” Come to my Sunland – come with me
To the Land I love
Where the sun and the sea are wed forever
Where palm and pine are filled with singers
Where tree and vine are voiced with prophets. “
— Julia Daniels Moseley, circa 1886
The Moseley Homestead
The Moseley Homestead is connected to Julia Daniels Moseley, whose extensive letters and correspondence offer a glimpse into the past, thanks to their publication over 100 years later by her granddaughter, Julia Winifred Moseley.
The 19th-century vernacular home and related outbuildings, structures, and landscape environs include nearly 15 acres of preserved lands located in the historic community of Limona, today largely engulfed by busy State Road 60, Interstate-75 and Brandon. The main house, called “The Nest”, was built in c. 1886, along with several outbuildings of similar design arranged in a planned layout within an unspoiled lakefront hammock setting.
The Moseley Landscape
Here, Julia Daniels and her husband Charles Scott Moseley established their home and family after moving to Florida from Illinois, where Charles was an inventor and watchmaker for the Elgin National Watch Company. Julia, an artist and writer, fell in love with the land and helped create a unique, art-filled home, including a painted wall covering made from native palmetto fibers woven into a textile. The wall covering in the main house is so distinctive that it was partially displayed at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Swatch from the painted palmetto fiber wall covering made by Julia Daniels Moseley that was displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
The Moseley Family and this homestead site contributes greatly in terms of art, voice, perspective, and insight to the past.
The Moseley Family Contribution
Archiving, documenting, and establishing a foundation for preservation and interpretation of this site are initial steps in safeguarding the past for the future. This effort ensures a durable record of the structures, landscape, and physical objects. Activities include developing tools and applications for virtual tours, collection research, and immersive learning experiences that can be broadly and freely shared with the public for research and education.
Through this documentation, there now exist as-built measured drawings and design models that capture a digital twin of the structures and surroundings to enable virtual preservation and the creation of the highest-level archival records. A comprehensive preservation and heritage resource planning guide has been developed to ensure a sustainable approach to safeguarding the site, along with protecting and sharing the significant objects, art, and archive of documents and collections for broader discoverability. Virtual tours, including full 3D and Virtual Reality experiences, have been created as part of our developing educational resource and outreach program, and this project lays the foundation for planning the next phase of public visitation, education, and research opportunities at The Nest.
