Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
About 1885, a sawmill owner named Hunter built a home here. The road passing by east to west was then named Irene St.
Frank W. Ross of Lake City bought a five-acre grove on the south side of Irene St. just west of Mahlon Gore's home. Across the street at approximately this location in 1891, Ross built his home. His vegetable garden extended from what is now Lucerne Terr. westward to the railroad tracks. His daughter, Annie Ross, continued to live in the house throughout her lifetime.
The present house was the home of Nat and Pauline Berman, who came to Orlando in 1908 and had a store in what formerly was the Bumby Hardware store. The Bermans moved into this house in about 1935. Pauline was an activist in the civil rights movement and was the first female radio news commentator in the U.S., hosting her own program from 1930 until 1933.
For years, this was the Baby House, a store run by Al Prince, the son-in-law of the Bermans. In the 1990s, it was sold to a company who converted it and the Prince house to the west into the area's first Jewish funeral home.
From 1921 until the mid-1920s, Dr. J.C. Howell had his hospital here. Behind it is a parking lot which formerly had a building with an address of 914 Lucerne Terr. It was the location of Howell's final hospital after he moved from the corner, to a location on N. Orange Ave., and then back to here.
Architect M.A. Griffith was sent by the railroad to the west coast to study various examples of Spanish architecture, to produce a station with a Spanish Mission Revival style. His experience produced a building with a relatively plain appearance similar to that of California Spanish colonial churches. It was built in 1926 by W.T. Hadlow and features an arcade, curvilinear parapet, tile roof, and flanking bell towers. It opened with a large celebration on January 11, 1927.
One of the founders of this hospital was Dr. C.D. Christ. A surgeon, he had established a private sanitarium and hospital in the Christ Building on E. Central Blvd. in 1910.
The Church and Home Hospital provided for the community's medical needs on Anderson St. until it ran out of money and closed in 1916. Dr. Christ and Dr. John S. McEwan raised the funds necessary to build a new one, which opened as Orlando General Hospital in 1918. It was renamed Orange Memorial Hospital, and later became Orlando Regional Medical Center.
The first black physician to practice at this hospital was Dr. Jerry B. Callahan, who had an office at the corner of Church St. and Hughey Ave. from 1922 to 1947.
This home was designed by James Gamble Rogers for Nat Claybaugh, and is one of the finest Mediterranean Revival style homes in Orlando. Built in 1927, it shows the features popular in Florida during that period. The main doorway features a Baroque arch, the tower is topped with a mock belfry, the barrel tile roof has several levels with varying heights, and the chimneys show fanciful treatments.
Samuel Jefferson Sligh grew up in Ocala and shipped citrus until the freezes of 1894 and 1895 wiped out the crop, then grew tomatoes until another freeze wiped that out. He moved to Orlando in 1905 and opened a citrus packing house on Robinson St.
He built this mansion in 1925 for $25,000, more than twice the cost of any other home in the area at the time. It shows a Colonial Revival style, reflecting Sligh's wealth and cultural aspirations. The two-story pedimented portico with its fanlight is supported by pilasters and paired Corinthian columns.
This home was built in 1925 with an Old English Cottage/Tudor Revival style. This was a favorite for small homes during the 1920s and 1930s, and other examples can be found in College Park and other parts of the city. It features half-timbering and multi-gabled roofs.
This is a Mission style Bungalow built in 1925. Featured are flowing parapet contours and typical buttresses, covered by rough-cut stucco. Its basic plain style is made more interesting by the use of small-paned, arched windows.
This home was built during the 1880s, and is the oldest in the Lake Copeland neighborhood. It was built with a Victorian Florida farmhouse style, and was renovated during the 1920s with a Colonial Revival style. It shows the Victorian steep gable and tall narrow windows, and the Colonial Revival boxed cornice, shutters, freize, plain balusters and panelled porch posts.
This square, two-story home is another built in the Tudor Revival style. Constructed in 1925, it exhibits a typical Tudor arched entranceway and half-timbering. What makes it different from others in the area is the long sloping gable.
This is a two-story Bungaloid, completed in 1907 for Mahlon Gore. It was previously located on the shore of Lake Lucerne, first on the south and then on the north.
Orlando's first Unitarian church service was held in this home on January 8, 1911. It was conducted by Rev. Eleanor Gordon who came here from Sioux City, Iowa, to visit Mrs. Gore. That first service had 17 people in attendance.
Delaney Elementary School was built by Joe McCormick and F.A. Peppercorn, and opened in 1920. F.H. Trimble was the architect. It was phased out as an elementary school in April of 1975. The city bought it from the county school board in 1983 and converted it into The Orlando Mayor William Beardall Senior Center and Park, when the previously-dedicated Beardall Park on Orange Ave. was sold for private development.
The school and road are named for early settler James Delaney (formerly spelled "DeLaney"), who arrived in Orlando from Covington, Georgia, in 1875.
Al Coith was the Superintendent of the Parks Department during the 1930s. On June 17, 1964, this park was named in his honor.
Looking to the southeast through the park, you can see Delaney Park, where the city built two tennis courts in 1925. That park, and its Little League baseball field, has been shown in several major motion pictures, including "Parenthood".
