The History of Belle Meade
by Antolin Garcia Carbonell, R A.
Overview
The neighborhood known as Belle Meade occupies most of the southeast quarter of Section 7 and a small portion of the southwest quarter of section 8 of Township 53 South Range 42 East. The natural boundaries are: Little River on the north, Biscayne Bay on the east, the rear property line of lots facing North East 72nd Terrace on the south, and Biscayne Boulevard on the west.
Original Land Contours
According to a 1920 map of Miami, the land east of the line of North East 10th Avenue and most of Belle Meade Island was originally mangroves. The land north of 76th Street to Little River was shown as "prairie". In the course of planning Belle Meade, the land contours were manipulated but there is visual evidence that the entire neighborhood slopes gradually down to seal level from a high point along Biscayne Boulevard. Northeast 7th Avenue is a natural low point, where rainwater accumulates and there is also evidence of another high point along N.E. 8th Avenue. When Belle Meade Island was separated from the mainland in 1925 a portion of the 100 canal was cut through this hammock and evidence is visible on the canal side of 815 and 825 N.E. 76th Street. Furthermore, stone cut when the canal was dug, was probably used to line the riverfront retaining walls. Some of these walls survive upstream of Belle Meade Island.
Early Settlement
Little River, navigable for more than one mile and fed by natural springs, was one of the first access points into the South Florida mainland. Tequestas used this route to access the settlement they established at the hammock where today El Portal is located. In the late 18th Century or early 19th Century a group of settlers, possibly English families from the Bahama Islands established a mill on the north side of Little River, approximately 1/2 mile from the bay, possibly in the area where today several boatyards are located.
In 1848 Alvah F. Woods claimed 160 acres between N.E. 87th Street, N.E. 2nd Avenue, N.E. 79th Street and N.E. 2nd Avenue, including the site of the early Tequesta mound. When the military trail between Fort Lauderdale and Fort Dallas was cut through the hammocks in the 19th century, it followed the eastern edge of the coastal ridge and crossed Little River at the site of today's Biscayne Boulevard bridge, or possible just to the west at N.E. 5th Avenue. In 1892, when the county built its first road it followed this same alignment, making the Biscayne Boulevard segment between N. E. 61st Street and N.E. 79th Street the oldest part of this road.
First Settlers
Between 1873 and 1880 George Sears and his family became the first documented residents of what is now Belle Meade. Their 160 acre homestead straddled Little River with its south boundary lying along the midway point between N.E. 74th and N.E. 75th Streets. Their actual residence was on the north bank of the river, but they planted citrus groves on the south bank that survived into the 1920's.
Richard B. Potter's L-shaped homestead included the entire Belle Meade Bay front, including Belle Meade Island, east of the North East 10th Avenue line. His residence was on the west side of North East 10th Avenue at the end of the first man-made canal in Dade County, a 900-foot ditch dug by hand through the mangroves. This canal has been widened and is still located between N.E. 82nd and 83rd Streets.
In 1890 two Lemon City residents, William Mettair and Charles S.B. Moffat proposed to build a sisal factory on the south shore of Little River and drew up a plat called "Mataws Addition" of all the land between Lemon City and the river. The layout included three north-south avenues to be called Fibre, Little River and Moffat and 5 acre lemon groves on the north side of Little River. The lots were to be sold to small farmers who would grow sisal. The scheme failed.
In 1891 Adolphus Russell acquired from the State of Florida the land between the Sears Homestead and N.E. 71 Street, the southernmost sliver of Section 7. This parcel included all the land between N.E. 75th Street and N.E. 72nd Terrace.
Charles Torrey Simpson
At the beginning of 1903, Charles Torrey Simpson, the famous naturalist and shell specialist, retired from the Smithsonian Institution and bought 15.5 acres of land with 600 feet of bay front comprising what is today N.E. 69th Street from Biscayne Boulevard to the bay. Here he built a most unusual house he called "The Sentinels" that survived until 1963. He used this house as a base for exploring the environment of South Florida on this property, he also established Miami's first botanical garden.
Mr. Simpson Jeft us this description of the land that is now Belle Meade:
" ... Little River, a small stream from the Everglades, emptied into it (Biscayne Bay) north of us and had formed a sort of fan-shaped flat, composed of silt, sand and marl to the southward, the entire area having brackish soil.
In this littoral a large variety of trees and plants grew, red mangroves, Rhizophora mangle, the largest and finest I ever saw, some of which were four feet or more in diameter and one hundred feet high, with enormous arched roots springing out from a height of over thirty feet. The white mangrove (Laguncularia) became a lofty tree, sending up its curious quills, and just north of my line there was an immense black mangrove (Avicennia) with perhaps a half acre of strong quills a couple of feet high. Here the Pavonia, which ordinarily is a moderate sized shrub, became a small tree, and two species of large swamp ferns (Acrostichum aureum) and A. excelsum grew in great abundance, the former rare on the southeast coast and the latter reaching a height of fourteen to fifteen feet. On a sandy point along the bay grew a single shore grape, a tree which generally prefers the open beaches. Farther back were many giant buttonwoods, a few of which stood erect like respectable trees but the majority of which had fallen and were sprawling aimlessly over the mud, and on their trunks grew that curious little cryptogram, Psilotum, with scale-like leaves, looking somewhat like a club moss but having an orange colored, berry-like fruit. Here grew in great luxuriance seventeen royal palms, certainly the farthest north of any on the eastern side of the state. South of Little River there was a dense growth of limes and lemons which were perfectly naturalized and to the west was a series of freshwater ponds in which were willows and many low growing things."
Although Mr. Simpson never lived in what is now Belle Meade, he explored the land constantly and brought visitors such as David Fairchild and the nature photographer John Kunkel Small on his expeditions. He served as an advisor to Charles Deering in the creation of his Buena Vista Estate and assisted the personnel at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Introduction Garden, located at the site of Archbishop Curley High School on N.E. 2nd Avenue, with information on tropical plants. After the 1926 hurricane, he described how all the remaining mangroves in the area died as a result of the winds and the rising tides. He was instrumental in convincing local lawmakers to establish Royal Palm State Park in the early teens. This park later became the nucleus of Everglades National Park.
