The Jungle Country Club History Project: Bear Creek Gateway: Original Post August 20, 2021

Publisher's note:
Steve of the Jungle prefers the comfort and security of his Jungle neighborhood, but occasionally travels to the uncharted backwaters in search of history.

District 1 City Council Member Robert Blackmon alerted me to a curious rock formation on 64th St near 5th Ave S in Pasadena. He showed me some pictures that were strange and incredible.

The walls are the remains of the "Bear Creek Gateway" to the Country Club section of Pasadena-on-the-Gulf, built in 1924. Bear Creek Country Club was the original name of what is now the Pasadena Yacht and Country Club.

Motor south ... from Central avenue. You will pass the Dann-Gerow warehouse, which is as attractive as a Spanish home, and you will see it filled with building materials. Turn to your left (East) one block south of the warehouse, motoring one block only, Then turn to your right (South) which will carry you through beautiful Coquina Rock entrance to the Country Club section. You then pass over a bridge crossing Big Bear Creek, and you pass the big Filling Station owned by the Company which supplies gas and oil for its big battery of trucks and tractors.

‒ St. Petersburg Times, June 15, 1924.

It's surprising that the walls are still standing ‒ there has been little effort to protect or preserve them. The deterioration is reminiscent (on a small scale) of ancient ruins that have remnants scattered on the ground ‒ like Stonehenge or the Parthenon. The entire area looks like the remains of a distant world ‒ because that's what it is!

Google street view.

In 1922, "Handsome Jack" Taylor and the Taylor Syndicate from New York purchased a large tract of land south of the Jungle (south of 5th Ave N). The area from 5th Ave N to 5th Ave S was already partially developed and called Davista. A large area south and east of Davista, which included land for the new Bear Creek golf course, was also part of the purchase. The entire development, including Davista, was renamed Pasadena-on-the-Gulf.

A neighbor who was walking his dog told me there used to be a "Welcome to Pasadena" sign on the wall.

From 1922-1926, there was a tremendous amount of construction in Pasadena-on-the-Gulf. The brick streets were laid and many Mediterranean style homes were built during that period.

Weathered crests above the two gates have a letter "P" for Pasadena-on-the-Gulf.

I'd like to see a historic marker placed at the site, perhaps in time for the wall's centennial in 2024. Maybe the walls could be restored to their original grandeur, although I like them better the way they are.

Google street view of the walls on either side of 64th Street.

I haven't found any pictures of the wall before it began to deteriorate, but a similar coquina rock gate is seen in this postcard of the Pasadena Nurseries from the same era.

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How to get there...

Take 1st Ave S to 64th St, turn south and travel about 5 blocks.

Gate to Edison Park

"To this day there remain some entry gates of the old 1920s land boom subdivisions, ranging from majestic beacons of a bygone age such as the gate to Edison Park on Llewellyn Drive at McGregor Boulevard in Ft. Myers to crumbling lonely sentinels like the gate to Pasadena Estates on 64th Street at Emerson Avenue in Gulfport, still heralding its fading logo – a shield with a blue and white checked top-half and solid red bottom-half with a black “P” inserted into a black diamond in the shield’s center – silently waiting in vane for “Handsome Jack” Taylor’s swanky new Pierce Arrow motorcar to speed by on its way to his Rolyat Hotel (now Stetson University College of Law), built to resemble a Spanish walled village of feudal times."

‒ A Brief Florida Real Estate History by J. Bruce Cumming, Jr.