The clapboard farmhouse at Phillippi Estate Park is the original building erected on the Edson Keith estate in 1916. The farmhouse was officially declared an historic structure by the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. 

Edson Keith bought the 60-acre plot of land along Philippi Creek when he retired from the millenary business in Chicago. Mr. Keith first built the farmhouse and lived there while he oversaw the construction of his Italian Renaissance Mansion. The farmhouse then housed the farm workers and household staff.

The second owner of the estate was another Chicagoan, Mae Hansen Prodie, owner of a doll company. She made her fortune designing wardrobes and accessories for Barbie dolls. While Mae was in the Far East setting up factories to manufacture doll clothing, her husband, Charlie Prodie, a retired Walgreen’s executive, opened the Phillippi Plantation Inn and Restaurant. The farmhouse was used by paying guests who would come out to the country from Sarasota to spend the weekends during the 1950’s.

After her husband’s death, Mae Prodie retired to the estate and rented rooms and suites in the farmhouse to artists and young people. She died in 1986. Sarasota County purchased the estate in a referendum for $5.2 million.

The Keith Farmhouse is under renovation. The exterior was completed December 2010, and the interior will be restored and renovated to become an interpretive center, featuring old photographs and memorabilia of life in the early days of Sarasota. The building remains a vivid reminder of Sarasota’s origins and the people who helped build this community.

The Friends of Sarasota County Parks and other volunteer civic groups, will be sponsoring community fund-raising events to raise awareness about the Keith Farmhouse and to help fund the interior restoration project. The Keith Farmhouse is one of the few still existing wood frame structures from the early 1900s.

While the interior of the farmhouse has been changed somewhat over the years, the exterior renovation reflects the 1916 original porch design. The building is a vivid reminder of Sarasota's origins and the people who helped build the community.

View of the porch to the main story of the
farmhouse after exterior renovation December 2010

View of the entry porch to the second story of the
farmhouse after exterior renovation December 2010