The History of Avondale, Sarasota

Avondale was not built to be an expensive neighborhood. It was built to be an affordable one, and it failed at that badly enough that the developers gave up and sold it.

That is not the version you will find on most real estate sites, which describe Avondale as a historic enclave of old Florida charm and leave it there. The real sequence is more interesting, and it explains almost everything a buyer notices walking these streets today — why the architecture does not match, why some lots are twice the size of others, why a 1926 Mediterranean sits three doors from a 1958 ranch, and why the neighborhood has held its value through every downturn since.

Danielle lived in Avondale when her son Alex was in grade school at Southside Elementary. We have sold in this neighborhood across five decades. What follows is the documented history, drawn from the Sarasota County Historical Commission marker that stands at Bahia Vista Street and Brewer Place and from the records kept by the Avondale Residents Association.

1913: The Land South of Hudson Bayou

In December 1913, Oscar and Alice Burton joined Arthur B. Edwards — a real estate developer who would go on to serve as mayor of Sarasota, first from 1914 to 1915 and again from 1920 to 1921 — and his wife Fannie in selling the land south of Hudson Bayou to the Sarasota Improvement Company.

To understand what that land was, understand what Sarasota was. The county population in 1910 was 840 people. The Tamiami Trail, the road that now defines the eastern edge of the neighborhood and carries tens of thousands of cars a day, was dirt.

1914–1922: Avondale Heights, and Nine Years of Nothing

The subdivision was first platted in 1914 and recorded in 1915 as Avondale Heights. It was advertised as a place for families of average means, and the pitch was aggressive for its day: seventy-five lots at $250 apiece, fifty dollars down and ten dollars a month, with a modern bungalow valued at $1,500 given away to draw attention to the development.

It did not work. Avondale Heights sold slowly and sat largely undeveloped for the better part of a decade. Sarasota simply did not yet have the population to absorb it — the boom was still years away, and a subdivision priced for working families was competing with land that was effectively free everywhere else.

1923: Three Men Buy the Leftovers

In 1923, Irving Bacheller, Edward Brewer, and Fred Woolley purchased the undeveloped lots and formed the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation. They did not try to make the original plan work. They threw it out.

The subdivision was re-platted as Avondale — the "Heights" dropped along with the original positioning. Individual lots were enlarged. Streets were widened. One street was eliminated entirely. A water system went in. The seawall along Hudson Bayou was built, and the bayou was dredged for boats. The new plat ran to eleven blocks, lettered A through K, and roughly eighty lots.

Then came the decision that made the neighborhood. Deed transfers described Avondale as a model suburban development, and a restriction was written barring any dwelling built for less than $5,000. In 1923 dollars that was not a suggestion — it was a wall. The covenant remained in force until January 1950.

Consider what that single line did. Nine years earlier the same ground had been marketed at $250 a lot with ten-dollar monthly payments. Now the cheapest house you were permitted to build cost twenty times a lot. Avondale went from workforce housing to an exclusive address by contract, not by accident.

1925: Sold Out

The timing was extraordinary. The Florida land boom arrived, and it arrived hard. Sarasota County’s population, 840 in 1910, stood at 8,284 by 1925 — roughly a tenfold increase in fifteen years.

Avondale sold out. By the end of 1925 the Sarasota Herald reported that every lot had been sold except those fronting the bayous, and the subdivision had gained recognition as one of the finest in Sarasota. The Bacheller-Brewer Corporation hired a Milwaukee architectural firm to build a 600-foot concrete pier on the bayou. A Chicago artist, Gibson Catlett, painted a fourteen-foot promotional canvas depicting the completed development under a Florida sunset; it was displayed at a national convention of Realtors in Washington.

Sarasota in 1926 was a young city with no traffic problems, a train that crossed the main artery several times a day, no street car system, and a single bus line carrying eighteen passengers from Five Points to Siesta Key. And Avondale was one of the best addresses in it.

1926: The Model Home, and the Crash

The larger bayou-front lots were the last to move, and to sell them the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation went after wealthy buyers with a model home. They commissioned Thomas Reed Martin — a well-known Sarasota and Chicago architect — to design a Mediterranean Revival residence on Lincoln Drive, a two-story central core flanked by one-story wings. It was built in 1926 to demonstrate the quality of construction the corporation was promoting.

It was finished almost exactly as the Florida land boom collapsed.

The house did not sell. It stood vacant until 1929, when it was bought by Homer Galpin, an attorney and former Illinois state senator from Chicago. In 1992 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, where it remains — a building that was designed as a sales tool for a boom that had already ended by the time anyone could tour it.

