{"id":193604,"date":"2026-03-16T15:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193604\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T15:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:43:07","slug":"historic-beadel-house-destroyed-in-fire-lightning-strike-suspected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193604\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Beadel house destroyed in fire, lightning strike suspected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The historic Beadel House on the property of Tall Timbers Research Station has been destroyed by fire, according to the Tallahassee Fire Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">TFD says the fire appears to have been started by a lightning strike. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to TFD Spokesman Todd Inserra, the call came in around 7 a.m. When crews responded, he said, the fire was on the second floor of the building and spreading into the attic. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">TFD says the second floor collapsed as the fire continued to spread. It says one firefighter was injured and taken to the hospital for evaluation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tall Timbers President Will Palmer told WCTV\u2019s Brianna Shaw that employees were working in a building nearby when the fire started and one of them heard the lightning strike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Beadel House is more than 100 years old and sits on the shores of Lake Iamonia off Highway 12 in Leon County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tall Timbers is a research station focused on \u201cthe study of fire ecology\u201d and advocates for the use of prescribed fire for land management, according to its website. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Palmer confirms the second floor is home to the research station\u2019s administrative offices and the first floor is essentially a museum that showcases the original artifacts and furnishings of the Beadel family. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Palmer tells us firefighters were able to retrieve some of the artifacts, including paintings, drawings, books and old shotguns used on the former quail hunting plantation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the Tall Timbers website, the house was originally built in the 1890s by Edward Beadel, and later bought and expanded by his nephew and naturalist Henry Beadel. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Ned and Genevieve on the porch of the main house, Florida Photographic Collection\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/BAVDZRYSXZCMBIRIHFQIUYUPCI.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"610\" \/>Ned and Genevieve on the porch of the main house, Florida Photographic Collection(State Archives of Florida | State Archives of Florida)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He ultimately \u201cleft his entire estate to be used as an ecological research station,\u201d the website says. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WCTV has a crew on scene and will share updates as we learn more. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/03\/16\/historic-beadel-house-destroyed-fire-lightning-strike-suspected\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The historic Beadel House on the property of Tall Timbers Research Station has been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[90005,90006,32638,855,90007,90008,232,16817,234,233,11645],"class_list":["post-193604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-beadel-house","tag-beadel-house-fire","tag-destroyed","tag-fire","tag-historic-beadel-house","tag-tall-timbers-research-station","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-fire-department","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-tfd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}