Drive down Gulfside Road today and you will see a barrier island that, for the most part, has clawed its way back from the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
—Fresh landscaping has reclaimed the storm scars. Rebuilt homes gleam in the Gulf light. But two addresses on the same stretch of mid-Key beachfront tell a very different story — and they are about to pull the Town of Longboat Key into what could become the most legally complex stretch of local government the island has seen since the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort saga.
—At 6541 Gulfside Road sits the structure the island has come to know as the “Half Moon House” — a 1973 stilted bungalow with rotting pilings and a crumbling seawall, already placarded by the town’s Building Official, stripped of water, sewer, and electric service, and operating under a court-of-last-resort compliance agreement with a June 1 deadline to shore itself up before hurricane season returns. Its owner, Donda Mullis, who paid more than $4 million for the property in 2023, has retained attorney Stephen Rees to fight any demolition order.
—Sixty feet away, at 6601 Gulfside Road, the situation is nearly identical — and nearly simultaneous. That structure, owned by the LLC 9403 Gulf Drive, was declared “Unsafe and Unfit” by the Building Official on March 3, 2026. Like the Half Moon House, the damage traces directly to the 2024 hurricane season. Like the Half Moon House, the owner has hired a lawyer — Attorney Dave Levin — and negotiated a compliance agreement with the town. That agreement was signed just four days after Mullis’s own deadline was set, on April 24, 2026.
—Now, on May 4, the Town Commission will be asked to do something that makes the parallel almost exact: hire the very same outside law firm to fight both battles at once.
—The Same Street. The Same Storm. The Same Lawyers.
—Town Attorney Maggie Mooney is bringing before the Commission a request to formally engage GarciaDell, P.A. of Sarasota — led by veteran litigator Martin Garcia — as special litigation counsel for the 6601 Gulfside matter. In her memorandum to Mayor Debra Williams and the commissioners, Mooney is candid about why Garcia is the pick: he is already working the other side of the street.
“Attorney Martin Garcia represented the Town successfully in the prior Colony condemnation and demolition litigation,” Mooney wrote. “Mr. Garcia has also been engaged to represent the Town in a similar matter relating to another structure that has been designated as Unsafe/Unfit by the Town’s Building Official.”
That other matter is the Half Moon House. GarciaDell was retained by the Commission in March for that case. Mooney is now asking commissioners to effectively double down — placing the same firm’s firepower across both contested properties before either fight formally ignites.
—The engagement terms are the same for both: $375 per hour for attorney time — a rate Mooney’s memo flags as well below Garcia’s standard fees — and $150 per hour for paralegal services.
—What the Town Is Looking at on 6601
—The Building Official’s findings for 6601 Gulfside Road read like a structure the sea is actively reclaiming. According to Mooney’s April 24 memorandum:
—The rear portion of the building is completely gone, open to the elements, accessible to passersby, animals, and vermin. The structure has shifted out of vertical alignment, with the front left corner and the missing rear section posing the most acute stability concerns. Engineers have flagged a significant risk of collapse under any combination of permanent loads, live loads, or environmental stress — including wind, rain, flood, or wave action. The building has been placarded with the town’s formal “Danger — This Structure Is Unsafe for Human Occupancy” notice, and the owner was originally given 30 days to abate, repair, or demolish.
—When Levin reached out on behalf of 9403 Gulf Drive, LLC to request more time, the town agreed to the compliance agreement route — the same mechanism used with Mullis at the Half Moon House. Extensions beyond 30 days require a formal written commitment from the owner, signed jointly by the Building Official and Town Manager, establishing hard deadlines for every step of the repair or demolition process.
—The details of 6601’s compliance agreement deadlines have not been publicly released, but the document was executed just days before the May 4 meeting at which the Commission will decide whether to put Garcia on retainer.
—The Legal Chessboard — and Why the Town Is Moving Early
—The reason for hiring counsel before any appeal is filed comes down to the two very different legal pathways available to property owners under Town Code Section 150.21 — and the speed at which one of them can catch a town flat-footed.
—The slower, more familiar route — Subsection (H) — allows an owner to appeal a condemnation and demolition order to the Town Commission itself, which acts as a quasi-judicial body. That process includes published notice, a public hearing, and a written decision, with circuit court review available afterward.
—The faster, more dangerous route is Subsection (J): the emergency demolition appeal, which bypasses the Commission entirely and goes straight to Circuit Court as a full de novo hearing. An owner has just ten calendar days from the mailing of a demolition notice to file that circuit court appeal — and nothing in the code prevents the Building Official from proceeding with demolition while the appeal clock is running.
—It was Subsection (J) that made the Colony Beach fight so bruising, and it is Subsection (J) that has Mooney moving proactively. “In an effort to avoid delay in responding to any potential challenges that may arise,” she wrote, “it is prudent to request that the Town Commission provide authorization for the Town Manager and Town Attorney to engage special counsel.”
—The Ghost of the Colony
—No discussion of Longboat Key’s unsafe structure enforcement history is complete without the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. Once a glamorous destination that hosted presidents and celebrities, the Colony closed in 2010 and spent nearly a decade rotting in plain sight at the island’s mid-Key. When the town finally moved to condemn and demolish the sprawling ghost resort under the emergency provisions of Subsection (J) in June 2018, the property owner sued. The legal battle wound through the Twelfth Judicial Circuit before a judge upheld the town’s authority to proceed — paving the way for the development now occupying that site.
—Martin Garcia won that fight for Longboat Key. The town is betting he can win two more.
Summer Recess and a Backup Plan
The May 4 agenda also includes a separate but related item: Resolution 2026-12, which would give the Town Manager and Town Attorney joint authority to initiate or defend litigation and engage specialized legal counsel during the Commission’s summer recess from June 30 through September 13, 2026 — the window when commissioners will not be holding public meetings.
—The resolution requires both the Town Manager and Town Attorney to act together — neither can move unilaterally — and any actions taken must be reported to commissioners and brought back for ratification when meetings resume in September.
—Given that the compliance agreement deadlines for both Gulfside Road properties will almost certainly be tested before or during that recess window, the resolution appears to have been written with exactly this stretch of beachfront in mind.
—Two Properties. One Clock. One Law Firm.
—The convergence is striking. Within four days in late April, both 6541 and 6601 Gulfside Road signed compliance agreements with the Town of Longboat Key. Both are owned by parties who have hired attorneys. Both carry hurricane damage that went unaddressed for well over a year. Both sit in an area of the island the town’s own coastal engineers have identified as one of the highest-erosion, most environmentally stressed stretches of shoreline on Longboat Key.
—If either owner fails to meet the terms of their compliance agreement — and the June 1 hurricane-season deadline looms large for 6541 — the town could find itself simultaneously prosecuting two condemnation and demolition cases, on the same block, through the same special counsel, against two different LLC or individual property owners, in proceedings that could run concurrently through the Circuit Court.
—The May 4 vote is, in that sense, less a formality than a declaration: Longboat Key is getting its legal house in order before the storm, real or legal, arrives.
—The Town Commission Regular Meeting is scheduled for May 4, 2026 at Longboat Key Town Hall. The full agenda packet, including Town Code Section 150.21, the GarciaDell engagement letter, compliance agreements, and the text of Resolution 2026-12, is available through the Town Clerk’s office.
Editor’s note: LBK News previously reported on the Half Moon House at 6541 Gulfside Road in our March 9, 2026 story “Gag Order on the Gulf.” This story incorporates new agenda material from the May 4 packet connecting that case to a second active enforcement action sixty feet away.