First Subdivisions
The Valentine Map
The Adolphus Russel property was subdivided into ten lots by a surveyor, W.C. Valentine, and recorded in a plat dated August 10, 1910. The subdivision consisted of four lots 667 feet by 675 feet on the east end, four lots 166 feet wide by 1350 feet deep in the middle and four lots fronting on Biscayne Boulevard, each 359 wide by 635 feet deep. The southernmost lot, number 12 and all the land to the east from the other lots, became the Washington Place subdivision.
Lot 11 of the Valentine Map was platted into 18 small building lots with minimal right of way access by Frederick S. Brown, a civil engineer, for the Margaret M. Chase subdivision, presumably named after its owner. This layout, dated January 1911, was never implemented and this land became the westernmost portion of N.E. 72nd Terrace.
The 1925 G.M. Hopkins Platt book of Miami showed two farm buildings on lot 9 within 150 feet of the Biscayne Boulevard right of way (approximately the intersection with N.E. 75th Street) and another building in the northern half of lot 8, one of the long skinny middle lots (approximately the 700 block of N.E. 74th or 73rd Streets). All of these structures were demolished when Belle Meade was laid out.
Hart Subdivision
Most of the Sears Homestead property south of Little River became Hart's Subdivision recorded in a plat dated April 18, 1917. This plat divided the property into two very large lots: Block one, with 356 feet of Biscayne Boulevard frontage and bordering Little River on the north was separated from Block two by a street with a 30 foot right of way called Hart Street. Block two had 450 feet of Boulevard frontage and was approximately 850 feet deep. Miami maps from the early 1920's refer to this area as Hart's Grove. The eastern boundary of this plat followed a diagonal line roughly along the right of way of today's N.E. 8th Avenue.
The property to the east and fronting on Biscayne Bay belonged to a Mr. Ullendorf, who was a founding member of Temple Israel of Miami. Probably because a Jew once owned this land, subsequent deed restrictions did not exclude Jewish ownership.
The 1925 G.M. Hopkins Platt Book of Miami also showed a building labeled the Aqua Marine Lodge, adjacent to the south bank of Little River approximately at 695 N.E. 77th Street. There was an access road from Biscayne Boulevard running along the riverbank to the lodge. To date no information has been located on the Aqua Marine Lodge, but given its riverfront location during prohibition, it would have been a convenient site for a speakeasy.
The City of Miami Annexation
By the summer of 1925, the Florida real estate boom was at its peak, with land values in Miami multiplying almost by the hour. When Miami was founded in 1896, its northern boundary was N.E. 12th Street. In 1913, the city annexed all the land north to N.E. 37th Street, stopping short of the Charles Deering Buena Vista Estate, which encompassed all the land east of N.E. 2nd Avenue south of N.E. 54th Street to the city line. The town of Buena Vista, which extended to the west as far as N.W. 2nd Avenue and Miami Avenue, and which was established after the 1913 annexation, included the entire estate.
The 1925 state census put Miami's population at 69,754 and Buena Vista's at 1,998. Lemon City with 3,802 inhabitants was not an incorporated area nor was Little River with 2,977. It is not clear whether Belle Meade was included in the Little River or the Lemon City census tract, but more than likely was considered part of Little River, since to this day the area is served by that post office.
During the summer of 1925, the city of Miami held a very controversial election, which approved the annexation of many areas surrounding the city, including the incorporated towns of Coconut Grove, Silver Bluff, and Buena Vista. Many residents opposed to the annexation were away during the summer months and were unable to vote. Despite protests, the results held. This annexation moved Miami's northern boundary north to N.E. 87th Street and Belle Meade became part of the incorporated area. This was very desirable outcome for the developers of Belle Meade since it made it possible to have the city provide utilities and other services to their subdivisions.
The Belle Meade and Aqua Marine Subdivisions
Aqua Marine – On August 24, 1925, W.C. Bliss, an engineer, filed a Plat for a subdivision called Aqua Marine, named after the lodge by that name on Little River. The boundaries of Aqua Marine were: Little River on the north, N.E. 7th Court on the east (called N.E. 9th Avenue in the plat), the centerline of N.E. 75th Street on the south, and Biscayne Boulevard on the east. The layout of this subdivision was coordinated with that of the adjacent Belle Meade since N.E. 7th Avenue and other abutting streets lined up.
Aqua Marine was the property of Herman Brandt, a single man, his brother Hugo E. Brandt and his wife Ruth E. Brandt, formerly Allgeyer, and Mrs. Brandt's sister, Mary V. Allgeyer, a single woman. They were all residents of Cook County, Illinois. The Brandts also owned commercial property on the northwest corner of the intersection of Biscayne Boulevard and N.E. 79th Street, which became in the 1950's part of the Biscayne Shopping Plaza.
Belle Meade – Watson M. Garris, Civil Engineer, filed the plat for Belle Meade on September 16, 1925 on behalf of the Belle Meade Land Company. Walter S. Morrow was the company president and Samuel Shites its secretary. Belle Meade's boundaries were: Little River on the north, Aqua Marine on the north and west, Biscayne Boulevard on the west, the rear lot line of lots facing N.E. 72nd Terrace on the south, and Biscayne Bay on the east.
The original layout included Belle Meade Island, separated by a 100 foot canal from the mainland and linked by two bridges: the existing one at N.E. 9th Avenue, and a second one at the east end of N.E. 73rd Street.
Characteristics of the Subdivisions:
Today, it is impossible to tell where Aqua Marine ends and Belle Meade begins. Both subdivisions set aside oversize waterfront lots for the construction of more substantial residences. The interior lots were all originally 50 feet wide, but their depth, as well as that of the public rights of way varied slightly.
