The 1920’s boom transformed groves, farms and woodlands into neatly platted small-lot subdivisions now collectively called College Park.
One of the first developers to realize this area’s potential was Walter W. Rose. Active in Orlando real estate since 1913, in 1921 Rose filed a subdivision he called Rosemere. It was here that our streets were first given college names – Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Harvard. In later Rosemere sections, Rose added De Pauw, Amherst and Vanderbilt. When Cooper-Atha-Barr platted extensions of these streets starting in 1925, they named their new subdivisions College Park.
Rose began selling Rosemere lots on Jan. 15, 1922, advertising paved streets, side-walks and water connections. His success led to four Rosemere additions, as well as nearby Rose Terrace. From about 1923 to 1957, Rose and his wife Stella lived in (really adjacent to) Rosemere. Their former home is a highlight of today’s tour.
Almost everyone who lived here during the Boom years had a finger in the real estate pie. Among them was attorney and banker Gardiner M. Sherman. Involved with the Orange Crest subdivision in 1921, he later enlisted three associates to buy land on the north shore of Lake Ivanhoe. Sherman, Col. George C. Johnston, shoe store owner Harry S. Wilson, and banker Russell A. Scarboro divided their purchase into 75 building lots, filing the subdivision in Feb. 1925 and calling it Shore Crest. In early March 1925, the four listed the lots for sale, certain of a boulevard around the lake, and awaiting city water and electric lights.
During the Florida Boom, lots were often held for speculation. The Florida Bust that reached Orlando about 1928, combined with the Depression that followed, guaranteed that many lots in Shore Crest and most of College Park would remain vacant for years.
Today in Shore Crest, you can study the exterior of the residence built in 1925 by Sherman (the only one of the four investors to move here), and see interiors of four other 1920’s homes, as well as the interior of an architect-designed house built in 1940 on one of the long-vacant lots. And you’ll visit the 1919 home of Walter W. Rose at Rosemere.
Introductory Excerpt from:
College Park Historic Homes Tour – Shore Crest, November 24, 1996.
View document: College Park Historic Homes Tour – Shore Crest 1996
The sixth historic homes tour of the College Park Historical Committee.
Shore Crest House Tour Addresses
1. 1622 Dormont Lane
2. 1623 Dormont Lane
3. 1639 Dormont Lane
4. 1630 Oakmont Lane
5. 1706 Oakmont Lane
6. 1724 Oakmont Lane
7. 226 E. Vanderbilt Street
Notable names mentioned include: Robert D. and Delores Ayers, Novia and Laura Beavers, J.S. Braswell, Joseph and Eloise Cato, James T. and Dorothy Cooper, Howard and Elizabeth Cowell, Charles and Harriet Daniels, June and Ethel Vashti Dowling, Buell and Elizabeth Duncan, James and Frances Dunn, Howard E. and Edith Ferris, Charles W. and Ida Flower, John R. Howard, Frank Hunter, Herrald E. and Helen M. Jenkins, Barbara and Donald Johnson, Col. George C. Johnston, Howard Jordan, Simon and Raie Lehman, Michael and Elizabeth Lehrer, W. A. McCree, Jr., W. Kenneth Miller, J. H. and Grace Packard, Evelyn Patrick, Bo Randall, Walter W. Rose, Russell A. Scarboro, Gardiner M. Sherman, Phil Silvers, Malcolm and Mary Sterrett, Sidney and Molly Still, Eleanor Thornton, Tilden and Josephine Walsh, Thomas and Hedwig Wheaton, Howard and Aileen Wheeler, Joseph and Florence White, Dr. Cleo D. and Edith Merritt Wilder, Harry S. Wilson, Gordon and Veda Woodruff,
Document courtesy of the College Park Neighborhood Association Historical Committee.
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