As ‘Gilligan’s Island’ turns 60, a look at Mary Ann’s Redington Shores home

REDINGTON SHORES — Ask Bee and Jim Everett to show off their home of the last four years and they’ll boast of its restored terrazzo floors and recently installed boatlift.

“We painted it yellow because the house in old Carrollwood where I grew up was yellow,” Bee Everett said. “The color feels like home.”

A tour of their quaint, 1,200-square-foot Redington Shores waterfront house can be finished in about three minutes, but it includes the story of a three-hour tour, as in the three-hour tour.

A former owner of their beach cottage was the late Dawn Wells, the actor who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island.” “Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip,” the theme song begins, ending with “the professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan’s Isle,” and sticking in your head for hours.

“Gilligan’s Island” premiered 60 years ago in September 1964.

The Everetts, both 65, treasure a peculiar part of their property: a slab of the old driveway. It’s etched with an autograph from Wells and dated “8-18-88.”

They consider it as important a part of the home as the Jack and Jill bathroom, Bee Everett said, and they love that bathroom. “Two potties. Two sinks … Lots of privacy.”

Wells once owned two Redington Shores homes.

The actor purchased her first in 1978, according to the Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s website, and then, two years later, the home where the Everetts now live. News archives say Wells’ mother later became a permanent resident in Redington Shores. The Everetts said the mother moved into their home and Wells stayed in the other, which was less than 2 miles away.

Wells was a former Miss Nevada whose Hollywood career included more than 60 credits. But she will forever be known for playing wholesome farm girl Mary Ann on all three seasons of “Gilligan’s Island” and the three made-for-television movies that followed.

She also enjoyed performing in dinner theater, gigs that began bringing her to Tampa Bay in the late 1960s. It was during those trips that she fell in love with peaceful Redington Shores, where she enjoyed fishing and a break from life in busy Nashville, Tennessee, and Los Angeles, between which she split time.

“I love the beach and the water, the casualness of the area,” Wells once told Visit Florida. “And when I look out over that ocean, it reminds me of how small we are in the scheme of things.”

She performed locally through the 1980s, with venues including the Showboat and Country Dinner Playhouse, both long closed now. She also briefly dated Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary founder Ralph Heath.

In 1992, Wells spoke out against what she believed was the pending overdevelopment of Redington Shores. “What God has created, what we’ve managed to preserve, must be maintained,” she wrote in a letter published in the Tampa Bay Times. “Why would anyone want to overload the street and crowd the shores?”

By 2007, Wells left Redington Shores, telling the Tampa Tribune that she did so due to the threat of hurricanes. She’d survived one storm, Wells joked in reference to the show, so there was no need to further push her luck. Her other home was razed in 2008 and replaced with a duplex after preservationists failed to save it based on its link to the star.

Wells later reminisced about Tampa Bay on Facebook.

“Many have asked about my house in Redington Shores, FL, and my love of animals,” Wells wrote in a 2014 post that includes a photograph of her feeding a crane at the other house. “This wild crane would come see me every time I came to Redington. She would take food right out of my hand. I named her ‘Henriette.’ Somehow she always knew when I was there and showed up a day or two later. Eventually, I would leave my door open and she’d walk right in.”

Wells died of COVID-19 in December 2020, two months after the Everetts purchased their home.

While first touring the cottage, Bee Everett noticed the autographed driveway and immediately recognized the name.

“We thought it was cool,” Jim Everett said.

That had very little impact on why they purchased the house, the Everetts said. They fell in love with the neighborhood’s serenity and “old Florida” feel.

But they both said Mary Ann has always been their favorite character from the show.

“I could relate to her,” Bee Everett said.

Asked for his reason, Jim Everett just chuckled.