Aqua Marine, with a longer north south dimension, set its lots at 125 feet deep with the rights of way for N.E. 77th, 76th and 75th Streets at 75 feet. Belle Meade, being more constrained set its lot depth at 117 feet, with the rights of way for N.E. 74th, 73rd Streets and N.E. 72nd Terrace at 50 feet. The right-of-way includes sidewalks, swales, curbs, gutters and actual roadway. With minor exceptions, underground water lines and overhead power lines were all run through 5-foot easements at the rear of most lots.
First Houses
One concrete block house was built in each subdivision during 1925.
In Aqua Marine it was a small one story house at 665 N.E. 76th Street with a detached one-car garage at the rear northwest corner. The house has an arched covered entry and the front portion of the sloped roof is covered with barrel tiles, with a flat roof hidden by a parapet at the rear. The living room features a horizontal picture window facing the street and a small enclosed porch on the west side as weU as a fireplace.
In Belle Meade it was a larger two-story house with an open porch facing the street and a garage with servants quarters at the rear of the property. The house still exists at 739 N.E. 72nd Terrace. This house too had flat roofs behind parapets adorned with escutcheons and a wood-burning fireplace in the living room.
Collapse of the Florida Land Boom
In the fall of 1925, the Florida East Coast Railroad imposed an embargo on most bulky shipments south of Jacksonville since the single track serving Miami could no longer handle the increase in traffic. Even as S. Davies Warfield extended the tracks of his Seaboard Airline Railroad south from Palm Beach and building supplies were brought in by sea, construction and land speculation began to slow. In April 1926, Addison Mizner's Boca Raton Scheme went bankrupt, further eroding public confidence in land speculation and finally the September 1926 hurricane punctured Miami's real estate bubble.
It is not clear how far along the land clearing process was by September 1926, but Charles Torrey Simpson wrote that a substantial amount of mangroves had been cleared in north east Miami and replaced with sea walls prior to the hurricane, and that this change caused the bay waters to strike the remaining mangroves with even greater force, destroying them. In any case, at this early development stage, the hurricane was more of a help than a hindrance to the developers.
Construction from 1926 to 1933
The financial fallout of the hurricane was less helpful and is evident in the absence of construction in both subdivisions. Only one two story structure, a two car garage with upstairs servants quarters was built during 1926 at 781 N.E. 75th Street, in anticipation of a substantial family house in the front part of the lot that was never built.
ln 1927 the 3-story Aqua Marine Apartments opened. This rental building featured 8 efficiency apartments with French doors opening on small balconies and two larger penthouse units. The building features Belle Meade's only basement which floods any time it rains.
Two more houses were built in 1928 in Aqua Marine. The one at 652 N.E. 77th Street features a barrel tile roof and a side window enclosed with turned wooden balusters in the living room. The one at 736 N.E. 77th Street has a front porch and a side porte cochere with a flat roof behind parapets.
No houses were built during 1929 but two of the neighborhood's most beautiful houses were finished in 1930 in Aqua Marine. 679 N.E. 77th Street, fronting on Little River is Belle Meade's grandest house. With its keystone facade, barrel tile roofs and multiple fireplaces, it sits several feet above street level, behind a retaining wall. Mr. Henry Kehoe is listed living there in the 1931 Miami street directory. The consul of Haiti lived in this house during the 1970's.
The second house at the northeast corner of N.E. 76th Street and N.E. 7th Avenue has the steeply pitched rooflines and detailing of bungalows and of English country cottages. This was one of the few houses that always had a shingle roof in a neighborhood where tile was the dominant roofing material.
No houses were built during 1931 and only one house at 624 N.E. 72nd Terrace was finished in 1932. This two-story house, recently restored, is Belle Meade's first house with Art Deco detailing, although its massing and proportions are also evocative of the Prairie School. No houses were built during 1933.
Construction from 1934 to 1942
The build-out of Belle Meade and Aqua Marine finally started in 1934. Belle Meade Island's first house, at 1161 N.E. Belle Meade Island Boulevard was completed and on the mainland, 632 N.E. 76th Street and the Shell Gas Station at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and N.E. 76th Street. This gas station became a neighborhood hang out specially after Charlie and Bill started running it in the 1950's. Here, at a time when credit cards were rare, residents kept running tabs they paid on a monthly basis.
Starting with 14 houses in 1935, construction simply took off. Every year between 1936 and 1941 there were over 30 houses under construction and even in 1942, 13 houses were completed. By the time wartime restrictions on building materials went into effect, 241 of Belle Meade's current 396 houses were finished.
This construction boom was a Miami wide phenomenon, and the homes built in Belle Meade were no different in plan or in style from those built at the same time in other parts of South Florida.
Most of these homes had plans that were oriented to capture the prevailing south east breezes, with the bedrooms along the east side, a living- dining room with a north south alignment in the center and the kitchen and garage along the west side. Front porches disappeared to be replaced by screened in Florida Rooms, usually located off the kitchen facing the backyard.
Many living rooms had wood burning fireplaces and wood framed cathedral ceilings. Built in bookshelves were also a common feature, particularly used as a divider between the contiguous living and dining areas. Quarry tile and wood were the predominant flooring materials, with quarry tile floors in the public rooms and wood in the bedrooms. Bathrooms were efficient and of minimal dimensions as were bedroom closets, frequently lined with cedar.
Art Deco and Streamline Moderne motifs were used with restraint, usually round windows or racing stripes in the facade with corner windows in the bedrooms. A widely used front door featured a porthole. Living room chimneypieces, interior archways and the front entrance also became decorative focal points. The bathroom tile work was usually the one place were the prevailing color restraint gave way to exuberant combinations such as pink and black or yellow and green.
Only a few of the largest houses included servant's quarters, but many homes had a second toilet in the garage next to the laundry tubs. In an age of racial segregation, it was inconceivable that a black laundress or gardener would share the household toilet.
After the collapse of the Florida land boom, the Mediterranean Revival architecture so characteristic of the period fell out of favor and South Florida architects looked for inspiration to other locales, particularly the domestic architecture of the British and French Caribbean and the island of Bermuda which they combined with Art Deco and Streamline Moderne as well as Mediterranean elements to create a uniquely Miami look.
