By DINA ARÉVALO
Port Isabel-South Padre Press
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com
The Port Isabel Yacht Club, built in 1926 — two years before the incorporation of the City of Port Isabel — is no more.
The 92-year-old former speakeasy, hotel and restaurant was demolished beginning last Friday, Dec. 14.
The property’s new owners, father and son duo Ernesto and Armando Martinez, were on site as a large Caterpillar excavator used its bucket like a closed fist to punch through walls and claw away at the sagging, rotted roof.
Golden afternoon sunlight spilled into the building’s newly exposed interior as the Martinezes stood outside the fence line. Periodically, passersby on foot would stop to stare. Drivers, too, slowed down in the middle of the road, or pulled over to look up at the half-ruined structure through open car windows.
Though the elder and younger Martinezes declined to speak on the record, they did share their excitement for their future plans for the property. Ernesto Martinez reiterated comments he made during public city meetings earlier this year, saying the family was planning something exciting.
But those plans are not entirely clear. The family has guarded their plans, repeatedly saying they will inform the community when the time is right.
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1 comment
I’m in utter shock that the Yaght Club was allowed to be totally demolished. What a black mark against the town that supposedly prides itself on history. So now you’ll have a new building that will be cheaply made and in a 20 years will become low- income housing for your area when it could have become a tourist attraction to accompany the lighthouse and provide nightlife to residents. I’m disgusted and my stomach literally hurts that city leaders failed in so many ways. What kind of grants were offered, assistance, incentives? When will the RGV figure out what the rest of the nation has already learned, use the historic building shell at a minimum to create a development with character and still maintain community pride. What’s next the lighthouse? Totally disgusted. If you just wanted another big building, somewhere else could have been chosen. You guys got duped by another short-sighted developer who will forever be known as the guys who tore down your historic Yaght Club.