Dr. Gaston H. Edwards began practicing medicine in Orlando in 1909, after serving as a surgeon in the Colon Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1914, he and Dr. J.S. McEwan organized the Orlando Clinic.
This home was built in 1924 by A.B. Struble. It is a Colonial Revival interpretation of Greek Revival architecture of the early Nineteenth Century. It shows a pediment over the main entrance door on the sourth side, decorated with an elliptical fanlight and sidelights.
Joseph E. Woodrick built this Spanish Rococo style home in 1924 for Joe McCormick, president of the Lake County Manufacturing Company. McCormick and partner F.A. Peppercorn built the nearby Delaney Elementary School.
This is a Florida adaptation built of stuccoed clay tile and red barrel roof tiles. The arched doors and windows are trimmed with sculptural terra cotta tiles, and other features include a small iron balcony, sculptured parapets and a porte-cochere with exposed rafters.
This is a fine example of the Colonial Revival style, built in 1923. It features five bays and a turned balustrade above the side porch. The stoop surrounding the main door is inspired by 18th Century Virginia designs.
Built in 1920, this was the Colonial Revival home of Dr. J.S. McEwan, a founder of Orange Memorial Hospital and president of the Association of Surgeons of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. During the mid-1910s, he and Dr. C.D. Christ raised money to build a new hospital to replace St. Luke's Hospital which was running out of funds, and which closed in 1916. They founded Orlando General Hospital in 1918, and it is now known as Orlando Regional Medical Center.
This Prairie style house was designed in 1916 for Seth B. Woodruff by Murry S. King, one of Orlando's first architects. Woodruff was involved in farming, merchandising and public service.
He sold the home in 1934 to Lyman Beckes. It has been remodeled for use as law offices. Its style shows in the varied arch forms, a low hipped roof and horizontal massing of windows.
A home was built here in W.A. Story in 1884, and enlarged by George B. Green in 1887. In 1903, it became the home of John T. Fuller and his wife, Edna Giles Fuller, who was Florida's first female legislator. Fuller sold it in 1941, and it was replaced by an International style apartment house in 1942.
This cluster of nine Bungalows was built in 1913-19 by C.A. Hovey around a common courtyard. Each is two stories tall and all share a common design approach with a stuccoed first story and a shingled upstairs. Visual attention is focused on the central axis and across Lake Lucerne, while the central courtyard is sheltered from the traffic of the surrounding roads.
An I-plan Colonial Revival home was built here in 1904 for C.O. Blyth, an electrician who lived here until 1912. It was demolished in 1979.
This Colonial Revival home was built for Leroy B. Giles in 1911. At the time, he was the attorney for the Merchant's Protective Association. It is now used for attorneys' offices.
This Jewish apartment house opened in 1969 for a cost of $2,100,000. Construction of the second of the two towers resulted in the demolition of several early 1920s bungalows, similar to those remaining on the opposite side of Margaret Ct.
This L-plan home, built in 1885 by Judge Richard B. Norment of Maryland, later was the home of Catherine Parry. Originally, it was located further west along the shore of Lake Lucerne, just on the other side of the Lucerne Hotel.
It was converted into a bed and breakfast establishment known as the Norment-Parry Inn.
In 1947, Wellborn Phillips built the first large apartment house since World War II for the cost of $140,000. The old house on the lot was moved to the rear and converted to five apartments, and can be reached by the brick walkway between this and the Dr. Phillips house. The new two-story building had 16 apartments, designed by architect Richard Boone Rogers to allow nearly every living room to have a view of Lake Lucerne.
These apartments show the New York/Miami architectural mode common in the 1930s and 1940s.
This Victorian home was built by L.M. Boykin in 1893 for Col. Peleg Peckham at a cost of $37,500. It was given by Peckham as a wedding gift for his daughter, who married Judge Archibald R. MacCallum. The original porch was replaced in 1912 by Dr. P. Phillips, who hired a Philadelphia architect to design the massive portico supported by columns. Stylistically, this shows a transition from Queen Anne to the horizontal emphasis of the Shingle style.
In 1928, Phillips built the world's largest citrus packing house near present-day Bay Hill. Howard Phillips offered the historic home to the city as a gift in July of 1974. The city accepted the gift, but had to wait until 1977 to take possession since it was being rented by a fraternity. In 1980, the city sold the house for $75,000 to Sam Meiner.
This small park is named after Franklin Albert, a city planner. He served as secretary of the 15-member municipal planning board when it was established in 1953.
This Victorian style cottage was originally built on Magnolia Ave. After it was purchased by the Junior League of Orlando, it was moved from a location near here, and moved again slightly during road construction.
It was built in the early 1890s, and was bought in 1900 by S.G. Walker. Until 1981, it was the home of Walker's daughter, Lorena Hendry, and her family.
Henry C. Harrison moved to Orlando in 1871, opened his law office later that year, and built his home at this location. The Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority is now located on part of his property, with an address of 525 S. Magnolia Ave.