This style featured low pitched white flat or barrel tile roofs with minimal overhangs and flat stucco walls painted white or very light pastels. Later it was common to add reflective materials to the white paint to further deflect the sunlight and reduce the heat gain to the house. While beneficial to the individual homeowner, it created a high level of glare on the street, especially when several houses in a row received this same white paint treatment.
The most distinguishing characteristic of this style was the slight outward curve, no more than a couple of inches, where the wall stucco flared out to meet the drip edge of the roof. This flared edge was punctuated by regularly spaced one-inch holes that ventilated the attic. Other houses attempting a restrained Spanish look within this same style combined exposed rafter ends with barrel tile roofs. On gable ends, attic ventilation was provided by arrangements of 3 downward facing pipes or round decorative plaster blocks with designs of sailing ships, palms or the tree of life.
Landscaping was kept low so as not to block the breezes and coconut and other palms were favored, not only for their tropical flavor, but because the broken shade they cast permitted sunlight to dry the ground preventing dampness inside the homes or mosquito breeding pools.
Slote Homes
A full-page advertisement appeared in the Miami Herald on Sunday, March 27, 1938 touting the quality of the homes that the Slate Homes construction company was building in Belle Meade. The advertisement features pictures of one and two story homes, with 2 to 4 bedrooms and 1 to 3 bathrooms. All houses included garages and enclosed screen porches. Multiple examples of the 5 houses pictured in this advertisement were built throughout Belle Meade. These houses sold from $6,750 to $12,750 and could be financed over 20 years. Probably a substantial number of houses built during this time period can be attributed to Slate Homes.
Architects
Only three architects have been linked to houses from this period. In 1936, Raymond De C Weakley designed a two story building for Howard Brothers. This two story building on the west side of Biscayne Boulevard, at the corner of N.E. 73rd Street, is not within Belle Meade but contains many elements common to Belle Meade houses.
The Howard Brothers Building has a retail space on the ground floor with an upstairs residence. It has a round corner highlighted with 5 racing stripes linking all the upstairs windows. The roof had dark colored flat tile with no overhang. A small balcony projected over the entrance to the second floor.
In 1939, William Shanklin designed a very substantial house for Mr. and Mrs. Harry Markowitz at 801 N.E. 74th Street. This house has a round two story core facing the corner flanked by two rectangular wings. The east wing ended in a round one story element. The one two the north continued with a one story garage and service wing. On the west elevation there is a bow window. The roof was finished with flat, dark colored tile with a small overhang. There was extensive use of glass block in the round entrance core. The house can be best described as a restrained Art Deco.
Joseph J. De Brita fully exploited the potential of Belle Meade’s most dramatic riverfront lot in his 1940 design of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Pollack's residence at 773 7 N.E. 8th Avenue. This triangular lot faces the point were the canal along the south side of Belle Meade Island branches off from Little River.
The west street front contains the garage. The true value of the design can only be appreciated from the water, where the house sets back three times from the front two story element to a round room on the east end with a spectacular down river view. The roof was finished with white barrel tile, save for a portion contains a terrace over the first floor. This house is unabashedly Art Deco. Joseph J. De Brita also designed the Eastman Small Animal Clinic on N .E. 79th Street.
New Belle Meade and Deed Restrictions
The Belle Meade Land Company went bankrupt after the collapse of the real estate boom and several companies bought blocks of the unsold lots which they then marketed under various names: New Belle Meade, Belle Meade Island, Belle Meade Revised, etc. Aqua Marine fared better in the soft real estate market of the 1930's and its lots continued to be sold by the Brandt Corporation Real Estate from its office located at the old Aqua Marine Lodge.
New Belle Meade comprised most of the mainland lots east of N.E. 8th Avenue. fts sales office was located at 7299 N.E. Belle Meade Island Boulevard, with Fred R. Reed listed as the Sales Manager. The structure that housed the sales office no longer exists, nor is there a house with that same address today. The house that presently sits at that location was built in 1949. Some of the lots from the 1925 layout were re-plated and sold from $1,250.00 to $3,500.00 in the late 1930's.
Deed restrictions spelled out building setback lines, with the 30-foot front setback requirement more generous than what is currently required by city of Miami zoning. Other restrictions stipulated minimum square footage and construction cost values for projected houses, limited building materials to concrete block and stucco, and established a four foot height for backyard fences and hedges. The deed also stipulated that these restrictions were to be enforced by the developer, and once all the lots were sold by a successor Homeowners Association.
Post War Construction
Only one house was built in 1943, nothing in 1944, but before 1945 was over there were 7 more houses in Belle Meade. Construction increased every year thereafter, bitting a peak of 33 houses in 1950, then tapering off to zero in 1960. At that point, between the island, the mainland and the Biscayne Boulevard commercial area, there were 394 buildings.
ln 1948 Architect Wahl Snyder designed Belle Meade's first split level house at the west end of Belle Meade Island, on a curved lot which provided for an above ground pool and docking space for the owner's 53 foot yacht. This house had two story wing on the south side with a drive through garage on the ground floor that allowed dockside access and bedrooms above. The living room, with retractable glass doors formed the center, allowing a view out to the pool and beyond to the canal. On the north side, a second one story service wing met the living room at an oblique angle. The house had a white, flat tile roof with generous overhangs.
In 1951, two other split level houses of more modest dimension were built on 76th Street at 815 and 825. These houses took advantage of the higher elevations of what remained of the original hammock. It has not been determined who designed them.
In the 1950's terrazzo became the predominant flooring material and flat roofs with generous overhangs along with other MiMo decorative elements started to appear in the new houses. In the early 1950's several low-rise apartment complexes were built along N.E. 6th Court and two motels, The Vagabond by Architect Robert Swartburg, a historical landmark, and the Knoxon along with the Toddle House restaurant appeared on Biscayne Boulevard. By 1960 there were very few empty lots in Belle Meade.
