Sinkhole for sale. No. joke.
High Springs Herald
16 Feb. 2009
Sinkhole for sale. No. joke. But this one comes with a surprise
By Lindsay Smith
For The Herald
HIGH SPRINGS – For just $80,000, you can own a hole in the ground.
The hole is surrounded by trees on two acres of open, untamed Florida property.
All of the usual amenities are included: woodpeckers, squirrels, even the occasional raccoon for no additional cost.
Although a cable subscription isn’t provided, there’s plenty of wind and fair weather.
Tony and Isabel Realty will even throw in the sparkling cavern hidden underneath the hole as part of the deal.
“It’s a cave diver’s dream,” Realtor Tony Bootbhy said.
The small entrance to the unmapped set of caverns beneath the 2-acre property, located in High Springs, has been untouched except for the sparse handful of divers who have explored its depths in the 22 years it’s been owned by High Springs resident John Harper.
Harper, known as a pioneer cave diver in the 1960s, dubbed the sinkhole Whippoorwill Sink after he bought it from his neighbor, a local Realtor by the name of Bob White.
White offered to let Harper dive the sinkhole before he sold the property.
From above, surrounded by trees and the shade of the woods, “it looked just like a little piece of water,” Harper said.
He dove in and followed a small tunnel about 15 feet under until it suddenly opened up.
Underneath the small sinkhole’s opening stretched a dark cavern that Harper estimated to be about 700 feet long and 30 feet wide, filled with crystal clear water.
“It’s such a beautiful, beautiful cave,” he said. “It doesn’t look like anything from the surface; it’s just a little place with limestone outcroppings over it. But once you check it out, there couldn’t be a more ideal spot.”
Harper swam back to the surface and decided right then that he wanted the sinkhole for himself.
Now, he’s ready to pass the sinkhole – and its mysteries that eluded him for more than two decades – on to someone else.
With such clear water and a structure similar to Hornsby Springs, located nearby, Harper was sure that somewhere (if he could only find it) the sinkhole connected to the underground Hornsby system.
Now retired at the age of 69, he was never able to discover the hidden connecting channel.
He and his wife Diana are trying to sell the property – and the mystery – to anyone with the appreciation for the unusual.
“I’ve gotten older and less proficient in cave diving over the years,” he said.
“It’s an advanced dive,” said Tony Boothby of Tony and Isabel Realty. “It really appeals to cave divers because you have your own underwater cave to explore. Plus, it’s a unique piece of geological history.”
Harper said that he was hoping to sell it to “somebody who wanted to carry on with what I wanted to do,” but ultimately he’ll be happy to see it passed on.
“The beauty of it, just owning something like that…to me, it’s fabulous,” he said.
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