Leaving a Legacy

[The first image on the information panel shows the Lewis Spring House from the spring side of the property, looking at the curving walls with large plate glass windows. The garden is lush with elephant ear plants, bushes of wandering trinity flowers, and a mulched pathway. The sunlight hits a plywood door, a replacement of the original glass doors removed for preservation purposes.]

[A photo shows a group of people smiling at the camera, including two young girls. From left to right is George Lewis II, Clifton Van Brunt Lewis, Patricia Stephens Due, and her daughters in front of her, Johnita and Tananarive. They stand at the bottom of a staircase illuminated by sunlight coming in through slanted windows.]

Clifton continued active work with her alma mater after graduation, whether by sponsoring student underground newsletters, establishing lodging for international students, or lobbying for integrated meeting space for FSU and FAMU students. She also worked for transparency in government meetings, appealing for increased public access through the Government-in-the-Sunshine amendment in the early 1990s.

Clifton and George’s legacy lives on at their family home, known as the Spring House, the only dwelling in Florida designed and built by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright during his lifetime. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, just 25 years after its construction.

The Spring House Institute continues to support the mission of its founders with a plan to return to use as a public space for artists, activists, and enthusiasts as restoration takes place.

Learn more about the Institute at PreserveSpringHouse.org.

Sid Cooper, a long time friend of the Lewises, penned a short story after Clifton’s death in 2014. It reads:

“One beautiful afternoon my wife Carol and I were having lunch consisting of kiwi fruit and oxtail soup at she and George’s cottage on Dog Island.

I asked her, ‘How do you feel about the person that called you a “crazy old woman” in a recent article published in the newspaper?’

She turned to me and said, ‘She too is one of God’s children.’”