September 20, 2026
Lake Marion, Haines City: The Island House Built in the Shape of a Celtic Cross
In 1887 an Irish carpenter who had come south for his lungs started cutting cypress on a 23-acre island in Lake Marion, and built a house in the shape of a Celtic cross — his family has held the island ever since
On a 23-acre island in Lake Marion, four wings of a two-story house run out from an octagonal room at the center, forming the outline of a Celtic cross. An Irish-born carpenter named Patrick Bannon began building it in 1887. He cut the cypress by hand, much of it harvested from the island itself, and that cypress still lines the walls, floors and ceilings.
Bannon had settled in New York after leaving Ireland, and he was reportedly good enough with wood that Thomas Edison recruited him to build phonograph cabinets. A bad bout of pneumonia sent him and his wife, Annie Marie Ryan, south. He bought the island for $1.25 an acre. Its first known resident was Echo Emathla Chipco, remembered as Chief Chipco, who kept a camp there until the 1880s, according to the Lakeland Ledger; the Northeast Polk chamber's history of Haines City places Chipco and other Seminole leaders along the shores of Lake Marion, Johnson Island and Paradise Island.
What Bannon could not cut on the island came up from Tampa as cypress and pine lumber. The plan he laid out held a classroom, where the family schooled six children. His grandson Dr. Patrick O'Leary, who still owns the island, described the interior work to GrowthSpotter in August 2026: "Each piece of wood was hand-cut, and it was beaded boards and tongue and grooved, and then it was mounted on the walls at a 45-degree angle." O'Leary pointed out that it was done with no power tools, every bead on a wall matched to the one above it.
The family on the island is also why a priest first came to this part of Polk County. At the Bannon family's request, a Jesuit came from Tampa to look at what Catholics in the area needed. St. Ann Catholic Church in Haines City dates its own beginning to that trip: when the priest arrived in 1890, by the parish's account, he offered the first Mass ever celebrated in the area.
Bannon worked a ten-acre citrus grove on the island and ran a fish camp off it into the 1940s. The road that serves the property is still called Bannon Fish Camp Road, and the island's address is 7950 Bannon Fish Camp Road, southeast of Haines City. The water around it is substantial: the Polk County Water Atlas puts Lake Marion at 3,021 acres with a mean depth of 11 feet, in the Kissimmee River watershed above Lake Hatchineha.
O'Leary, now in his eighties, went to Winter Haven High School and came out to the island on weekends, back when his grandmother and grand-uncle lived there full time and the place had no electricity and no running water. Power did not reach the island until 1996. Groceries still arrive the long way — golf cart or ATV down to the dock, boat across, car for the seven miles to a Publix, then the same trip in reverse with the bags.
O'Leary's son, a contractor, went at the original house from underneath. A crew lifted it, set concrete footers and pillars in place, and set the house back down, work that took about three years. In 2003 the O'Learys added on, bringing the living space to 5,034 square feet and joining old to new through a second eight-sided room that looks out over the lake. The grove has had a harder time. O'Leary expected an island to keep citrus greening away from his Valencias, listing agent Lisa Kleine told GrowthSpotter, and it did not; the family's grove now operates in a minimized way.
In August 2026 the O'Learys put the island on the market for $12 million, the first time it has been offered for sale in more than a hundred years. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services started its Century Pioneer Family Farm program in 1985 for families that have kept at least 100 years of continuous ownership of a farm, proven by an abstract of title or an original deed, with title still held by a blood relative of the original owner. Certification comes with a certificate and a sign for the property. On the department's roster of certified farms, under Polk County, the entry reads: James Patrick O'Leary, MD, and Mabel Ellen O'Leary.
Sources
Every factual claim in this story was checked against the page it came from before the story was saved. These are those pages. Our standards are on the masthead.
- A County Longford carpenter's Florida island, built as a Celtic cross, is on the market for $12 million — IrishCentral, Aug 17, 2026
- For the first time in over a century, Central Florida's historic Bannon Island is for sale — Orlando Weekly, Aug 7, 2026
- Secluded island with historic, hand-built home is on the market for $12 million — GrowthSpotter, Aug 5, 2026
- History of St. Ann — St. Ann Catholic Church, Haines City
- Century Pioneer Family Farms — Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- Lake Marion — Polk County Water Atlas (USF Water Institute)
- Historic Haines City — North East Polk Chamber of Commerce
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