Dragon Point will rise again in 2017

Belching orange flames, Rojak the two-headed reptilian monster will soon lord over the Banana and Indian rivers from his coquina perch as the fearsome new ruler of Dragon Point.

Rojak and a newly built modern mansion may debut by February 2017 at the southernmost tip of Merritt Island, said Don Facciobene, the new landowner.

The Palm Bay general contractor bought the 0.86-acre real estate — widely regarded as Brevard County's highest-profile home — in mid-January for $800,000 cash. He hopes to secure building permits within three months.

Inside Facciobene's office on Babcock Street, architects are designing three-dimensional computer models of the mansion and Rojak, who was conceived by his young sons and captured in an oil painting by award-winning Micco artist Jim McMillan.

"Rojak is 60 feet long and 25 feet wide. The top of his mane is 30 feet off the rocks," Facciobene said, seated at his desk. "He's going to have lights in his eyes and fire coming from his breath. He's got two heads — one to protect the Indian River and one to protect the Banana River."

Just to the right of Facciobene's desk sits a matted 1982 photo of Annie, Dragon Point's original, deceased mystical monster. Sculpted by Miami "warlock" artist Lewis VanDercar, the green concrete-and-steel beast glared at passing watercraft from 1971-2002, when she succumbed to the elements and tumbled into a watery grave.

Though today's middle-school students have no memories of Annie, the quirky landmark lives on in Space Coast lore.

The fabled iguana-like icon peers from a glass etching inside Matt's Casbah in downtown Melbourne and a photo on the Indian Harbour Beach City Hall council chamber wall.

In February, 549 runners and walkers competed in her namesake Eye of the Dragon 10K and Tail of the Lizard 2-mile races in nearby Eau Gallie.

Dragon Point remains listed on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration navigational charts of the Indian River Lagoon. And during her heyday, Annie earned inclusion to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database.

But Annie fell into disrepair during the mid-1990s, precipitating her collapse. Later, the uninhabited Dragon Point got tied up in court over an ownership dispute. A federal receiver took possession in a court case involving a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. And a subsidiary of a Minnesota bank owned the land — which was condemned by Brevard County code enforcement officials — for nearly three years before Facciobene bought it.

"I think it's fabulous that he bought the land and that he's rebuilding the dragon, said former Merritt Island author Diane Carr.

Her 2003 children's book, "River Dragon: A Real Florida Fairy Tale," which described how Annie came to life at night and swam the Indian River, sold 3,000 hardcover and nearly 1,000 paperback copies.

"I'm not sure what I think about the two-headed dragon — but it could make an interesting sequel, let's put it that way," Carr said, laughing.

Uninhabited and tied up in courts for nearly a decade, strewn with splintery debris, Dragon Point has devolved into a dangerous, dilapidated eyesore resembling the spooky setting of a horror movie.

Rotting broken lumber, tangles of gnarled wiring and shattered tile surround the gray corpse of the weatherbeaten wooden mansion. Vegetation creeps up discolored walls alongside glassless windows. Obscene graffiti mars interior walls, courtesy of kayaking vandals.

In the front yard, a warped sheet of plywood covers the open septic tank. And all that remains of the condemned estate's centerpiece "great room" is an exposed brick chimney and a blank concrete slab.

Liz Glass grew up here. Her father, Warren McFadden, owned Dragon Point from 1981-2003. In 1982, he commissioned VanDercar to craft four dragon hatchlings alongside Annie — Joy, Sunshine, Charity and Freedom — and construct a children's playroom inside her belly featuring caveman-style furniture.

McFadden hosted a wide array of charitable fundraisers and private parties at Dragon Point. In a September 2000 FLORIDA TODAY interview, he estimated that 27,000 people — a total surpassing the population of Rockledge — had visited the house since he bought it.

Warren died in September 2012 in West Palm Beach at age 84. Last week, Glass and her sister, Trish McFadden of Nashville, Tennessee, returned to Dragon Point to fulfill their father's wish and place his ashes in the water.

The sisters walked together onto a weatherbeaten wooden dock facing the Eau Gallie Yacht Club. After softly speaking arm-in-arm, McFadden dumped the ashes into the Banana River near a clump of mangroves, and Glass clasped her hands over her mouth. Then they held hands.

"It was sad. It was nice to have closure, to return his ashes," Glass said afterward. "It's full-circle now."

Like a proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, Facciobene envisions a next-generation Dragon Point emerging as one of Florida's premier waterfront properties.

His company, Don Facciobene Inc., marked its 28th anniversary last week, and a whiteboard in his office lists dozens of projects under construction in blue, green and red marker. Recent DFI jobs include Rodizio Grill at Melbourne Square Mall, FIAT of Melbourne on NASA Boulevard and the timber bridges at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.

Dragon Point is a pet project, Facciobene said. He will live there with his two young sons, and he plans to host fundraisers for Promise in Brevard and Palm Bay East Little League.

"Everybody in the office, from my architect to my designers to my mechanic that fixes all the equipment, to the masons and framers and welders: They're all pumped up about it. They love it," Facciobene said, standing in front of a fireplace inside the wrecked estate.

"We do a lot of special projects, a lot of jobs that are hard. We're the ones that can pull it off, because we have a workforce. I have 75 people, and not many people in town have a workforce like that," he said.

Facciobene said "the bones of the house are good," and the swimming pool and Jacuzzi — currently harboring murky algae-green water, busted lumber and beer cans — simply need refinished. He plans to carefully remove the coral pool deck and use the rare rock to decorate his seawalls.

"We are limited on what we can do, because we are stuck to the existing footprint. That didn't give us complete free reign," said Michael Karaffa, principal architect. "So we looked at the building that was there.

"We started playing with the shapes and came up with the curved roofs. We're trying to stay as modern as possible. Lots of glass," Karaffa said.

And, of course, a dragon.

The name Rojak is a combination of the names of Facciobene's sons Rocco, 12, and Jake, 9, who attend St. Joseph Catholic School in Palm Bay. The kids played a key conceptual role in shaping the creature.

"We were talking about Dragon Point, and I showed them photos of Annie the dragon and her hatchlings. And we spoke about how Annie protected the river. We've been fishing there a lot. They said, 'There's two rivers. Why wouldn't there be two dragons?' Or, 'Why wouldn't the dragon have two heads?'" Facciobene said.

"They envisioned that. It was kind of their idea," he said.

Rojak's skeleton will be constructed with reinforced steel, concrete and rib-wire mesh, then plasterers will add scales, skin features and a coat of paint. He will also sport an interior playroom, albeit smaller than Annie's because of his sleeker torso.

"Rojak is a Universal-Disney-type dragon. He's really dynamic and daring and different," said McMillan, the Micco artist who designed the dragon.

"In the day, he'll be a stately-looking dinosaur. And at night, it'll really come alive with different colors," McMillan said.

Facciobene estimated that Rojak will cost "a couple hundred thousand dollars" to construct. The dragon will loom upland off the point, so his twin heads will be located roughly where Annie's tail curled.

A life-sized statue of an Ais Indian warrior clutching a torch will stand at the tip of the point. And computer-programmed LED lights will illuminate the dragon an array of nighttime colors.

"It's a phenomenally beautiful place to live. Peaceful," Facciobene said. "Why wouldn't you want to live at Dragon Point?"

Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1 on Twitter