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| Kona Kottage 1967 Fort Lauderdale Florida State Archives |
By Jane Feehan
Not built as a tourist attraction, this famous house drew interest of Fort Lauderdale tourists and residents for more than 15 years. Described in this postcard (above) as “a fabulous Polynesian … type home known around the globe as one of the most beautiful homes in the world,” Kona Kottage was built by Loflin W. Smalley in 1961.
This son of a Georgia farmer came to Fort Lauderdale in 1925
with less than $10. He worked at the Broward Hotel as a busboy and eventually
became hotel manager. Fort Lauderdale was booming in the 1940s so he looked
for entrepreneurial opportunities. Smalley bought a Hertz car rental franchise
and also a tree-removal business.
The palm trees he removed and often kept to save them from the dump, may have inspired
his vision for the house he and wife Mildred built and moved into in 1962 and for
their Hawaiian Village, a fantasy island for children, on a lot across the street. He did not visit Polynesia until a few years later.
Kona Kottage, designed by Robert E. Hansen, was built atop a concrete and steel hill on Navarro Isle (212 Gordon Rd.) off East Las
Olas Boulevard. The four-story structure, which sat along 210 feet of water,
included three fireplaces, a “dream kitchen” with built-in cutting boards, three
waterfalls and a large bomb shelter (a popular feature of 1961 Florida houses). Surrounded
by palm trees, a variety of other tropical flora and about 1,000 orchid plants, the
Kona Kottage became a traffic stopper. The tour boat Queen of Venice (shown in postcard)
advertised the house as one of its key sight-seeing stops.
Smalley continued to expand his business interests. He
opened Tea House of the Tokyo Moon in 1964, a soon-to-be-popular restaurant noted
for its Japanese décor (423 Seabreeze). The restaurant had its own boat. Some news accounts describe restaurant patrons riding to
the Kona Kottage on that boat to see the Christmas lighting display. The display
created traffic snarls off Las Olas; the lights were eventually turned on only for
people who came in tour boats to discourage sightseers in cars.
Smalley’s world ended in January 1967.
After his wife reported him missing, Smalley's body was found a day later floating a mile away from his home. Cause of death was recorded as drowning
but he had also been shot at close range. A gun, which once belonged to someone he
knew but had died in 1955, was also recovered in a canal. Smalley's death, ruled a
homicide, remains a mystery. It was once referred to as “Florida’s No. 1 Murder
Mystery.” Robbery is thought to be the motive; he often carried business receipts in his car.
Smalley’s estate listed the house for sale in September 1969 for $79,500. In 1969, new owner Morton L. Browne spent $200,000 to rebuild the once-famous dwelling. Browne tired of waking up each day to people on his property taking photos, looking in windows (which he blackened) and picking orchids. First to go were the “insect bearing trees,” then the concrete and steel mound the house sat on, followed by the bomb shelter. The shelter was converted into a large recreation room. Tourists and residents stopped visiting the once-famous site; few remember it today.
Contrary to some tour boat stories and many resident rumors, Johnny Weissmuller did not live at Kona Kottage – though a fitting setting it would have been for Tarzan.
Copyright © 2020, 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan
(Use search box for Weissmuller)
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 24, 1962
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 26, 1964
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 29, 1964
Fort Lauderdale News, July 30, 1967
Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 7, 1967
Fort Lauderdale News, September 12, 1967
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 24, 1968
Fort Lauderdale News, May 15, 1969
Tags: Kona Kottage, Fort Lauderdale Polynesian house, Las Olas Polynesian house, Fort Lauderdale history, History of Fort Lauderdale, LW Smalley, Fort Lauderdale during the 1960s
