Paradise for Sale

by Nick Wynne

  David P. “Doc” Davis had a dream of an all-new and different development at the mouth of the Hillsborough River on tidal islands in Tampa Bay. He used the same methods of dredging new soil from the bottom of the bay to create larger, higher islands that Carl Fisher had pioneered in Miami Beach. In 1924, there was nothing much to see on the islands, but he sold out his initial offering of lots and development proceeded. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.

  Starting small, Davis persuaded the owner of a small subdivision of four hundred lots, known as the Railroad Shops addition in the Buena Vista section of Miami, to allow D.P. Davis, Inc., to sell the lots for him. Although the property had languished in the market for several years, Davis was willing to bet that he could sell the lots and sell them quickly. With nothing to lose, the owner agreed to his proposal. After doubling the asking price for individual lots, Davis invested $1,000 of his own funds in advertising them. Within days, the lots were sold, netting him a commission of $40,000. Only a few days after he liquidated these lots and collected his earnings, Davis invested $47,000 in the Alta Vista subdivision. Within forty days, he sold them out, converting his original investment into a substantial $150,000. This became the formula he followed for the rest of his business life—invest a little, sell for a lot, take the profits and invest again.

  Davis operated two real estate companies in Miami during this period. His D.P. Davis, Inc., company purchased raw land and developed it, while his United Realty Company handled commercial developments. In early 1920, Davis entered into the most significant deal of his business life. He purchased a seventy-two-acre plot of ground in the Buena Vista section of Miami for $175,000. On July 1, 1920, he put thirty-two acres, now called the Shadowlawn subdivision, on sale. Although he decided to place properties on the market outside the traditional “snowbird” winter season, it was a huge success, and the entire offering sold out for $396,000. Davis’s reputation as one of the most important promoters of Florida real estate was firmly established. Michael J. Boonstra, whose master’s thesis traced Davis’s life, quotes him as saying that after this bit of success, his career was “smooth sailing.” Perhaps so, but not for long.

  Although most initial buyers in Shadowlawn purchased properties with the clear intention of reselling them and clearing a profit, Davis realized that construction of homes on the vacant lots would immensely improve their value. In order to encourage those who bought lots to build homes, he started to lend money for this purpose. The November 1922 issue of the Home Designer featured the model homes he offered in Shadowlawn—an eclectic mixture of Mission, Pueblo Revival and even English Colonial styles. He quickly followed this success by opening the Biltmore subdivision in the Buena Vista section. Focusing on creating a viable business district for the homeowners in Biltmore, he spent $20,000 to build a post office, which he leased to the federal government. Soon, other investors followed his lead, and a small, but stylish, commercial center, with broad sidewalks and city lighting, developed. The Moore Furniture Company, rated as the “second finest furniture store” in the country, was the linchpin of this development. Buyers came from all of the new developments in the Miami area—Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Hialeah and others—to buy at Moore’s. A 1926 advertisement noted:

  It is one of the largest and most completely equipped furniture stores in the South. Situated on the Dixie [Highway], as one enters Miami, it strikes the keynote of progress and prosperity to be encountered everywhere in Miami’s industrial enterprises.

  Success in Miami meant that Davis attracted attention from other men who sought to interest him in developing properties outside the city. In late 1922 or early 1923, he was introduced to Alfred Roy Trafford of Cocoa. Trafford, who made almost daily train runs from Cocoa to Miami selling property, convinced Davis to visit the Brevard County area. Impressed with the area’s potential for development, Davis purchased one hundred acres of land on the north side of Cocoa and announced that he and his brother, Milton, would develop Carleton Terrace. Promising to spend more than $100,000 on infrastructure, public parks and landscaping, he set about clearing and grading the property. On January 28, 1924, the first of the deed-restricted lots—all new houses had to have a minimum value of $3,500; no stables, hog pens or outhouses could be built; and no house could be sold, leased or rented to non-Caucasians—went on sale. Two months later, total lot sales exceeded $200,000. By December 1925, all lots had been sold and housing construction was well underway.

