Renovations of the abandoned citrus shop and packing shed at Marjorie A. Hoy Memorial Park at Orange Lake Overlook (OLO) are expected to begin by early 2026 to reflect the land’s rich history.
The proposed cost of the project is in the millions, but one must learn the park’s history to fully understand how the two buildings are going to recognize the people of McIntosh.
The Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT) purchased 71 acres of land in 2018, and several expansions later, the park boasts three miles of trails across 157 acres overlooking Orange Lake. At the top of the hill sits two abandoned buildings that reflect the park’s history in the citrus industry, but the land’s use goes back centuries further, to the Timucua people.
Who were the Timucua people and what is their significance to OLO?
According to the National Park Service, the Timucua were Native Americans who lived in different tribes and spoke dialects of a shared language along northern Florida and southern Georgia.
According to the ocalafl.gov the Timucua Indians were possibly the first to occupy ‘Ocali’ near present day Ocala.
“There are a great number of archaeological sites in and around Orange Lake Overlook, primarily down by the lake itself and into the towns of McIntosh and Evinston…that are known sites to the University of Florida,” said Jeffrey Forbes, ACT’s Development Coordinator.
Tom Kay, ACT’s Executive Director, said that at one point in Orange Lake’s history there were around 12,000 Native American residents.
“The population was larger 800 to 1,200 years ago than it is today,” said Kay.
On the lake’s shore, Kay said there’s a large concentration of arrowheads, axe heads and pottery that have been found, but the trust doesn’t allow people to dig up the land in search of artifacts.
Following Florida’s introduction to Europeans, notably the Spanish, the Timucua population was significantly reduced because of disease and warfare.
According to Peach State Archaeological Society, “by the time the United States acquired Florida in 1821, only five or fewer Timucua remained. They became extinct as a people.”
What was the land used for after the Timucua extinction?
Once railroads began to weave through the United States, Florida’s citrus industry boomed.
“The boom for it came out of the ability to get stuff on trains faster than anywhere else, so they’d get their produce up the eastern shoreline faster than anybody else,” said Kay.
In McIntosh, the Huff family owned 71 acres of land overlooking Orange Lake. In the early 1950s, the family built a citrus shop at the top of the hill, directly off Highway 441.
Forbes said McIntosh had a population of around 2,000 people. Many were employed by the Huffs to work in the groves, packing shed and shop.
“Orange Lake Overlook and the Huff grove was considered probably the northernmost commercial grove in the state of Florida,” said Forbes.
In addition to shipping citrus across the country, the Huffs had a shop that was run by Ollie Huff, where she sold freshly squeezed orange juice to customers who’d stop by and climb up the platform on top of the shop to overlook the lake.
To attract visitors, Huff’s husband, O.D. “Buddy” Huff, got creative.
“Mr. Huff put a sign out on 441 that said, ‘Stop and see the rare Florida red bats,’ and people would stop to come in and see the rare Florida red bats. But what he had done was, in the citrus grove, he built a cage and had six or seven baseball bats that were painted red hanging in the cage,” said Forbes.
After decades of success, in 1983 and 1984 back-to-back freezes killed the Huff’s citrus trees, and Buddy Huff died. The citrus industry began moving south, so the Huff Family decided to lease the land out to cattle farmers and quit the citrus business.
How did the Alachua Conservation Trust acquire OLO?
In 2018, the Huff’s son and daughter decided to sell the land.
“They put a for-sale sign up and sort of wigged everybody out because this has arguably the best view in the entire state, certainly inland part of the state,” Kay said.
Afraid of losing the park to development, the public sought out for the land to be bought and conserved.
“[The people of McIntosh] couldn’t foresee a day when you couldn’t look down at Orange Lake, and instead you saw rooftops,” Forbes said.
The trust, which usually acquires land a little at a time, was made aware of the situation. They stepped in and bought 71 acres from the Huffs for around $3 million, said Kay.
ACT used a bridge loan from the Conservation Fund, a national organization that has revolving funds to help local conservation organizations collect money for quick property acquisitions.
In order to pay it back, the Hoy family donated $1 million. The park was then named after Marjorie A. Hoy, who researched citrus pests at UF, a nod to its history as a commercial citrus grove.
“The rest was privately fundraised, and we had literally like a couple hundred people make donations, small as like 10, 15, 25 dollars to tens of thousands of dollars to help make that acquisition happen,” said Kay.
After the park opened in 2021 ACT was approached by the Sawallis family offering them the family’s 86 acres of land adjacent to the park.
In late 2023, Kay said ACT bought the Sawallis property for $500,000 because the family had already sold some of the land’s developmental rights to Marion County.
Trails were added to this new part of the park, which opened in February 2025.
What is the citrus shop and packing shed restoration project?
Two aged, abandoned buildings covered in overgrown vines with peeling paint sit off the highway in desperate need of restoration.
Before the trust bought the land in 2018, artist Sean Dowie rented the citrus shop from the Huffs and used it as his art gallery in the late 1990s up to Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Due to storm and water damage to its flat roofs, the shop is in much worse condition than the shed.
“Right now, the big focus is the citrus shop, so we have a Bureau Historic Preservation Grant, and we’ve got like $157,000 from the state that we have to match with $157,000 in private funding,” said Kay.
To match that funding, the trust has to raise money and has been doing so via crowd raising campaigns, like Give4Marion.
Forbes said the trust has already raised around $80,000. But he estimates the restoration project may cost up to $5 million.
“To do it right, to do it well, [the cost] will probably get close to half a million dollars,” said Forbes.
The shop will be turned into a small citrus museum as well as a gallery for local artists to display and sell their paintings and photos of the lake. The museum will also feature the indigenous people who used to live on the land.
“It’s a unique spot where historic preservation and land conservation get married together into one project for the betterment of the community,” Forbes said.
A screened in porch will be added to the backside of the shed. This will become a community meeting space that can be rented out.
Forbes said he hopes the construction permits will be done by the end of December, so construction may start in February of next year.