- May 20, 2026
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While Bayfront Park has evolved over the years — the baseball diamond come and gone, the rise of pickleball, a dog park and kayak ramps added — one thing has remained as witness to the transformation: the recreation center.
Now, and not for the first time, talk about a potential replacement of the building is beginning to buzz around the island.
Built in 1970, according to property appraiser records, the 1,350-square-foot building sat at another location in its early life.
It lived for 14 years at Far Horizons Resort, which a 1970 New York Times article described as “in many ways the island's most luxurious resort” where the Reef Dining Room offered “by any measure … the best dining on Longboat Key.” At the resort were two tennis courts and a tennis clubhouse.
In the early '80s, Murf Klauber took over the Far Horizons property with plans to redevelop it into a spa. The pro shop, though, was deemed worthy of preservation. Klauber donated the building to the Longboat Key Community Center Inc., the group that pushed for the foundation of Bayfront Park, and in 1984, Klauber paid $5,000 to move it to where it stands today.
The town took over operations of the Bayfront Park Recreation Center in 1994.
Asked about the history of the Bayfront Park Recreation Center building, Klauber’s daughter, Katie Moulton, had to consult with family to determine which of two buildings it actually was.
A similar building was also moved by her father, Moulton said. That building served as the main clubhouse for the “Kidding Around” children’s program at the Colony before it was renovated in the early '70s. Moulton remembers painting the building to suit its purpose.
“We’re talking the early '70s, so we were into being cool kids, and thought we were little hippies, so we painted it purple and lime green and all my dad’s favorite colors on the inside,” Moulton said. “There were pinball machines and a pool table and ping-pong, and all of these craft areas and toys. It was just a fabulous little space.”
Moulton said her father hated to see the building go to waste, and it was moved to either Islands West or the Veranda as a sales office/construction trailer while the project was under construction, and later repurposed as a tennis clubhouse.
But it’s most remembered by the Klauber clan for the few years as a hub for “Kidding Around.”
Coincidentally, the Bayfront Park Recreation Center also welcomed kids by the dozens.
Recreation is a diverse word that can describe anything from canoeing to skydiving, and Bayfront Park’s recreation center has hosted its share of activities.
Twenty years ago, that included a summer camp.
“Back in the early days, they had a summer camp for kids there,” Molly Schechter said. “Kids that came to visit their grandparents in the summertime in Florida.”
Schechter taught classes at Bayfront Park Recreation Center from 1996 to 2017, mostly yoga and Pilates, she said. But yoga didn’t go by that name, instead marketed as “joy of stretch.”
“In those days we didn't call it a yoga class because nobody would come to take yoga,” she said. “They thought that to do yoga you had to be a vegetarian and, you know, be a strange, down-to-earth person.”
Even decades ago, the facility lacked the polish of other fitness facilities.
“It was never fancy,” Schechter said. “It was the most barebones place I’ve worked in, but it was adequate.”
Uses for the center have evolved over the time. Susan Phillips, who was assistant to the town manager with the town for 27 years, remembers when the porch of the building was where announcers for high-stakes softball games sat.
Today, yoga, Pilates and workout classes are still held regularly. It’s also the venue for various town events like the informal Let’s Talk Longboat meetings.
Although the building is dated, Parks and Recreation Manager Mark Richardson shared that last year 3,264 people participated in fitness classes at the recreation center. Town Manager Howard Tipton said the town has expanded its offerings at the center, doubling the number of classes held.
“But it is old,” Tipton said. “It is certainly functioning and doing well, but it is coming to the end of its useful life.”
When flipping through news archives of Longboat Key, there are several recurring topics: sea turtles, mangroves, canals, density and signs, to name a few. The news is rarely entirely new. And, of course, there’s the community center.
Ever since the Far Horizons tennis clubhouse was moved to its current location, talk of replacing the building surfaced about every decade.
“We’ve had a conceptual design for years. About every couple years, talks around a new recreation center pop up,” Richardson said. “Architects have been on board since 2003 designing this rec center and making slight modifications each time.”
Perhaps the most contentious of those discussions was in 2003 and 2004 when talk of replacing the community center was buzzing after the formation of a Public Interest Committee.
In the March 4, 2004 edition of the Longboat Observer, a letter to the editor penned by Klauber argued that a new community center should be built at Joan M. Durante Park. In the letter, he wrote that “anyone and everyone” was aware that Jim Durante’s donation of the park came with the stipulation that if the town were to build a community center, it be built at the park named after his late wife.
“The solution is to honor our word and the original intent with Jim Durante,” Klauber wrote. “Build the new community center at Joan M. Durante Park and keep our recreation center in its present location.”
Town leaders decided in the end that Joan M. Durante Park would not be the location for a new building. Community Center Advisory Committee Chairman James Brown said in March 2004 that the land at Durante Park was not zoned to allow recreational programs and that “putting the center in Durante Park would take away from the essence of what that park really is.”
On the ballot instead was a proposal to implement a property tax assessment to pay for a new, $6.4 million, 3,000-square-foot community center. That proposal was soundly defeated with 68.1% of voters casting their ballot against the bond referendum.
Lesson learned, perhaps, as the latest round of talks to replace the center are not by issuing a bond, but through private donations. The Longboat Key Foundation, now led by Phillips, stated in its goals and objectives letter that it would like to collaborate with the town on a fundraising effort for the replacement of the Bayfront Park Recreation Center.
“I think it's beyond refurbishing,” Phillips said. “We've done the ‘lipstick on the pig’ several times already. I think that it is fully time to replace it and catch up with the rest of that very high-quality, award-winning park.”
Phillips is looking to a building in Fort Myers Beach for inspiration: the welcome center at Lovers Key State Park, designed by Sweet Sparkman Architecture firm, the same firm that designed the town’s new fire station 92.
“It's just beautiful, and it would give you a beach-to-bay view,” Phillips said. “I think when they see this design, people will get really excited.”
Fundraising would begin when an estimated price tag is determined, Phillips said, and that is contingent on a conceptual design being completed for a new community center. The town may be on board following a successful fundraising campaign to fund expanded community space at the Sarasota County library being built at the Town Green, also a joint fundraising effort between the town and foundation.
“It’s been a discussion on replacement for a long time, and it’s just a question of what that actually looks like. The town may put some dollars into some conceptual designs that the Longboat Key Foundation could use for fundraising purposes,” Tipton said. “But it’s going to have to evolve a lot further.”
