In the heart of Miami’s downtown, Brickell, the city’s bustling financial district, hides a 1920s bungalow painted in gem-tones surrounded by lush forestry and birds. Buried underneath are ancient Tequesta artifacts. This quarter-acre of land is known to locals as the Well of Ancient Mysteries. It now faces the imminent risk of demolition.
“It is the last undeveloped parcel in the Brickell area that once was a neighborhood,” said Robert Carr, co-founder and executive director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy in Florida. “That parcel is a little bit of the historic—and to some degree prehistoric—Brickell that remains.”
The property was sold to Leste Group, a Brazilian investment firm, for $5.9 million last June, 10 times higher than Miami’s average property sale, and against the wishes of its longest resident to date: Ismael Burmudez. Also known as Golden Eagle, Burmudez christened the site the “Well of Ancient Mysteries” after discovering a natural spring under the taproot of a mango tree back in the 1970s. An artist and amateur archaeologist, Burmudez has stewarded the land at 87 SW 11th St. for nearly six decades…