The neighborhood known as Belle Meade occupies most of the southeast quarter of Section 7 and a small portion of the southwest quarter of section 8 of Township 53 South Range 42 East. The natural boundaries are: Little River on the north, Biscayne Bay on the east, the rear property line of lots facing North East 72nd Terrace on the south, and Biscayne Boulevard on the west.
Original Land Contours
According to a 1920 map of Miami, the land east of the line of North East 10th Avenue and most of Belle Meade Island was originally mangroves. The land north of 76th Street to Little River was shown as "prairie". In the course of planning Belle Meade, the land contours were manipulated but there is visual evidence that the entire neighborhood slopes gradually down to seal level from a high point along Biscayne Boulevard. Northeast 7th Avenue is a natural low point, where rainwater accumulates and there is also evidence of another high point along N.E. 8th Avenue. When Belle Meade Island was separated from the mainland in 1925 a portion of the 100 canal was cut through this hammock and evidence is visible on the canal side of 815 and 825 N.E. 76th Street. Furthermore, stone cut when the canal was dug, was probably used to line the riverfront retaining walls. Some of these walls survive upstream of Belle Meade Island.
Early Settlement
Little River, navigable for more than one mile and fed by natural springs, was one of the first access points into the South Florida mainland. Tequestas used this route to access the settlement they established at the hammock where today El Portal is located. In the late 18th Century or early 19th Century a group of settlers, possibly English families from the Bahama Islands established a mill on the north side of Little River, approximately 1/2 mile from the bay, possibly in the area where today several boatyards are located.
In 1848 Alvah F. Woods claimed 160 acres between N.E. 87th Street, N.E. 2nd Avenue, N.E. 79th Street and N.E. 2nd Avenue, including the site of the early Tequesta mound. When the military trail between Fort Lauderdale and Fort Dallas was cut through the hammocks in the 19th century, it followed the eastern edge of the coastal ridge and crossed Little River at the site of today's Biscayne Boulevard bridge, or possible just to the west at N.E. 5th Avenue. In 1892, when the county built its first road it followed this same alignment, making the Biscayne Boulevard segment between N. E. 61st Street and N.E. 79th Street the oldest part of this road.
First Settlers
Between 1873 and 1880 George Sears and his family became the first documented residents of what is now Belle Meade. Their 160 acre homestead straddled Little River with its south boundary lying along the midway point between N.E. 74th and N.E. 75th Streets. Their actual residence was on the north bank of the river, but they planted citrus groves on the south bank that survived into the 1920's.
Richard B. Potter's L-shaped homestead included the entire Belle Meade Bay front, including Belle Meade Island, east of the North East 10th Avenue line. His residence was on the west side of North East 10th Avenue at the end of the first man-made canal in Dade County, a 900-foot ditch dug by hand through the mangroves. This canal has been widened and is still located between N.E. 82nd and 83rd Streets.
In 1890 two Lemon City residents, William Mettair and Charles S.B. Moffat proposed to build a sisal factory on the south shore of Little River and drew up a plat called "Mataws Addition" of all the land between Lemon City and the river. The layout included three north-south avenues to be called Fibre, Little River and Moffat and 5 acre lemon groves on the north side of Little River. The lots were to be sold to small farmers who would grow sisal. The scheme failed.
In 1891 Adolphus Russell acquired from the State of Florida the land between the Sears Homestead and N.E. 71 Street, the southernmost sliver of Section 7. This parcel included all the land between N.E. 75th Street and N.E. 72nd Terrace.
Charles Torrey Simpson
At the beginning of 1903, Charles Torrey Simpson, the famous naturalist and shell specialist, retired from the Smithsonian Institution and bought 15.5 acres of land with 600 feet of bay front comprising what is today N.E. 69th Street from Biscayne Boulevard to the bay. Here he built a most unusual house he called "The Sentinels" that survived until 1963. He used this house as a base for exploring the environment of South Florida on this property, he also established Miami's first botanical garden.
Mr. Simpson Jeft us this description of the land that is now Belle Meade:
" ... Little River, a small stream from the Everglades, emptied into it (Biscayne Bay) north of us and had formed a sort of fan-shaped flat, composed of silt, sand and marl to the southward, the entire area having brackish soil.
In this littoral a large variety of trees and plants grew, red mangroves, Rhizophora mangle, the largest and finest I ever saw, some of which were four feet or more in diameter and one hundred feet high, with enormous arched roots springing out from a height of over thirty feet. The white mangrove (Laguncularia) became a lofty tree, sending up its curious quills, and just north of my line there was an immense black mangrove (Avicennia) with perhaps a half acre of strong quills a couple of feet high. Here the Pavonia, which ordinarily is a moderate sized shrub, became a small tree, and two species of large swamp ferns (Acrostichum aureum) and A. excelsum grew in great abundance, the former rare on the southeast coast and the latter reaching a height of fourteen to fifteen feet. On a sandy point along the bay grew a single shore grape, a tree which generally prefers the open beaches. Farther back were many giant buttonwoods, a few of which stood erect like respectable trees but the majority of which had fallen and were sprawling aimlessly over the mud, and on their trunks grew that curious little cryptogram, Psilotum, with scale-like leaves, looking somewhat like a club moss but having an orange colored, berry-like fruit. Here grew in great luxuriance seventeen royal palms, certainly the farthest north of any on the eastern side of the state. South of Little River there was a dense growth of limes and lemons which were perfectly naturalized and to the west was a series of freshwater ponds in which were willows and many low growing things."
Although Mr. Simpson never lived in what is now Belle Meade, he explored the land constantly and brought visitors such as David Fairchild and the nature photographer John Kunkel Small on his expeditions. He served as an advisor to Charles Deering in the creation of his Buena Vista Estate and assisted the personnel at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Introduction Garden, located at the site of Archbishop Curley High School on N.E. 2nd Avenue, with information on tropical plants. After the 1926 hurricane, he described how all the remaining mangroves in the area died as a result of the winds and the rising tides. He was instrumental in convincing local lawmakers to establish Royal Palm State Park in the early teens. This park later became the nucleus of Everglades National Park.