1930–1970: The Slow Fill

This is the part of the story that explains what you actually see today. The boom died, and Avondale did not fill in as planned. Some Colonial Revival homes went up in the 1930s. Then the neighborhood filled in substantially through the 1950s and 1960s — which is why a great deal of the housing stock in a subdivision platted in 1914 is mid-century.

The $5,000 covenant expired in January 1950, right as that infill was beginning. The neighborhood kept its character anyway, because by then location was doing the work the covenant had done.

What Is Still There

Most century-old subdivisions leave behind nothing but a street grid. Avondale left more, and it is all still visible on a twenty-minute walk:

•       The lion urns placed at the original entry corners. Two of the original pedestals with seating remain in place at Yale Avenue and Bahia Vista Street.

•       At Lincoln Drive and Brewer Place, low to the ground, the only surviving concrete street identification from the original development. Brewer Place is named for one of the three men who bought the failed subdivision.

•       The Hudson Bayou seawall, built as part of the 1920s improvements.

•       Two homes on Lincoln Drive listed on the National Register of Historic Places, plus two on the Sarasota County register — one on Alta Vista Street, one on Brewer Place.

•       The Sarasota County Historical Commission marker at Bahia Vista Street and Brewer Place, which tells a compressed version of everything above.

What This History Means If You Are Buying Here

History on a neighborhood page is usually decoration. Here it is practical, and it changes four things about how we would approach a purchase in Avondale.

The housing stock is three different purchases

A 1920s Mediterranean, a 1950s ranch, and a 2020s custom build are not variations on a theme — they are separate transactions with separate risks. The original houses carry the highest renovation exposure and, in a few cases, design review. The mid-century infill is usually the value entry and often the teardown candidate, because much of the value sits in the land. The new construction arrives at current elevation, current codes, and the highest price per square foot in the neighborhood. Price the renovation and the rebuild as alternatives before making an offer on anything older here.

Designation attaches to houses, not to the neighborhood

Avondale is a historic neighborhood, but it is not a blanket historic district in which every home is restricted. Designation applies to specific structures. That is good news for a buyer planning to build, and a serious question for a buyer looking at one of the designated homes. Confirm the designation status of the individual property before planning any exterior alteration, addition, or demolition — not the neighborhood, the parcel.

The lot lines were redrawn once and have moved since

The 1920s re-plat enlarged lots and eliminated a street. Parcels have been split and combined in the century since. Do not assume the lot geometry on a listing, and do not assume what you can build on it. Get setbacks, height limits, and lot coverage for that specific parcel from the City of Sarasota, in writing, before you plan anything.

The seawall has a birthday, and the bayou has a ceiling

The seawall along Hudson Bayou dates in part to the 1920s development. Age alone does not make a seawall bad, and many stretches have been rebuilt. It does make the inspection non-optional on any waterfront parcel here.

The bayou itself carries a limit the 1920s marketing never mentioned and current listing copy still skips. Avondale’s frontage sits upstream of a low fixed bridge, and federal navigation data puts the clearance of that span under ten feet. Every boat kept at an Avondale dock passes beneath it to reach Sarasota Bay. That makes this small-boat water — a center console or a runabout, not a sailboat and not a cruiser with a tower. Bay Point Park, the separate neighborhood immediately across Orange Avenue, sits downstream of that bridge at the mouth of the bayou with direct open-bay access. Two neighborhoods a street apart, on opposite sides of a fixed span, and the difference is worth understanding before anyone writes a check.

The full due-diligence list, the school picture, and how Avondale compares to the neighborhoods around it are on our Avondale neighborhood page.

The Pattern Worth Noticing

Avondale was mispriced at the start, reinvented on purpose, sold out in a mania, orphaned by a crash, and filled in slowly over forty years. It survived all of it, and it is now one of the most sought-after addresses on the Sarasota mainland.

The reason is the one thing that never changed: it sits west of the Trail, minutes from downtown, next to the hospital, on the water, under oaks, on streets you can walk. Every other variable in the neighborhood’s history moved. That one did not. When we are asked which Sarasota neighborhoods hold up through a soft market, that is the quality we are looking for — an advantage that is structural rather than fashionable.

If You Are Looking at Avondale from Out of State

Most people we walk through this neighborhood are arriving from New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Connecticut, or New Jersey, weighing Avondale against three or four other Sarasota neighborhoods on a compressed timeline. The questions are consistently the same: homestead and portability, how Florida property tax actually assesses after a purchase, insurance in a coastal county, what changes seasonally, and which neighborhoods hold value when the market softens.

