Article Text

A new bench program is giving residents a reason to slow down, admire the scenery and remember the people who shaped their families.

The homeowners’ association at a Florida resort recently began offering three-year bench rentals for $800. Each newly installed seat overlooks water, a golf course or both.

The price covers leveling the ground, pouring a concrete pad, purchasing the bench and adding an engraved plaque honoring a person or family. Because the program is new, the association has not determined what will happen when the initial three-year term expires.

Behind the practical details are deeply personal stories. A series in the resort magazine is now highlighting three benches each month.

One bench honors a couple whose family owned a sporting goods store in Memphis. The husband loved the outdoors and sponsored an annual Fishing Rodeo there, often discussing plans for a similar event at the resort.

After his death in 2000, friends established the Bill Dowdle Fishing Rodeo. Held every Memorial Day weekend until the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the event welcomed more than 200 children of residents and guests and helped open the summer season. Every participant received a can of worms and a cane pole, and prizes were distributed afterward.

Another bench commemorates a couple who never lived at the resort full time but made it their retreat from Nashville. They gathered three generations of relatives there for Thanksgiving and other holidays.

Their son and daughter-in-law eventually purchased the home to preserve it within the family and protect years of shared memories. As the daughter-in-law said, “Those walls have heard many voices.” The bench plaque captures the family’s connection to the property with the line, “Enjoying the view since 1992.”

A third bench was purchased by four surviving adult children as a surprise for their parents, who still live at the resort. It honors Nikky, one of the couple’s six children and the person her parents called the family’s “sparkplug.”

Whenever the family planned a gathering, one question came first: “Is Nikky coming?”

Nikky died from blood cancer in 2022 at age 48. Her memorial bench now stands a short distance from her parents’ home, along the route her mother walks each day with the family dog.

The benches may come with a substantial price and an uncertain renewal policy, but they offer something difficult to measure: a place to pause, revisit family stories and quiet a busy mind.