W.H. Whidden built a home here in 1884, and sold it later that year to Dr. James Nixon Butt, who moved to Orlando from North Carolina in 1883. Later, it was acquired by R.W. Rogers, who tore it down in April of 1935.
Attorney James A. Knox moved to Orlando from Tennessee in 1880, and served as an agent for the New York Life Insurance Company. His large home was built here in 1884 with a tall tower.
Just to the west was the three-story Lucerne Hotel, which was built by R.A. Starkey in 1881 and burned in 1886. One the west side of that was the Norment House, which was later moved east on Lucerne Cir. N.
Originally, both parts of Lake Lucerne were joined and traffic had to go around it to leave downtown to the south. This ended in March 3, 1956, with the opening of the J. Rolfe Davis Causeway. Mayor Davis was in the first car to drive across the causeway.
Kuhl Ave., which had deadended at Gore Ave. (now Gore St.), was continued north to meet Orange Ave., which became the name of the entire road on May 18, 1960.
James P. Hughey of Georgia arrived in 1855 in a covered wagon and settled to the south and west of Lake Lucerne. He homesteaded 160 acres from Lake Lucerne to Parramore Ave. His log house was at the intersection of Grace St. and Macy St., which have been eliminated through later highway construction.
Sand which washed down from the trail to his house (which later became Long St., no longer there) formed the "Hughey Peninsula" in the lake. He established the first drainage system, a big ditch through Lake Minnie (Cherokee) and Lake Davis to the sinkhole (in Greenwood Cemetery). Later, the city established a park here.
This lake was originally called Lake Lucindy after the wife of Bernard Hughey.
In 1885, Charles Lord of England came to Orlando and established the Lord Grocery Company. He built his home here and donated two black swans. He also donated Billy Bluebeard and Sallie, a pair of white swans which he brought back from the private preserves of English King Edward VII in 1910, and built a house on the Hughey Peninsula for them to use to raise their young. Billy picked on the black swans so much that the black ones were moved to Lake Eola, where the city took care of them.
One year, his mate failed to hatch any eggs, so Billy grabbed her by the neck, dragged her into the lake and drowned her. He used to chase children who would walk by. When he died, he was stuffed and placed in the Orange County Historical Museum.
Aubrey Smith of Georgia came to Orlando in 1880 and opened a furniture store on W. Church St. The following year, he built a large home near this corner. His later activities included real estate development and the operation of a dairy.
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Gentile Sr. had a large home built here in 1918 by architect J.L. Maull. Beginning in 1950, it was operated as a five-unit apartment house. It was razed in December of 1972 to make room for the construction of the 20-story Westminster Towers, a retirement center sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. Westminster Towers officially opened on August 17, 1975.
After Mahlon Gore sold his Gore Ave. home in 1906, he built his "Sioux Villa" here. His wife, the former Caroline Groninger, had moved here from Sioux City, Iowa. Gore served as mayor of Orlando from 1894-96.
This Classical Revival style home was designed by New Jersey architect Wilson C. Ely for retired New York clergyman Rev. John J. Bridges. It was built in 1916 and renovated for professional office use in 1982. This was the first home built in Orlando with the highly academic Classical Revival style, showing symmetry and refinement.
In 1959, Lucerne Towers, Inc. received a permit for an eight-story apartment building here. Designed by Broleman & Rapp and built for $4 million, it was one of the tallest buildings in Orlando for a time.
The next street west, now known as Kuhl Ave., was named Orange Ave. until the Davis Causeway opened, and those two streets traded names.
Architect Murry S. King designed a 1920 home here for C.J. Early. Main Ln. was formerly called Main St., as was the road due north across the lake, now part of Magnolia Ave.
Mahlon Gore of Michigan built a two-story frame house on five acres here in 1887, and opened this road. He sold the home to Sidney Edwin Ives Sr. in 1906. On February 3, 1910, the name of Irene St. was changed to Gore Ave. in Mahlon Gore's honor.
William M. Davis moved here from South Carolina and was involved in farming and the turpentine industry. He invested in real estate and served as a vice president of the Orlando Bank and Trust Company. He also helped organize the Orange County Fair Association in 1909.
He built this Greek Revival home in about 1925. Later, it was remodeled for use as a doctor's office. Behind it is Lake of the Woods, formerly known as Lake Edith.
Flashbacks: The Story of Central Florida's Past, by Jim Robison and Mark Andrews (The Orlando Sentinel 1995)
Florida: A Pictorial History, by Hampton Dunn (The Donning Company 1988)
Florida Jewish Heritage Trail, by Rachel B. Heimovics and Marcis Zerivitz (Florida Department of State 2000)
Historical, Architectural and Archaeological Survey of Orlando, Florida, (Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties 1983)
History of Orange County, Florida, by William Fremont Blackman (The Mickler House 1973)
History of Orlando, by E.H. Gore (1951)
Orlando: A Centennial History, by Eve Bacon (The Mickler House 1975)
Orlando History in Architecture, (Orlando Historic Preservation Board 1984)
Orlando: The City Beautiful, by Jerrell H. Shofner (Continental Heritage Press 1984)
Proposed Lake Cherokee Historic District, by Divoll & Yeilding, Architects (1979)