Pinellas County developer Howard Burkland had a big dream in the late 1950s. His plan was to purchase an immense area of West Pasco County bordering the Gulf of Mexico to create a waterfront community that would eventually include up to 3,600 acres and 60 miles of canals. The name of the new development of up to 7,500 homes would be “Flor-A-Mar” – which means “Flower of the Sea”.
To say that the plan was ambitious would be an understatement. Not only would it involve almost four miles of Gulf frontage north of Fillmans Creek and south of the Cotee River, it also depended on the purchase of a large swath of submerged seabed extending up to a mile offshore.
In July of 1958, Burkland brought his plan to the Pasco County Commission, requesting permission for a bulkhead line that extended a mile into the Gulf. His concept was to create land where no land previously existed by excavating deep canals in the shallow water and using the fill to create “fingers” of dry land for homesites. It was a novel plan that depended on receiving approval to purchase the underwater seabed from the Florida Internal Improvement Fund.
His meeting with the County Commission went much as he planned, due in part to the fact that it had not been properly advertised to the public — a point that was mentioned by the county attorney, but which was ignored by the commission. Thus there were no members of the public at the meeting to object to the project. The commissioners agreed to Burkland’s plan, with reservations, saying that the developer would take the risk if objections were lodged at a later time. In exchange for their approval of the project, the developer was to give Pasco County 20 acres of Gulf frontage at the west edge of the project for use as a public beach.
Two weeks after the County Commission approved the request for a bulkhead extending a mile into the Gulf, officials from the City of New Port Richey got wind of the project and voiced their objections. Spearheaded by Mayor Clair Kohler and council president James Grey, the County Commission eventually scaled back their approval for the offshore lands.
By early 1959, plats had been submitted for the initial stage of the project. And houses were being built in the upland area close to U.S. 19. The houses were all to be concrete block stucco construction, with open floor plans and terrazzo floors. Prices varied from $8,000 to $10,000 and included landscaping and seawall.
In May of 1959, a new injection of capital was received when Chicago developer Sumner Sollitt — head of one of the country’s largest contracting firms — became a full partner with Burkland in the Flor-A-Mar project. Together, the two men announced plans to build up to 500 houses by the end of the year, and another 2,000 homes by the end of 1960. Advertising for the development was run in full-page ads in local newspapers using the name “Flor-A-Mar Gulf Harbors”.
In the meantime, purchase of the underwater portion of the development was turning out to be problematic. The trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida hesitated due to objections and legal challenges. But finally, in June of 1959, a sale was finalized for 841 acres of submerged land in the Gulf of Mexico. In order to clinch the deal, Burkland and Sollitt had to scale back their initial request for more than 1,500 acres. All at once, the Flor-A-Mar project was being downsized from its original grandiose scale.
Almost immediately, dredging and construction began on a two-mile long canal running inland from the Gulf. At the east end of the “North Canal” as it was called, a large boat basin was excavated, with commercial property all around and a half mile of frontage on U.S. 19. Construction of the canal proceeded from the boat basin westward so that excavation and seawall placement could be done before the canal was eventually connected with the Gulf in January of 1960.
With much of the original master plan scrapped, the developers turned their full attention to the central portion of Flor-A-Mar along the “Grand Canal”. Plans called for four distinct sections. “Waterfront Estates” was the area closest to U.S. 19. The “Country Club” section contained all the homes along Floramar Terrace and Top Sail Trail up to the place where the two roads joined. Further west was “Gulf Isles”. And the western-most area with frontage on the Gulf of Mexico was for the public beach and high-rise condos and apartments. The master plan also called for an 18 hole golf course and a country club and clubhouse.
In spite of what seemed to be early success, the Flor-A-Mar project was proving to be a problem for Burkland and Sollitt. Having previously developed Gulf-front subdivisions, they expected dredging to go quickly in a soft sand seabed. But beneath a surface layer of sand, they found hard limestone that needed to be blasted away to dig the canals. Along with massive overhead costs for sewers, utilities, road paving and other infrastructure, the subdivision was costing many times more than previous projects they had developed. By 1963, only two homes had been sold — and the money ran out. Flor-A-Mar went into foreclosure.
But the subdivision was too far along to go away. Seeing the potential, wealthy Chicago industrialist and philanthropist Robert Crown took over the project under the name of “Empire Properties, Inc.” (The Crown family had previously owned the Empire State Building in New York City.) Because of the stigma of the foreclosure, one of Crown’s first orders of business was to drop “Flor-A-Mar” from the name and refer to the project as simply “Gulf Harbors”.
Home sales in the subdivision gradually began to take off in the late 1960s. In 1965, Crown created the Lindrick Corporation to take over continuing development of Gulf Harbors. By 1967 over one hundred houses had been sold, and it became clear that the growth trend would continue. Lindrick opened the project for all reputable realtors and home builders in order to keep up with demand for new construction.
Sadly, in 1969 Robert Crown died unexpectedly at the age of 48. His family and company were committed to completing the project and pushed ahead with development of the second and third phase — the Country Club and Gulf Isles. But in the early 1970s, Lindrick announced that the section facing the Gulf would now be off limits to high rise condos and would become an exclusive residents-only beach.
With high-rise condos now being prohibited from the beach-front area, construction began in 1973 on an eight-story condominium on Floramar Terrace on the south side of the boat basin. Originally known as “The Ambassador”, the name was changed to “Sea Castle” in 1975. At the time, it was the tallest building in Pasco County. It retained that title until construction of “The Landings at Sea Forest” — a later Gulf Harbors project.
Historically, home values in Gulf Harbors varied depending on distance from the Gulf. This was a planned pricing structure designed to help sell the more expensive homesites with deeper and wider canals. Today, this distinction still exists, with modest-priced homes near the front of the subdivision closer to U.S. 19, and multimillion-dollar mansions along West Shore Drive.
With the construction of Southgate Center in late 1965, a Holiday Inn hotel in 1969, and the Seamarket Restaurant in 1981, the Gulf Harbors area continued to grow. Eventually, the Holiday Inn was rebranded as the Magnuson Hotel, then demolished to make way for the Aqua Harbor condo, hotel and marina – now under construction. The Seamarket became Leverocks Seafood Restaurant, was severely damaged by fire, then rebuilt and re-opened as Widow Fletchers, and now the Seafire Grill. Southgate Center continues as a thriving shopping center.
Gulf Harbors continued to expand through the years, fulfilling much of Howard Burkland’s original vision. The Gulf Harbors Woodlands subdivision was added in 1978, and the Sea Forest area was developed in the 1980s. West Pasco’s “Flower of the Sea” continues to be one of the most exclusive residential areas in the county.
Paul Herman is Digital Media Archivist for the West Pasco Historical Society.