Is Nancy Shaver Running for Mayor of St. Augustine Again

It's an unusually brisk day in St. Augustine. Mayor Nancy Shaver is seated on the enclosed porch off of her living room. An electric fireplace projects dancing flames behind a custom-made atomic number 26 screen. Her eyes catch a retention in the firelight and she smiles. "Sean and I designed that screen together," she says. "He didn't get to see the finished slice, but his influence is in it."

A beautiful, functional slice of art, the fireplace screen is ane of many mementos from a life well lived that adorns Nancy's Lincolnville bungalow. From a charcoal sketch of her father to a vast collection of public restroom signs, seven decades of stories, travels, and adventures bedeck the walls of the mayor'south eclectic ane,300 foursquare human foot dwelling.

Merely over a decade ago, Nancy was living in Denver. A self-proclaimed Navy brat and corporate nomad, Nancy found herself with two grown children and a successful career, but no place that felt like habitation.

Hoping to remedy this, she bought a vacation cottage in Maine. One night, while hosting a small get together, Nancy met Sean Meacham, a stock trader turned seasoned sailor who floated between Maine and Puerto Rico. Instantly, the two perennial wanderers had finally found home.

"He was the dear of my life," she says. "I've kissed a lot of frogs —fifty-fifty married some —but when we met, information technology was instant. We moved in together in less than a calendar month."

Unfortunately, not long after they began building their life together in Maine, Sean was diagnosed with a rare, terminal form of leukemia.

"We knew we didn't want to spend our last winter together in Maine," says Nancy. "A friend told me about St. Augustine and said I would love it."

Knowing time was precious, Nancy hopped on the internet and establish a ii bedroom, two bathroom firm on a curt sale. She bought the place sight unseen, made a quick weekend trip to coordinate with contractors and architects, then returned north to pack Sean and all of their holding for one final trip down the declension.

Other than enclosing the side porch, non much work was needed to go the house move-in ready. Built in 1930, the dwelling still had much of its original character, from the congenital-in bookshelves to the clawfoot tub in the master bath. Still, the couple institute a few areas to leave their mark. Sean rigged a light behind the stained glass window over the fridge while Nancy converted a small-scale closet off the laundry room into an art studio.

Sean relished the warm, Florida days on the porch swing. He made piffling birds from palm fronds and gave them to neighbors who stopped to conversation. Nancy poured herself into Sean's care, making sure he had the best quality of life possible. In August 2010, less than a twelvemonth subsequently moving to St. Augustine, Sean passed away.

As she worked through her grief, Nancy began to pay attention to the local news and a headline about a coral reef project near Riberia Point caught her middle. Nancy called her daughter, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assistants (NOAA), who hadn't heard of the projection. More than inquiry revealed the visitor hired by the city had previously defrauded the government of Dominica on a similar project. Nancy took her findings to City Hall where she met with longtime Urban center Managing director John Reagan. "I told him I'd exist happy to find another company, a legitimate ane, that would exist a better fit for their strategic plan," says Nancy. "That'southward when I constitute out they didn't have a strategic programme."

The coral reef project was called off, but other development proposals rose for the aforementioned land a few blocks from Nancy's dwelling house. Her business organization experience told her these projects were not the right fit for the expanse. She became a founding member of Keep Riberia Bespeak Green, a passionate grouping that later guided her 2014 campaign for mayor and supported her through re-election in 2016.

"I don't have whatsoever ambitions when it comes to politics. I just honey solving bug and helping people."

Nancy, now in her 70s and a grandmother of two, plans to run for a tertiary term in 2018. She hopes to maintain momentum behind solving what she sees as St. Augustine'south biggest problem: sea level ascension.

"I always thought in my retirement I'd exist making mediocre fine art and writing bad poetry," Nancy says with a express mirth. "I thought I would run an art gallery or exist an interior designer."

Her abode certainly testifies to her talent in both areas. Her carefully curated collection of artwork includes everything from Australian textiles to pieces by local artists Enzo Torcoletti and Sara Pedigo.

Still, the pieces that mean the most are the ones that make her firm into a home. It's the apple ladder Sean had custom made for the kitchen. It'due south the frail little palm frond birds tucked in special corners. It's a rusted claw mounted in a woods frame on the guest room wall.

"It's the first thing he e'er gave me," she says. "It was his fashion of saying 'You've hooked me.'"

Images by Leonard Blush

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Source: https://www.staugustinesocial.com/eclectic-lincolnville-cottage-mayor-nancy-shaver/