his quarry. He gets angry at the swamp-settler stereotypes that bedevil him. "I live with a woman and her 9-year-old boy, who I am raising as my son. I like having people drop by. I don't chase folks off my property with a rifle. I don't drink, smoke or chase women. I like hanging around my home, playing with my son, running my business and being left alone.'' Hardy hopes his lawyers -- and the court of public opinion -- will save him, but if the government does gets its way, he has a plan. "They ain't gonna physically force me off ... 'cause I'll leave before that. There is no sense in fighting the government with weapons. They tried that out in Waco [Texas] ... I am not going to do that 'cause I have that little boy to deal with and he loves me so much. We will walk off if we lose.''
Web vote: Do you think Jesse James Hardy should be allowed to keep his
property in the Everglades? http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=kr-miamiwebvote&msg=266.1
A sign leads points the way to Jesse James Hardy's agriculture farm.
Joe Rimkus, Jr./Herald Staff http://www.miami.com/images/miami/miamiherald/9069/82250705015.jpg
'I'm pretty simple. I like hanging around my home, playing with my
son, running my business and being left alone,' Hardy says. Joe Rimkus,
Jr./Herald Staff http://www.miami.com/images/miami/miamiherald/9069/82250723153.jpg
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