  According to one estimate, Davis accumulated more than $5 million in profits between 1921 and 1924 from his dealings in Miami and Cocoa real estate, but such wealth was not enough for him. In Miami, Carl Fisher and George Merrick were regarded as the premier builders, followed by Glenn Curtiss in Opa-locka, Hialeah and Miami Springs. Davis was an important figure, but running a distant fourth or fifth was not enough to satisfy his ego. In Cocoa, he was the undisputed king of real estate, but with a population of only two thousand, Cocoa was a small kingdom. He looked around for a place where he could be the kingfish, and he found just the place in Tampa.

  The Tampa area, like most areas of Florida, was claiming a share of the boom. To the northeast, the old Bertha Palmer property of Temple Terrace, controlled by two related companies—Temple Terrace Estates, Inc., and Temple Terraces, Inc.—emerged as the leading development. Temple Terrace Estates, Inc., marketed the area as a residential development surrounding a Tom Bendelow–designed golf course, while Temple Terraces, Inc., managed the orange groves that were attached to each residential lot. The marketing advertisements for the development stressed days filled with golf; quiet, idyllic afternoons spent tending orange trees; and delightful evenings spent dining with fellow golfers in the country club. In fact, meals at the country club were such an integral part of the Temple Terrace lifestyle that very few homes were built with kitchens.

  In 1922, D. Collins Gillette, Burks L. Hamner and Maude Fowler pooled their resources to make Temple Terrace a reality. Broad streets, sewers and curbed, paved streets were built—often with the use of convict labor—and lots surveyed. A city well was drilled to provide fresh potable water for residents and orange trees alike. In 1925, Temple Terrace was incorporated, Gillette was elected mayor and Fowler became deputy mayor.

  Elsewhere in Tampa, subdivisions such as Palma Ceia, Beach Park, Sunset Park and Hamner’s Forest Hills were also marketed as homes for wealthy and discerning northerners seeking winter homes and perpetual sunshine. Like Temple Terrace, most of these new residential communities featured the game of golf and the idea of exclusivity as their primary selling points. More than two hundred new subdivisions were platted and in the process of being developed in the Tampa area, and more than $3 million in new construction was reported for the first nine months of 1924. Buses, special trolleys and open-top limos made their way through these new areas carrying thousands of potential customers. Special exhibitions by professional boxers, golfers and tennis players drew crowds of thousands, who, once the spectacle of the moment was finished, were encouraged to tour the available housing lots. The publicity machines of Tampa-area developers followed the pattern set in Palm Beach and Miami but did not rise to their level—at least not before the arrival of “Doc” Davis.

  Finding the right location in Tampa required some hard detective work, but by early 1924, Davis had settled on several mudflats and small islands he had explored as a young man in Tampa. Located at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, there was not much to recommend the islands, which were frequently submerged, as building sites, but Davis was very familiar with what Carl Fisher had accomplished with dredges on Miami Beach. After some complicated maneuvering, he was able to purchase all of the island property for $350,000. This sum included $200,000 to the City of Tampa, which owned one of the islands, but which the city promised to return to him if he met a four-year deadline to complete the project, erected a bridge to the islands, donated a fifty-five-acre park to the city and surrounded the entire area with a seven-foot sea wall. In a
ddition, D.P. Davis Properties, Inc., his new company created to handle this project, faced a lawsuit by property owners on the banks of Hillsborough Bay facing the proposed new development who opposed his plan to create eighteen hundred feet of new land. Ultimately, an agreement was reached that gave him the right to expand the size of the islands by seven hundred feet. The final hurdle Davis faced was the need to get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve his plan to dredge soil from the bay to use as fill for his island community. Final approval came on August 7, 1924.

