JANIE GOULD

During the land boom of the 1920’s, Royal Park started to spring up in central Vero Beach, east of the railroad tracks. It was planned to be the equal of anything in South Florida, with lovely Mediterranean-style homes, a golf course and a central boulevard lined with shops and cafés. The brainchild of developers Waldo Sexton and Walter Buckingham, it had two main residential streets, each lined with royal palms that they planted. John Unruh, a local attorney and grandson of Buckingham, remembers those palms.

“It was very stately looking, but also somewhat exotic looking, along the lines of what you might see down in Palm Beach or Coral Gables.”

Q: “Only a few of those palms are left …”

A: “Oh yes, there are a few survivors, but you have to look for them. They’re very tall at this point and slowly dying off. I don’t know if it’s hurricanes or freezes or newcomers who didn’t know what they were, but there are just a few left.”

Q: “Now, U.S. 1, where it goes east and west, was going to be a Miracle Mile like Coral Gables?”

A: “Waldo had been to Paris, or seen a postcard of Paris, as the story goes, with wonderful wide streets, with shops and archways and big wide sidewalks so there could be outdoor cafes, so that’s how they laid out this street. It was wider than most roads were back then.”

Q: “U.S. 1, you mean?”

A: “Well, it’s U.S. 1 now, but then it was going to be this Parisian-style street to help sell their property there.”

Q: “How far did it get with commercial development along that street? Not very far, I’d guess.”

A: “Not very far! Any time there’s a boom, there’s a bust soon behind, and there was in this case. The Parkway Hotel is a good example of what they had in mind there. There’s little left else of that original idea.”

Q: “And that hotel has arches, looks a little bit like Worth Avenue, so I guess the whole street was going to be like that …”

A: “That was the plan. You often wonder why U.S. 1 stops going north and south in Vero Beach. Well, later when the government came along to put U.S. 1 all the way down the coast of Florida, when they were laying out the highway, which basically tracks Old Dixie Highway, the planners saw this big wide road already laid out. Waldo, and of course Walter, were glad to let them have it, so U.S. 1 suddenly takes an east- west turn there. From that is born the Miracle Mile, which would be a commercial district later.”

Q: “There are some houses in Royal Park of that vintage. What, a couple dozen?”

A: “Just a few! They’re easy to spot. There are some beautiful old homes that were built during that time frame. There was the golf course, the royal palms, the lure of living in exotic Florida.”

Q: “The golf course was one of the first built in the area, right?”

A: “Yeah, one of the very first. There are some early residents who can remember seeing my grandfather and Waldo and some of their engineers laying out where the golf course was going to go. The unfortunate thing is the bust did come. This was going to be a beautiful subdivision and a beautiful project, but before they could fulfill their dream, things went bad and the Depression was looming. It basically ended up going for the taxes, but the city did buy the golf course and turned it eventually into the Vero Beach Country Club.

Q: “The Depression came but your grandfather stayed on and was involved in numerous businesses over the years – real estate, insurance. Of all the ventures that her was involved in, what do you think was his favorite?”

A: “He found romance in citrus! He loved the citrus business and found it exciting and just a wonderful thing.

This interview was first heard as part of Janie Gould’s Floridays series of radio shows on WQCS/88.9 FM.