Wildewood Springs IIA, Pineneedle Drive
Wildewood Springs is a neighborhood situated in a shaded, mostly live-oak and pine hammock in Bradenton, Florida. Wildewood IIA is made up of 54 units and called Pineneedle Village. Wildewood IIA has its own home owners association. The condominium structure was built in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Wildewood Springs (including Wildewood IIA) was the brainchild of architect Tim Seibert and developer Paul Neal, father of well-known and award-winning developer Pat Neal. Paul, Jr., a retired lawyer, and his son Pat Neal created Neal Communities in the early 70s.
Tim Seibert helped to create what is today known as the Sarasota School of Architecture, a modernist mid-century style that makes the most of south Florida's humid subtropical climate.
Wildewood Springs (including Wildewood IIA) was the brainchild of architect Tim Seibert and developer Paul Neal, father of well-known and award-winning developer Pat Neal. Paul, Jr., a retired lawyer, and his son Pat Neal created Neal Communities in the early 70s.
Tim Seibert helped to create what is today known as the Sarasota School of Architecture, a modernist mid-century style that makes the most of south Florida's humid subtropical climate.
Tim Seibert is perhaps the most prolific practitioner of the Sarasota School of Architecture...Seibert still remembers the initial creative vision [of Wildewood Springs]. 'We decided that it was time to try a condominium project without the ‘goop’ — cut-out mansard roofs, fake shutters and fake light fixtures of wrought iron — something that was modernist architecture.'
'I went out and measured the branches on a spreading oak and jiggled the building around, so we didn’t have to cut [the tree] at all,' Seibert recalled. 'Paul made me do it — he wanted it done right.'
'It was economical,' he said. 'The materials — concrete blocks and wood framing — were white and the wood was brown. There is beautiful landscaping between buildings, and they relate nicely to each other.'
The wide, wooden louvers on the windows were designed to be functional to open up and encourage air flow or “passive air conditioning,” as it was called then. 'It was green building before its time,' Seibert said. (Chris Angermann and Harold Bubil, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 2013).
