Weirdness all around you
By RAY WEISS
Staff Writer
Last update: May 01, 2005
EDGEWATER -- Funny thing about time.
The Dark Ages decor of Joe Grabowski's yard and house wouldn't have turned an armored head in 13th-century Europe. But in sun-drenched and suburban 21st-century Florida, well, even Grabowski admits his living fantasy is, well, downright weird.
His King Arthur-like dwelling is so strange that it found a prominent spot in the pages of fellow Edgewater resident Charlie Carlson's new book, "Weird Florida."
Glued together props made of "garbage rescued" salt shakers, wine bottles and even bowling balls, sprinkled with blocks, bricks and catalog-bought gothic period pieces, give Grabowski's grass-challenged front yard the look of a set from a Shakespearean play.
Everything outside the modest one-story "castle" is spray-painted silver and black with a hint of mold green, helping provide an aged and authentic look.
"My big thing is I like to bring the inside out," said the soon-to-be-80-year-old Grabowski, a retired New York City department-store window decorator at the old Gimbels. "Everything is a fantasy. I will never be a millionaire. But why not live like one? This is my castle. My mansion."
In his book, Carlson, a 10th-generation Floridian, compiled "local legends and best-kept secrets" such as Grabowski from all across the state. Many recommendations came from fans and readers of his 1997 book, "Strange Florida," a collection of unexplained and unusual phenomena that included UFOs.
"That book was such a success. I hit on a formula," said Carlson, a retired Army man who refuses to disclose his age. "A lot of what is in this book is little known except to locals."
Florida's transient population and ever-changing landscape is fertile ground for the weird, a place where a skunk ape lurking in the swamplands can coexist with giant lobster sculptures. Carlson's task was tough.
"We have a healthy share of weirdness in this state. It's fun, though," he said. "You see something out of the ordinary and it pops out at you. A roadside oddity. A roadside marker. Things that don't fit into a box."
That's what drew Carlson to the 14 weird people and places in Volusia County in his book.
One of the most bizarre stories involves the mysterious life and death of 44-year-old John Maeder of greater New York City. In the mid '60s, he built a beachfront fortress on what was then a remote part of New Smyrna Beach. The house had double-paned bulletproof windows, armor-plated doors, 10-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete walls, a helicopter pad on the roof and a shooting range below.
There were also two electrically operated drawbridges.
Rumors spread that Maeder was a mobster, oil-company executive or son of a wealthy doctor. His legacy grew on April 20, 1970, when he was found dead in the steep sand dunes. His tractor had tipped over and crushed his head. A pistol was found by his side, and an ammunition cache was discovered inside the house that included artillery shells, adding to the story.
Ironically, the Silver Sands house is almost impossible to spot now, secluded among a continuous row of condos. In fact, "the Mafia house" now is Unit 145 at Ocean View Towers.
David McCallister, 77, of New Smyrna Beach, helped build Maeder's house and shared some beers with him on occasion. He found the tanned and tall New Yorker quite eccentric, but not shady.
"The gossip was he was an antique gun dealer. He just seemed like a fun-loving guy. He had an easy, contagious laugh. He'd walk around in cut-offs and old Brogans without shoe strings," McCallister recalled. "I liked him myself."
McCallister said Maeder's fondness for alcohol might have contributed to his death, after losing control of the open-cabined tractor he often drove along the beach. As for any ties to organized crime, McCallister said: "I just think it's somebody's fantasy. He would have been amazed and surprised by it."
Carlson's "Weird Florida" provides a wide assortment of these kinds of odd legends, tales and people.
Among others in the book from this area are the tacky concrete dinosaurs of Port Orange's wooded and historic Sugar Mill Gardens, a roadside drive-in church among the motels and condos of Daytona Beach Shores, a beer-can car in Samsula and Brownie the Town Dog buried in Daytona Beach's Riverfront Park.
For Carlson, history can be found in everyday life, even in a quiet Edgewater neighborhood where an eccentric older man lives out his childhood fantasy. Like the Dark Ages, Joe Grabowski and his castle will not be around forever.
"The fabric of Florida is always changing. People like Joe need to have a legacy," Carlson said. "They need to be known."
Where it's weird
Charlie Carlson's catalog of the weird and the weirder in Florida includes at least 14 locations in Volusia County. They're colorful, kitschy and full of local folklore. They are:
1. "The Haunt Oak," often called the Fairchild Oak, at Bulow Creek State Park, off Old Dixie Highway in Ormond Beach.
2. "New Smyrna's Mysterious Ruins," the coquina block structure in Old Fort Park, across from City Hall, on Riverside Drive.
3. Cassadaga, home to many spiritualists, and the so-called "Devil's Chair of Cassadaga" at the Lake Helen Cemetery, off Cassadaga and Kicklighter roads.
4. "Tomoka's Carnivorous Pink Cloud in the Woods," the "mystery lights" along the Tomoka River.
5. "The Mafia House," an oceanfront home in New Smyrna Beach built like a fortress, whose owner died a mysterious death.
6. "Grabowski's Gothic Garden," the Edgewater home of Joe Grabowski, former New York City window designer.
7. "The Seven Dwarfs House," part of Gamble Place, the Spruce Creek property built by an heir to the Procter & Gamble Co.
8. "Wooden Chiefs," a collection of wooden carvings by Peter Wolf along U.S. 1 between Edgewater and Oak Hill.
9. "What Happened to Bongoland?," a collection of dinosaurs from an early tourist attraction that is part of the Dunlawton Sugar Mill Botanical Gardens in Port Orange.
10. "Beer-Can Car," a life-sized car resembling a beer can that is parked outside Sopotnick's Corner, a biker hangout in Samsula.
11. "The Weirdest Mailbox in Florida," a motorcycle mailbox adorned with a skeleton outside the home of biker Glen Bailey in New Smyrna Beach.
12. "Drive-In Church," the former movie theater along State Road A1A in Daytona Beach Shores that now allows churchgoers to stay in their cars and listen to the sermon.
13. "New Smyrna's Old Connor Library," the oldest public building in the city thought by some to be home to a ghost. The structure is at Sams Avenue and Julia Street.
14. "Brownie the Town Dog," the granite memorial to Daytona Beach's favorite canine, who died in 1954, in Riverfront Park.