First Subdivisions
The Valentine Map
The Adolphus Russel property was subdivided into ten lots by a surveyor, W.C. Valentine, and recorded in a plat dated August 10, 1910. The subdivision consisted of four lots 667 feet by 675 feet on the east end, four lots 166 feet wide by 1350 feet deep in the middle and four lots fronting on Biscayne Boulevard, each 359 wide by 635 feet deep. The southernmost lot, number 12 and all the land to the east from the other lots, became the Washington Place subdivision.
Lot 11 of the Valentine Map was platted into 18 small building lots with minimal right of way access by Frederick S. Brown, a civil engineer, for the Margaret M. Chase subdivision, presumably named after its owner. This layout, dated January 1911, was never implemented and this land became the westernmost portion of N.E. 72nd Terrace.
The 1925 G.M. Hopkins Platt book of Miami showed two farm buildings on lot 9 within 150 feet of the Biscayne Boulevard right of way (approximately the intersection with N.E. 75th Street) and another building in the northern half of lot 8, one of the long skinny middle lots (approximately the 700 block of N.E. 74th or 73rd Streets). All of these structures were demolished when Belle Meade was laid out.
Hart Subdivision
Most of the Sears Homestead property south of Little River became Hart's Subdivision recorded in a plat dated April 18, 1917. This plat divided the property into two very large lots: Block one, with 356 feet of Biscayne Boulevard frontage and bordering Little River on the north was separated from Block two by a street with a 30 foot right of way called Hart Street. Block two had 450 feet of Boulevard frontage and was approximately 850 feet deep. Miami maps from the early 1920's refer to this area as Hart's Grove. The eastern boundary of this plat followed a diagonal line roughly along the right of way of today's N.E. 8th Avenue.
The property to the east and fronting on Biscayne Bay belonged to a Mr. Ullendorf, who was a founding member of Temple Israel of Miami. Probably because a Jew once owned this land, subsequent deed restrictions did not exclude Jewish ownership.
The 1925 G.M. Hopkins Platt Book of Miami also showed a building labeled the Aqua Marine Lodge, adjacent to the south bank of Little River approximately at 695 N.E. 77th Street. There was an access road from Biscayne Boulevard running along the riverbank to the lodge. To date no information has been located on the Aqua Marine Lodge, but given its riverfront location during prohibition, it would have been a convenient site for a speakeasy.
The City of Miami Annexation
By the summer of 1925, the Florida real estate boom was at its peak, with land values in Miami multiplying almost by the hour. When Miami was founded in 1896, its northern boundary was N.E. 12th Street. In 1913, the city annexed all the land north to N.E. 37th Street, stopping short of the Charles Deering Buena Vista Estate, which encompassed all the land east of N.E. 2nd Avenue south of N.E. 54th Street to the city line. The town of Buena Vista, which extended to the west as far as N.W. 2nd Avenue and Miami Avenue, and which was established after the 1913 annexation, included the entire estate.
The 1925 state census put Miami's population at 69,754 and Buena Vista's at 1,998. Lemon City with 3,802 inhabitants was not an incorporated area nor was Little River with 2,977. It is not clear whether Belle Meade was included in the Little River or the Lemon City census tract, but more than likely was considered part of Little River, since to this day the area is served by that post office.
During the summer of 1925, the city of Miami held a very controversial election, which approved the annexation of many areas surrounding the city, including the incorporated towns of Coconut Grove, Silver Bluff, and Buena Vista. Many residents opposed to the annexation were away during the summer months and were unable to vote. Despite protests, the results held. This annexation moved Miami's northern boundary north to N.E. 87th Street and Belle Meade became part of the incorporated area. This was very desirable outcome for the developers of Belle Meade since it made it possible to have the city provide utilities and other services to their subdivisions.
The Belle Meade and Aqua Marine Subdivisions
Aqua Marine – On August 24, 1925, W.C. Bliss, an engineer, filed a Plat for a subdivision called Aqua Marine, named after the lodge by that name on Little River. The boundaries of Aqua Marine were: Little River on the north, N.E. 7th Court on the east (called N.E. 9th Avenue in the plat), the centerline of N.E. 75th Street on the south, and Biscayne Boulevard on the east. The layout of this subdivision was coordinated with that of the adjacent Belle Meade since N.E. 7th Avenue and other abutting streets lined up.
Aqua Marine was the property of Herman Brandt, a single man, his brother Hugo E. Brandt and his wife Ruth E. Brandt, formerly Allgeyer, and Mrs. Brandt's sister, Mary V. Allgeyer, a single woman. They were all residents of Cook County, Illinois. The Brandts also owned commercial property on the northwest corner of the intersection of Biscayne Boulevard and N.E. 79th Street, which became in the 1950's part of the Biscayne Shopping Plaza.
Belle Meade – Watson M. Garris, Civil Engineer, filed the plat for Belle Meade on September 16, 1925 on behalf of the Belle Meade Land Company. Walter S. Morrow was the company president and Samuel Shites its secretary. Belle Meade's boundaries were: Little River on the north, Aqua Marine on the north and west, Biscayne Boulevard on the west, the rear lot line of lots facing N.E. 72nd Terrace on the south, and Biscayne Bay on the east.
The original layout included Belle Meade Island, separated by a 100 foot canal from the mainland and linked by two bridges: the existing one at N.E. 9th Avenue, and a second one at the east end of N.E. 73rd Street.
Characteristics of the Subdivisions:
Today, it is impossible to tell where Aqua Marine ends and Belle Meade begins. Both subdivisions set aside oversize waterfront lots for the construction of more substantial residences. The interior lots were all originally 50 feet wide, but their depth, as well as that of the public rights of way varied slightly.
