There is a curious rock structure on 64th St near 5th Av S in St. Petersburg. It is the Bear Creek Gateway to the Country Club section in Pasadena, an eerie vestige of the Florida land boom. The walls were built in 1924 as an ornamental feature of Pasadena-on-the-Gulf, a planned community on the West Side of St. Pete. The Gateway marks the entrance to the prestigious Bear Creek Country Club section. Bear Creek was the original name of the Pasadena Yacht and Country Club. The Pasadena developers planned entrances at other locations, but everything came to a halt when the land boom ended in 1926.
It's surprising that the walls are still standing ‒ there has been little effort to protect or preserve them. In a 1924 promotional editorial for Pasadena, the developers claim that the gateway "is a structure built to last. It is the first piece of structural beautification erected in Pasadena and exemplifies the permanency and solidity of our development." As it turned out, the development was far from permanent (it went broke a few years later) but, despite neglect, the coquina rock walls still stand as a reminder of the West Side's Roaring Twenties experience. I'd like to see a historical marker placed at the site in time for the wall's centennial in 2024.
Like the ancient ruins at Stonehenge or the Parthenon, large rocks are scattered on the ground. The entire area looks like the remains of a distant world ‒ because that's what it is!
Handsome Jack and Pasadena-on-the-Gulf
Handsome Jack Taylor was an investment banker from New York who bought 2.81 square miles of mostly undeveloped property on the west side of St. Pete in 1922, renaming the area Pasadena-on-the-Gulf. He envisioned an "aristocratic resort community" complete with a luxury hotel, beautiful homes, brick-paved streets, wide boulevards, golf courses, a university, miles of bridle paths, ornate subdivision entrances, public schools, a railroad station, a chapel, an exotic bird exhibit, a wildlife park, aquatic gardens, tropical plant nurseries and an island full of monkeys. Taylor was influenced by the City Beautiful movement and by the modern planned cities of the Florida land boom like Miami Beach, Hialeah, Hollywood-by-the-Sea and Coral Gables.
During the land boom, decorative entrances were built at many of the new cities and subdivisions.
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| Entrance to Daytona Highlands subdivision |
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| Ft. Myers Beach Coquina Arches |
The entrance was visible from a half mile away on Central Avenue. Newspaper articles pointed out that the entrance made an excellent backdrop for tourist photos.
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| SP Times March 20, 1927 |
A detailed description of the Bear Creek Gateway was printed in the Daily Independent newspaper on April 17, 1924. Here are some excerpts from the article (in blue):
A striking example of the character of the ornamental structures which will adorn the Pasadena area and make this development distinctive and strikingly artistic and beautiful is expressed eloquently in the Gateway, now being constructed and rapidly nearing completion, which marks the entrance to the Bear Creek Country Club section proper.
The Gateway is divided into two parts, each part extending approximately sixty feet on either side of Sixty-fifth street. Each part of the Gateway extends over the sidewalk, allowing the public to pass through arches, producing a very artistic effect. The whole effect is massive and yet dainty and dignified.
The highest part will exceed 20 feet. It is a structure built to last. It is the first piece of structural beautification erected in Pasadena and exemplifies the permanency and solidity of our development.
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| Standing in awe of the massive structure. |
DO YOU KNOW WHAT COQUINA ROCK IS?
First of all, Coquina Rock is “a gift of the seas” that washes the shores of Florida. It is a natural deposit found in various depths and varying in color from a light cream to a dark orange, and even Sienna. Its texture is as varying as its color. The texture is sometimes fine and sometimes coarse, with fossils imbedded in it which discloses its marine origin. A noticeable characteristic is found in the segmentary curves appearing in the quarried pieces. These are caused by the deposit forming itself around once standing trees of various diameter. These curves are not the result of man’s work but are the result of nature, which makes Coquina Rock so beautiful and valuable. As the rock remained long after the trees decayed, so it will remain a lasting monument to our work in Pasadena.
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| Outcrops of eroded coquina south of Fort Matanzas at Marineland (National Park Service) |
OTHER FEATURES OF THE BEAR CREEK GATEWAY
In front of the elliptical portions of the walls is being constructed attractive water basins with small playing fountains and these basins will be filled with gorgeous aquatic plants. Eventually vines, with richly colored flowers, will ramble over the masonry and add further life and brilliancy to the appearance of the Gateway.
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| The wall's basin area where a fountain and beautiful tropical plants once flourished. |
1924 newspaper description of how to get there:
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.
I haven't found any pictures of the gateway before it began to deteriorate, but a similar 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.
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Google search: "Bear Creek Gateway"
Google Maps search: "Bear Creek Gateway"
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 vain 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.
