When driving through the long stretch of single-lane road on your way into Cedar Key, Florida, the shift is unmistakable.
Concrete buildings and paved sidewalk give way to swaying pines and scrubland. The ambient hustle and bustle of city life fades into overlapping mourning doves, chirping sorrowful songs over the sound of lapping waves. Old oaks tower over narrow streets, overgrown with aloe and cacti.
The bird calls and ocean white noise are interspersed by the sounds of residents. The wind carries music from a newly opened bar on Dock Street. Friendly greetings are offered to long-time locals and strangers alike. Golf carts amble by far more often than cars.
“You move here for the things you don’t have: the traffic lights, the crime and the franchises,” said Nancy Sera, city commissioner and longtime Cedar Key resident.
It is this atmosphere, ambiguous but immediately recognizable to some Florida natives, that Cedar Key locals call “old Florida.” From the slower pace to the shorter buildings, efforts have popped up in rural towns across the state to preserve what’s left of this lifestyle. In May of last year, in the wake of three hurricanes, National Trust for Historic Preservation named Cedar Key one of 11 of America’s most endangered historic places. Now, a year removed from disaster, locals of this small, coastal community still strive to embody old Florida and keep the culture alive despite its threats, from severe storms to encroaching development and expanding population.
Despite its recognition, if you asked Florida natives to describe what exactly old Florida is, you may not arrive at a single definition. Instead, it’s any combination of place, community, culture and anything else that makes a space unique.
The University of Florida School of Landscape Architecture and Planning sought to address this. A team of researchers examined Cedar Key from lenses such as cartography, community, academic literature, and more to try to shed a better light on the significance of old Florida to the state’s physical and cultural landscape. One of these researchers was Nicholas Serrano, an assistant professor at UF with a PhD in design.
“We're not so presumptuous to be able to define or to develop a definition for old Florida because that's something that's very much created by the community itself,” he said.
Cedar Key residents seem to agree.
Mary Prescott, 65, has lived in Cedar Key for nearly eight years as a resident artist and former president of the Cedar Key Arts Center. Her studio is adorned with mosaics she assembles from washed up sea glass. In her hair are fresh blue highlights and sparkling strings of tinsel, added to match the tail she will wear at the mermaid camp she’s attending the second weekend of June. She has her own definition of old Florida.
“Some people believe it's the preservation of buildings, and that's fine if that's their definition, but mine is more of being of a community,” Prescott said. “You take care of your neighbors. You do what you can.”
In Cedar Key, you bring someone dinner when they’re sick, she said. You help them pack when a hurricane is set to barrel down the coast. And most importantly, “People stop, and we wave. And that to me is old Florida. People used to wave.”
City Commissioner and small-business owner Sera, 78, shared a similar definition.
“It’s the quiet pace. It's the people that live here that either they're transients, they've come from other places, or they've grown up here all their lives. Everybody mixes well together,” Sera said. “The feel of the little island, I think. That's what I call old Florida.”
However, it wasn’t just the community residents admired. Prescott called the island itself magic, citing what she calls “glimmer moments,” like coming home from dinner and seeing a sky full of stars or watching the sun rise and set on the same island.
” There really is a magic. You just feel it,” she said.
Sera cited the water and the birds as her own form of magic.
Serrano and his colleagues found this was a common theme when speaking to Cedar Key residents. Everyone may have their own definition, but they can all agree on one thing.
“You mention this idea of old Florida and without actually knowing or being able to define what it is, they're like, ‘Yeah, that describes Cedar Key,’” Serrano said.
However, Florida’s culture remains under constant evolution. The U.S. Census Bureau reported an 8% increase in Florida’s population since 2020, the largest increase in the country during that time period, and nearly 200,000 new building permits were approved that year. For some Florida residents, this rapid expansion raises concerns about preserving what is perceived as the Floridian identity, including old Florida.
Hunter Turner, 37, and his wife, Chelsea Turner, 35, were born and raised in Florida, and now they travel the state full-time looking for what they call “wild spaces” that remind them of what Florida resembled in their youth. When they visit, they take drone footage, write blogs, and even make stickers or prints to commemorate them on a publication they created, Old Florida Vibes. Hunter Turner calls himself the CEO, chief exploring officer.
However, these places are getting fewer and farther between, they said.
“All of the sudden the urban sprawl just started happening so, so quickly, and all of those old farm fields are now homes,” Chelsea Turner said. “It's kind of turned into a concrete jungle.”
Chelsea Turner described Florida’s development as a cell phone full of precious memories that you keep dropping, eventually it’ll give out, and you will lose those countless photos and videos. Only you can’t upgrade to a new Florida, and those memories will be gone for good, she said.
“We're covering over our land with concrete. We are having devastating hurricane seasons. We are currently in a drought with a warming planet, so it's getting beaten to death in the same way,” she said. “We have to live with the decisions that those that came before us made, and the decisions that we're making today, and we have to start preparing for tomorrow. We've got one heck of a beat-up situation.”
And development isn’t the only concern. Cedar Key has been ravaged by repeated hurricanes, and it extends beyond physical damage.
“A lot of people didn't have any damage done to their homes. They survived. Everything survived fine. They were really so traumatized by it that they moved away anyway,” Sera said.
However, this is also the exact reason Cedar Key residents say they aren’t worried.
“You gotta have some scrappiness in you just to be here,” Prescott said. Sera called it “risk tolerance.”
Florida summers are blistering. The humidity is high. There are creepy-crawlies all year round. Tides come in so high they lap at your front door. Hurricanes rage along the coast.
“I see so much of Florida development being pristine and clean and concrete,” Prescott said. “Those folks will never be happy here. They can't be.”
It’s this imperfectness that keeps Cedar Key safe from overdevelopment or a rapidly expanding population, Sera said. Cedar Key isn’t known for its rolling beaches or crystal-clear water. Much of the coastline is rocky or marsh, and the water is darkened by the output of the Suwannee River. “Tea-looking,” Sera called it. And while this may put off high rise developers and chain hotels, residents don’t seem to mind. Sera said it’s grown on her. And Prescott? She is out on the water nearly every day regardless.
The Turners agreed. In order to experience all of what Florida has to offer, you have to be willing to brave the bugs, the heat, the saw grass, or whatever else Florida wildlife may throw at you, Hunter Turner said.
“You probably are going to sweat, and it’s not always comfortable for everybody, but it is something magical,” he said.
Cedar Key has become a prime example of maintaining that magic. From keeping sea glass out of landfills by assembling mosaics to the historic buildings dotted along Dock Street, kept in their original condition. Old Florida means something different to every Florida resident, and according to Cedar Key locals, preserving it means preserving community, kinship and identity.
“If nothing else, it just helps us understand our neighbors a little bit better,” Serrano said.