Aqua Marine, with a longer north south dimension, set its lots at 125 feet deep with the rights of way for N.E. 77th, 76th and 75th Streets at 75 feet. Belle Meade, being more constrained set its lot depth at 117 feet, with the rights of way for N.E. 74th, 73rd Streets and N.E. 72nd Terrace at 50 feet. The right-of-way includes sidewalks, swales, curbs, gutters and actual roadway. With minor exceptions, underground water lines and overhead power lines were all run through 5-foot easements at the rear of most lots.
First Houses
One concrete block house was built in each subdivision during 1925.
In Aqua Marine it was a small one story house at 665 N.E. 76th Street with a detached one-car garage at the rear northwest corner. The house has an arched covered entry and the front portion of the sloped roof is covered with barrel tiles, with a flat roof hidden by a parapet at the rear. The living room features a horizontal picture window facing the street and a small enclosed porch on the west side as weU as a fireplace.
In Belle Meade it was a larger two-story house with an open porch facing the street and a garage with servants quarters at the rear of the property. The house still exists at 739 N.E. 72nd Terrace. This house too had flat roofs behind parapets adorned with escutcheons and a wood-burning fireplace in the living room.
Collapse of the Florida Land Boom
In the fall of 1925, the Florida East Coast Railroad imposed an embargo on most bulky shipments south of Jacksonville since the single track serving Miami could no longer handle the increase in traffic. Even as S. Davies Warfield extended the tracks of his Seaboard Airline Railroad south from Palm Beach and building supplies were brought in by sea, construction and land speculation began to slow. In April 1926, Addison Mizner's Boca Raton Scheme went bankrupt, further eroding public confidence in land speculation and finally the September 1926 hurricane punctured Miami's real estate bubble.
It is not clear how far along the land clearing process was by September 1926, but Charles Torrey Simpson wrote that a substantial amount of mangroves had been cleared in north east Miami and replaced with sea walls prior to the hurricane, and that this change caused the bay waters to strike the remaining mangroves with even greater force, destroying them. In any case, at this early development stage, the hurricane was more of a help than a hindrance to the developers.
Construction from 1926 to 1933
The financial fallout of the hurricane was less helpful and is evident in the absence of construction in both subdivisions. Only one two story structure, a two car garage with upstairs servants quarters was built during 1926 at 781 N.E. 75th Street, in anticipation of a substantial family house in the front part of the lot that was never built.
ln 1927 the 3-story Aqua Marine Apartments opened. This rental building featured 8 efficiency apartments with French doors opening on small balconies and two larger penthouse units. The building features Belle Meade's only basement which floods any time it rains.
Two more houses were built in 1928 in Aqua Marine. The one at 652 N.E. 77th Street features a barrel tile roof and a side window enclosed with turned wooden balusters in the living room. The one at 736 N.E. 77th Street has a front porch and a side porte cochere with a flat roof behind parapets.
No houses were built during 1929 but two of the neighborhood's most beautiful houses were finished in 1930 in Aqua Marine. 679 N.E. 77th Street, fronting on Little River is Belle Meade's grandest house. With its keystone facade, barrel tile roofs and multiple fireplaces, it sits several feet above street level, behind a retaining wall. Mr. Henry Kehoe is listed living there in the 1931 Miami street directory. The consul of Haiti lived in this house during the 1970's.
The second house at the northeast corner of N.E. 76th Street and N.E. 7th Avenue has the steeply pitched rooflines and detailing of bungalows and of English country cottages. This was one of the few houses that always had a shingle roof in a neighborhood where tile was the dominant roofing material.
No houses were built during 1931 and only one house at 624 N.E. 72nd Terrace was finished in 1932. This two-story house, recently restored, is Belle Meade's first house with Art Deco detailing, although its massing and proportions are also evocative of the Prairie School. No houses were built during 1933.
Construction from 1934 to 1942
The build-out of Belle Meade and Aqua Marine finally started in 1934. Belle Meade Island's first house, at 1161 N.E. Belle Meade Island Boulevard was completed and on the mainland, 632 N.E. 76th Street and the Shell Gas Station at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and N.E. 76th Street. This gas station became a neighborhood hang out specially after Charlie and Bill started running it in the 1950's. Here, at a time when credit cards were rare, residents kept running tabs they paid on a monthly basis.
Starting with 14 houses in 1935, construction simply took off. Every year between 1936 and 1941 there were over 30 houses under construction and even in 1942, 13 houses were completed. By the time wartime restrictions on building materials went into effect, 241 of Belle Meade's current 396 houses were finished.
This construction boom was a Miami wide phenomenon, and the homes built in Belle Meade were no different in plan or in style from those built at the same time in other parts of South Florida.
Most of these homes had plans that were oriented to capture the prevailing south east breezes, with the bedrooms along the east side, a living- dining room with a north south alignment in the center and the kitchen and garage along the west side. Front porches disappeared to be replaced by screened in Florida Rooms, usually located off the kitchen facing the backyard.
Many living rooms had wood burning fireplaces and wood framed cathedral ceilings. Built in bookshelves were also a common feature, particularly used as a divider between the contiguous living and dining areas. Quarry tile and wood were the predominant flooring materials, with quarry tile floors in the public rooms and wood in the bedrooms. Bathrooms were efficient and of minimal dimensions as were bedroom closets, frequently lined with cedar.
Art Deco and Streamline Moderne motifs were used with restraint, usually round windows or racing stripes in the facade with corner windows in the bedrooms. A widely used front door featured a porthole. Living room chimneypieces, interior archways and the front entrance also became decorative focal points. The bathroom tile work was usually the one place were the prevailing color restraint gave way to exuberant combinations such as pink and black or yellow and green.
Only a few of the largest houses included servant's quarters, but many homes had a second toilet in the garage next to the laundry tubs. In an age of racial segregation, it was inconceivable that a black laundress or gardener would share the household toilet.
After the collapse of the Florida land boom, the Mediterranean Revival architecture so characteristic of the period fell out of favor and South Florida architects looked for inspiration to other locales, particularly the domestic architecture of the British and French Caribbean and the island of Bermuda which they combined with Art Deco and Streamline Moderne as well as Mediterranean elements to create a uniquely Miami look.