  “Doc” Davis, always impatient and confident that he would prevail, blithely went about getting ready for work to begin. He acquired a location on Franklin Street in the heart of the city and, under a strict veil of secrecy, renovated it as a sales office. Opulent furnishings created the impression of an exclusive gentleman’s club, and a forty-foot glass-enclosed scale model of his projected development dominated the office. He also began to assemble the advertising and sales staff that would market his creation in the twenty or so offices he opened in other cities. F.W. Montayne, an advertising genius from New England, became the director of advertising; Athos Menaboni, a young Italian artist, was charged with creating the graphics for the ads; and J.P. White, a veteran real estate salesman from Chicago, was hired to head up the sales department. On September 24, the Tampa Tribune announced that the noted landscape architect Frank M. Button, who had gained a great deal of fame from his work on George Merrick’s Coral Gables, had agreed to oversee the creation of a tropical paradise on the newly reclaimed land. All that remained was to begin the actual reclamation of the as-of-yet unnamed development. The next day, however, the Tribune revealed that the new community would be named Davis Islands.

  Just three weeks after receiving the final approval of the Corps of Engineers for his dredging operations, Davis signed a contract with the Northern Dredge and Dock Company of Minneapolis to pump nine million yards of fill dirt from the bottom of the bay to create Davis Islands. On October 4, 1924, well before any major improvements to the development were complete, Davis decided to offer three hundred lots—all of them still under water—for sale. Designated the “Hyde Park” section because the area was immediately across the bay from the Hyde Park neighborhood on the mainland, the lots drew a large crowd of buyers, who began to gather outside the sales office on Friday afternoon. After waiting uncomfortably all through the night, they rushed inside as soon as the office opened on Saturday morning, and by noon, all of the lots had been sold. Speculators spent $1,683,582 for nonexistent land, confident that Davis was a man of his word and would deliver as promised. Nine days later, J.P. White’s sales force collected another $1 million in land sales.

  Davis Islands featured broad avenues, Mediterranean Revival architecture and the obligatory canals for gondolas. Landscape architect Frank M. Button moved from Coral Gables to work for “Doc” Davis in making his reclaimed land a veritable tropical paradise. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.

  Twenty-four hours a day, five big dredges dug and sucked soil from the bay, slowly expanding the small islands and mudflats into a large 875-acre development eight feet above the tidal surge in Hillsborough Bay. Quickly, project after project was completed—a French company built the world’s largest lighted fountain at the entrance to Davis Islands; three luxury hotels and two apartment buildings rose from the mud to provide visitors with temporary homes; sixty homes were built; and a city hospital was under construction on land donated by Davis. He also leased WDAE, the city’s four-year-old radio station, and relocated its studios on the islands, just so every station break would mention its new home—Davis Islands. A country club featured a disappearing roof that opened to the stars, while patrons danced to the music of Isham Jones’s nationally known band.

  A $100,000 decorative bridge linked the islands with the mainland, replacing the original wooden service bridge. Drawing on every promotional gimmick used by Fisher and Merrick in Miami and innovating some of his own, Davis offered potential buyers the opportunity to view the entire development by air. A fleet of three hydroplanes regularly circled the project offering rides to prominent local and visiting dignitaries but always ensuring that potential paying customers got a chance to see available lots. He also quickly joined Florida’s powerboat association and staged major speed competitions on the “Davis Islands Marine Raceway,” a three-stage course that paralleled the shores of the development. Olympic champion swimmer Helen Wainwright was paid $10,000 to swim around the development, while professional golfer Johnny Farrell received a fee of $1,000 to drive a golf ball from the islands to the mainland. Jack Dempsey amazed potential buyers with boxing exhibitions, while tennis aficionados were entertained by the Dixie Cup tennis tournament. Like Fisher and Merrick, Davis operated a system of buses that trucked interested visitors from around the state. A small yacht, the Pokanoket, was also used to ferry potential customers from the mainland and to give an “around the shores” tour. Hundreds of visitors took advantage of the free transportation to Davis Islands and the free lunches that the company served—so many, in fact, that Davis was forced to build temporary dining rooms to accommodate them.