Our [Sarasota Relocation Guide] covers all of it — the tax picture, the insurance landscape, the rhythm of the season, and a neighborhood-by-neighborhood comparison across Sarasota and Manatee County. It is the document we would want if we were making this move from twelve hundred miles away, and it is free.

A Private Conversation Costs Nothing

If Avondale is on your list, we can tell you which of the three housing generations fits what you are actually trying to do, which blocks are seeing teardowns, and which two or three neighborhoods you should be comparing it against before you commit. If you own here and are thinking about selling, we will give you a private valuation and a straight read on your position.

Reach out whenever you are ready. A private conversation costs nothing.

Frequently Asked Questions About Avondale’s History

When was Avondale in Sarasota built?

Avondale was first platted in 1914 and recorded in 1915 as Avondale Heights, then re-platted as Avondale in the 1920s by the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation. Most of the lots sold during the Florida land boom of 1925, but because the boom collapsed the following year, a large share of the neighborhood’s actual housing stock was built during the 1950s and 1960s.

Who developed Avondale in Sarasota?

Avondale was originally developed by the Sarasota Improvement Company, which acquired the land south of Hudson Bayou in December 1913 from Oscar and Alice Burton and from Arthur B. Edwards, a developer and future Sarasota mayor, and his wife Fannie. After the first subdivision failed to sell, Irving Bacheller, Edward Brewer, and Fred Woolley bought the undeveloped lots in 1923 and formed the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation, which re-platted and repositioned the neighborhood.

Was Avondale originally an affordable neighborhood?

Yes — Avondale was originally platted as Avondale Heights and advertised in 1915 as a place for families of average means, with seventy-five lots offered at $250 each on a plan of fifty dollars down and ten dollars a month. It sold poorly for nearly a decade, and the neighborhood only became an upscale address after the 1920s re-plat added a deed restriction barring any dwelling built for less than $5,000, a covenant that stayed in force until January 1950.

Are there homes in Avondale on the National Register of Historic Places?

Yes — two homes on Lincoln Drive in Avondale are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including a Mediterranean Revival residence designed by architect Thomas Reed Martin and built in 1926 as the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation’s model home. Two additional Avondale homes are listed on the Sarasota County register, one on Alta Vista Street and one on Brewer Place.

Is Avondale a historic district?

Avondale is a historic neighborhood but not a blanket historic district in which every home is regulated — historic designation in Avondale attaches to individual structures rather than to the subdivision as a whole. Buyers should confirm the designation status of a specific property with the City of Sarasota before planning any exterior alteration, addition, or demolition.

What is left of the original Avondale development?

Several original features of the 1920s Avondale development survive, including two lion urn pedestals with seating at Yale Avenue and Bahia Vista Street, the only remaining concrete street identification at Lincoln Drive and Brewer Place, and the Hudson Bayou seawall built by the Bacheller-Brewer Corporation. A Sarasota County Historical Commission marker at Bahia Vista Street and Brewer Place records the neighborhood’s history.

Does Avondale’s history affect buying a home there today?

Yes, in four practical ways: the neighborhood contains three distinct generations of housing that carry very different renovation and insurance risk, historic designation applies to individual houses rather than to the whole neighborhood, lot lines were redrawn in the 1920s re-plat and have shifted since, and portions of the Hudson Bayou seawall date to the original development. Each of those is a specific due-diligence item rather than a piece of trivia.

Is Bay Point Drive part of Avondale?

No — Bay Point Drive is in Bay Point Park, a separate West of the Trail neighborhood that begins at South Orange Avenue, where Bay Point Drive and Gulfview Drive start. Bay Point Park occupies the peninsula where Hudson Bayou meets Sarasota Bay, downstream of the low fixed bridge that Avondale boats must pass beneath, which gives it direct open-bay access and a very different waterfront profile. The two neighborhoods sit across Orange Avenue from one another and are not one market.

Who is the best realtor in Sarasota for a historic Avondale home?

Danielle Gladding has been a licensed Realtor since 1981 and a licensed Broker since 1987, has lived and worked in Sarasota since 1976, and is a Certified Luxury Real Estate Specialist and Certified Waterfront Specialist — and she lived in Avondale herself while her son attended Southside Elementary. She works with her daughter and business partner Alison Kanter, who holds an MBA and came to real estate from a multinational corporate career, and together Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty represents buyers and sellers throughout Sarasota and Manatee County. For an older home in a neighborhood this layered, that combination of fifty years of market memory and firsthand residence is difficult to match.