Leafy, No Way

The former home and garden of the founder of a century-old South Grove enclave – named for its verdant landscape and since the 1970s preserved by city decree – may go the way of the wrecking ball and chainsaw.

South Grove’s Leafy Way is a quiet, winding dead-end street of single-family homes hidden behind vine-covered walls, towering hardwoods and lush vegetation. Its name is no accident.

Platted more than a century ago as an alternative to the vast land clearances that characterized real estate developments of that era, Leafy Way’s 23 homesites were surgically carved from the dense hardwood hammock that covered much of Coconut Grove, leaving the canopy nearly intact.

In 1975 the neighborhood was named an Environmental Preservation District – a City of Miami zoning designation that provides added layers of public oversight and protection.

But like much of Coconut Grove, this sliver of paradise is in peril, insist nearby residents.

A Leafy Way property owner is requesting city permission to demolish a 100-year-old home and cut down 75 trees – reducing the lot’s tree canopy by an estimated 90 percent – to make way for a 9,000 square-foot mansion.

As added insult, some note, the structure to be demolished was the home of none other than Helen W. Lester, one of Miami’s earliest female entrepreneurs, a racial and social justice advocate and, perhaps most strikingly, the founder of the Leafy Way subdivision. 

“Leafy Way wasn’t just a real estate venture – it was a reflection of Lester’s vision for how people could live in harmony with the lush, tropical environment of Coconut Grove,” says Iris Kolaya, a historian and consultant who has researched the neighborhood. Lester’s own home, she adds, reflected a deep emphasis on landscape design.

City records show the demolition permit is pending approval. The tree removal request will be considered May 6 during a hearing of the city’s Historic and Environmental Preservation (HEP) Board – a requirement for tree removal within preservation districts.

The property owner, Jan Vlietstra, did not immediately respond to a request for comment made through the project’s contractor and owner’s representative. Vlietstra purchased the property in 2022 for $2.6 million.  

But city officials, who advise the HEP Board on tree removal applications, are blunt in their assessment: “The proposed removals will result in a significant loss to the lush, verdant character of the Environmental District and especially the subject property,” Kenneth Kalmis, the city’s Historic Preservation Officer, wrote this month in a staff analysis.

Kalmis also faults the property owners for not doing more to retain some of the existing trees or to incorporate replacement ones. “With over 90 percent of the trees on site being removed, it is not clear how the applicant has demonstrated a ‘good faith’ effort to redesign the project in a manner that protects the trees,” he writes, noting that proposed building plans show areas of the 16,000-square-foot lot that could accommodate new plantings covered instead by house, pool, patio, terrace and other “hardscape.”  

To offset canopy loss from the 75 trees, the property owner is offering to plant 21 new ones and is proposing a contribution of $30,000 to the city’s Tree Trust Fund – a mitigation plan that Kalmis says does not “resolve the significant alteration the new construction would have on the environmental makeup of the property and District.”

Jesse Capote, for the past ten years an adjacent property owner on Leafy Way, agrees with that assessment, noting that mature trees are typically replaced with saplings that take years, if not generations, to reach full size. 

“By the time those trees make up for the loss of canopy you and I won’t be around,” he says. “It’s really kind of silly.”

Indeed, computer modeling designed by Chris Baraloto, director of Florida International University’s Coconut Grove-based International Center for Tropical Botany, puts numbers on it: 20 years from now – under the proposed removal and mitigation plan – tree canopy on the Leafy Way property will be just 55 percent of present levels.

Baraloto notes that while many of the 75 trees targeted for removals are palms and non-natives, they all carry ecological benefits. 

Capote bemoans the possible loss of canopy within a community created to promote and protect tree canopy, but stops short of blaming his neighbor who, as far as he can tell, is merely taking advantage of the city’s lax tree protection laws – ones he says may grow weaker still if city officials adopt controversial changes to amend its ordinance.

“The Grove wants to protect the canopy,” he says of the proposed changes to Miami’s tree laws “So why are you making it easier to take trees down?