After a globe-trotting military career, Daniel Kelsey is settling into his dream job — managing, and preserving, Coconut Grove’s waterfront time capsule for future generations.
As he does at the end of most days, Daniel Kelsey climbs the stairs above his office to a second-floor apartment within the grounds of The Barnacle Historic State Park, a quiet, waterfront oasis in the heart of Coconut Grove.
Seated on an oak-shaded porch above what once served as a carriage house, Kelsey puffs on a cigar, imagining life in the early pioneer days of Ralph Middleton Munroe, the man who built the park’s namesake home and who lived there until his death in 1933.
Coconut Grove, of course, is not as tranquil as it was when Munroe purchased 40 acres of mostly dense hardwood hammock overlooking Biscayne Bay in 1887.
Today, the sounds of urban life – traffic, crowded sidewalk cafes, shouts and whistles from nearby schools and playing fields – fill the air.
Portions of the park – whittled down, before its purchase by the State of Florida in 1973, to just five acres – share fence lines with modern, multimillion-dollar homes.
But Kelsey, the Barnacle’s newest park manager, hopes to preserve the property to ensure that Miami’s oldest home in its original location can continue to offer a glimpse into Coconut Grove’s early days — despite the challenges of climate, funding, and low community awareness.
“I’m just very happy to be part of what’s trying to keep this spot the way it is, and try to make people realize how cool it was before all of that [development],” Kelsey said.
The park, more commonly known by its abbreviated name, the Barnacle, pays homage to both the natural landscape – a chunk of hardwood hammock remains – and the pioneer history that paved the way for the transformation of Miami from subtropical outpost to ever-expanding metropolis in just a few generations.
Kelsey’s introduction to that early pioneer life arrived early.
On day one of his new job, last spring, he received a call from Mimi Munroe, the wife of Ralph Munroe’s grandson, inviting him for a day of sailing on Biscayne Bay, with a chance to see the Grove from a different vantage point, and hear stories passed down through generations of family members.
Kelsey described the experience as “lived history.”
This rich family backstory – and the village character of the Grove – are what drew Kelsey to the job, his second posting as a park manager within the state’s system of 175 parks and historic sites. The job is something of a capstone (for now, at least) on a midlife career change after years traveling the world as a U.S. Marine.
Kelsey’s second calling – working with parks, and among the people who use them – came by way of a military posting in Key West. When yet another transfer beckoned, he called time on his life in uniform.
Remaining in Key West, the Lake Tahoe, California native tried his hand at just about every tourism job the island had to offer – glass-bottom boat tours, the ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park, and the Key West Conch Tour Train.
And then, in his 50s, Kelsey left those jobs behind to travel and volunteer at parks throughout the southern U.S. Working far more hours than asked of him, Kelsey said he finally realized what he wanted to do when he “grew up.”
In 2021 Kelsey applied for a maintenance job at Long Key State Park, a 46-acre park in the Florida Keys. He quickly rose to park manager and remained in that position until his recent move to Coconut Grove.
The Barnacle Under New Leadership
The Barnacle serves many roles in Coconut Grove. Apart from its central purpose of sharing the history of pioneer-era life in Miami, the park also serves as a community events space – hosting concerts, picnics, art shows, yoga classes, among other events – and has an active woodworking shop within its historic boathouse.
In the months ahead, Kelsey said, he and his staff will take on urgent repair and maintenance needs at the property and its structures, which are perched on the edge of a fast-advancing shoreline in the hot, humid subtropics.
Within the coming year he hopes to oversee reconstruction of the dock that was reduced to its pilings by Hurricane Irma in 2017. Also in the works: a new, open-air pavilion at the base of the park’s sweeping rear lawn, and a new permeable-surface sidewalk connecting the park’s office to the main house.
Kevin Floyd, a veteran park service specialist at the Barnacle, is excited by the energy Kelsey brings to the job, working “to get stuff done that I’ve been trying to get done for years.”
Water – both the fresh and salt water variety – may be the property’s greatest threats. While seasonal flooding during so-called “king tide” events swamps the lower portions of the park and its structures, heavy rains are taking a toll on the wood-frame house and outbuildings; new drains, installed along the new sidewalk, should help, Kelsey said.
With state funding always tight, Kelsey said much of the needed work would not be possible without funding from The Barnacle Society, a support organization which raises funds through events and membership fees to help bankroll capital projects.
“We try to step in where funds aren’t available or a project is really needed and is not on the radar of the Parks Department itself,” said John Palenchar, a longtime park volunteer and the Barnacle Society’s secretary.
Palenchar calls Kelsey “a breath of fresh air” with a skill set for “getting things organized and running well.”
The other great challenge facing the park, Kelsey and Floyd explained, has little do with money: attracting visitors.
“If nobody knows your story, it’s like you didn’t exist. And that’s a sad thing. We want people to know Ralph’s story,” Floyd said.
Kelsey is especially struck by how many Grovites overlook a resource right in their backyard.
“A lot of people look it up and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that was there’,” he said. “Some live and work in Coconut Grove every day yet have never stepped inside that gate.”
That may change with summer’s end as the weather cools off and The Barnacle Society’s lineup of events – such as the popular moonlight concerts and the dog spectacle, Barkapalooza.
And as with any historic site, the challenge of enhancing visibility, Kelsey said, needs to be balanced with protecting the Barnacle’s historical assets, and assuring the visitor experience remains consistent with the park’s founding mission of depicting early Miami pioneer life.
While late to find his passion for life, Kelsey said he has no plans on leaving anytime soon.
“I’ll stay at this job until they tell me I’m too old and I have to go somewhere else,” he said.