This style featured low pitched white flat or barrel tile roofs with minimal overhangs and flat stucco walls painted white or very light pastels. Later it was common to add reflective materials to the white paint to further deflect the sunlight and reduce the heat gain to the house. While beneficial to the individual homeowner, it created a high level of glare on the street, especially when several houses in a row received this same white paint treatment.
The most distinguishing characteristic of this style was the slight outward curve, no more than a couple of inches, where the wall stucco flared out to meet the drip edge of the roof. This flared edge was punctuated by regularly spaced one-inch holes that ventilated the attic. Other houses attempting a restrained Spanish look within this same style combined exposed rafter ends with barrel tile roofs. On gable ends, attic ventilation was provided by arrangements of 3 downward facing pipes or round decorative plaster blocks with designs of sailing ships, palms or the tree of life.
Landscaping was kept low so as not to block the breezes and coconut and other palms were favored, not only for their tropical flavor, but because the broken shade they cast permitted sunlight to dry the ground preventing dampness inside the homes or mosquito breeding pools.
Slote Homes
A full-page advertisement appeared in the Miami Herald on Sunday, March 27, 1938 touting the quality of the homes that the Slate Homes construction company was building in Belle Meade. The advertisement features pictures of one and two story homes, with 2 to 4 bedrooms and 1 to 3 bathrooms. All houses included garages and enclosed screen porches. Multiple examples of the 5 houses pictured in this advertisement were built throughout Belle Meade. These houses sold from $6,750 to $12,750 and could be financed over 20 years. Probably a substantial number of houses built during this time period can be attributed to Slate Homes.
Architects
Only three architects have been linked to houses from this period. In 1936, Raymond De C Weakley designed a two story building for Howard Brothers. This two story building on the west side of Biscayne Boulevard, at the corner of N.E. 73rd Street, is not within Belle Meade but contains many elements common to Belle Meade houses.
The Howard Brothers Building has a retail space on the ground floor with an upstairs residence. It has a round corner highlighted with 5 racing stripes linking all the upstairs windows. The roof had dark colored flat tile with no overhang. A small balcony projected over the entrance to the second floor.
In 1939, William Shanklin designed a very substantial house for Mr. and Mrs. Harry Markowitz at 801 N.E. 74th Street. This house has a round two story core facing the corner flanked by two rectangular wings. The east wing ended in a round one story element. The one two the north continued with a one story garage and service wing. On the west elevation there is a bow window. The roof was finished with flat, dark colored tile with a small overhang. There was extensive use of glass block in the round entrance core. The house can be best described as a restrained Art Deco.
Joseph J. De Brita fully exploited the potential of Belle Meade’s most dramatic riverfront lot in his 1940 design of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Pollack's residence at 773 7 N.E. 8th Avenue. This triangular lot faces the point were the canal along the south side of Belle Meade Island branches off from Little River.
The west street front contains the garage. The true value of the design can only be appreciated from the water, where the house sets back three times from the front two story element to a round room on the east end with a spectacular down river view. The roof was finished with white barrel tile, save for a portion contains a terrace over the first floor. This house is unabashedly Art Deco. Joseph J. De Brita also designed the Eastman Small Animal Clinic on N .E. 79th Street.
New Belle Meade and Deed Restrictions
The Belle Meade Land Company went bankrupt after the collapse of the real estate boom and several companies bought blocks of the unsold lots which they then marketed under various names: New Belle Meade, Belle Meade Island, Belle Meade Revised, etc. Aqua Marine fared better in the soft real estate market of the 1930's and its lots continued to be sold by the Brandt Corporation Real Estate from its office located at the old Aqua Marine Lodge.
New Belle Meade comprised most of the mainland lots east of N.E. 8th Avenue. fts sales office was located at 7299 N.E. Belle Meade Island Boulevard, with Fred R. Reed listed as the Sales Manager. The structure that housed the sales office no longer exists, nor is there a house with that same address today. The house that presently sits at that location was built in 1949. Some of the lots from the 1925 layout were re-plated and sold from $1,250.00 to $3,500.00 in the late 1930's.
Deed restrictions spelled out building setback lines, with the 30-foot front setback requirement more generous than what is currently required by city of Miami zoning. Other restrictions stipulated minimum square footage and construction cost values for projected houses, limited building materials to concrete block and stucco, and established a four foot height for backyard fences and hedges. The deed also stipulated that these restrictions were to be enforced by the developer, and once all the lots were sold by a successor Homeowners Association.
Post War Construction
Only one house was built in 1943, nothing in 1944, but before 1945 was over there were 7 more houses in Belle Meade. Construction increased every year thereafter, bitting a peak of 33 houses in 1950, then tapering off to zero in 1960. At that point, between the island, the mainland and the Biscayne Boulevard commercial area, there were 394 buildings.
ln 1948 Architect Wahl Snyder designed Belle Meade's first split level house at the west end of Belle Meade Island, on a curved lot which provided for an above ground pool and docking space for the owner's 53 foot yacht. This house had two story wing on the south side with a drive through garage on the ground floor that allowed dockside access and bedrooms above. The living room, with retractable glass doors formed the center, allowing a view out to the pool and beyond to the canal. On the north side, a second one story service wing met the living room at an oblique angle. The house had a white, flat tile roof with generous overhangs.
In 1951, two other split level houses of more modest dimension were built on 76th Street at 815 and 825. These houses took advantage of the higher elevations of what remained of the original hammock. It has not been determined who designed them.
In the 1950's terrazzo became the predominant flooring material and flat roofs with generous overhangs along with other MiMo decorative elements started to appear in the new houses. In the early 1950's several low-rise apartment complexes were built along N.E. 6th Court and two motels, The Vagabond by Architect Robert Swartburg, a historical landmark, and the Knoxon along with the Toddle House restaurant appeared on Biscayne Boulevard. By 1960 there were very few empty lots in Belle Meade.
| Newspaper Ad from the Miami Daily News 08/02/1936 |