  The Palace of Florence, an “apartment hotel,” provided potential buyers and seasonal visitors spacious and luxurious accommodations when they came to Davis Islands. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.

  When it came to promotion, D.P. “Doc” Davis proved that he was the equal of any Florida developer. By the end of 1925, he proudly announced that all of the available lots had been sold in a final sale that netted $18,138,000 for his company. An additional $8,250,000 had to be returned to buyers because there were no more lots available. In less than eighteen months, “Doc” Davis took the concept of an island development and turned it into a reality. Although he boasted that he poured $30,000,000 into the creation of his unique development, the sales figures for the eighteen months of 1924 and 1925 tell a different story. Reported sales topped $21,000,000—even with unreported sales, the total probably never exceeded $25,000,000—but Davis, like his contemporaries throughout Florida, tended to count resales as part of the overall total. Despite this minor discrepancy in sales figures, no one could doubt that the Davis Islands project was an unqualified success. Out of barren mudflats and tidal island, a paradise had emerged.

  For Davis, however, Tampa was finished, and he looked around for new vistas to conquer. The “Ancient City,” St. Augustine, intrigued him, and on October 15, 1925, ten days before he announced the sale of the final lots on Davis Islands, “Doc” let it be known that he was moving his entire operations—dredges, sales force, architects and landscapers—to the fifteen hundred acres he had bought on Anastasia Island. Located across the Matanzas River only a couple thousand feet from the center of St. Augustine, he planned to spend $50 million on the new development, which would be grander than anything he had done before. The St. Augustine Record published its largest issue to date, adding Davis’s name to the list of great men associated with the city’s history. Ponce de León, Pedro de Avilés and Henry Morrison Flagler were united on the front page of the paper as the “movers and shakers” to place St. Augustine in the front ranks of American cities.

  Davis Shores, as the development was called, would feature a $200,000 yacht club, a $250,000 country club, an eighteen-hole golf course, a $1.5 million luxury hotel, more than fifty miles of paved streets, one hundred miles of sidewalks and a $200,000 Roman pool and casino. Since the new development would be across the Matanzas River, the old tramway bridge would not be sufficient to handle the volume of traffic during construction or after completion, so a new bridge would have to be built. St. Augustine city leaders decided to construct a new bascule bridge that would cost $1 million. Work on the bridge started in 1925, even before Davis started construction of his development. Guarded by two massive lions made of Carrara marble donated by Dr. Andrew Anderson, a local physician, it was finished in 1927.

  With the Davis Islands project sold out by late 1925
, “Doc” Davis sought new land for new developments. He settled on Anastasia Island opposite the Matanzas River from St. Augustine. Connected to the city by a small tramway, the new development of Davis Shores was advertised as being bigger and more expensive than Davis Islands. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.

  To make access to the projected Davis Shores development, the City of St. Augustine approved the construction of the $1 million “Bridge of Lions.” It was completed after Davis’s death and after the end of the land boom. Davis Shores languished unfinished until many years later. It never achieved the glamour that Davis planned. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.

  On November 10, 1925, Davis opened his initial sales office in St. Augustine and offered the first lots for sale on November 14. By the end of January 1926, he had more than twenty offices operating around the state. Buyers were offered the chance to purchase lots at preconstruction prices, which they were assured would only rise in value. Any potential customer who doubted this statement was referred to the record of what had happened when Davis Islands lots were sold. In less than five hours after the sale began, a total of $11,268,000 had been committed for the first two thousand lots in the development. Another $7,137,000 in commitments was made, and although no more lots were available, Davis announced that he would open a new section of the development for those who had been denied lots in the first sale. Very quickly, a side market developed as real estate brokers sought to buy the lots purchased in the first sale.