History: The Suburbs – Part Five
As SunPostWeekly.com readers know, the last several weeks of this column have been dedicated to the history of the various Miami Beach suburbs, covering, so far, Fisher Island, Surfside and the first half of the Indian Creek Village story.
Indian Creek Village was originally intended to be called Miami Shores Island and was the brainchild of Ellen Spears Harris and her cousin, Hugh Anderson, owners of the Shoreland Company (which would develop Miami Shores) and builders of the Venetian Causeway and its islands. The original plan for Miami Shores Island was for it to be the recreation island for those who purchased Shoreland Company property and would also be the site of a championship golf course. The plan for the 600 acre island would have made it larger than all of the other man-made islands then in Biscayne Bay combined.
With the coming of the five terrible events of 1926, culminating with the September 17th and 18th hurricane, the Shoreland Company would lose its footing and shortly thereafter enter bankruptcy. The island, of which only 300 acres had been filled, lay fallow and deserted for several years until, sometime in the early 1930s, a small but hardy group of wealthy individuals developed the idea that they could convert the weedy and muck-covered island—then connected to what would, in 1935, become the Town of Surfside, by a narrow wooden bridge, same built at 91st Street and Bay Drive—to an exclusive enclave.
Reseeding the island they built a large, red-tiled clubhouse, designed to give the appearance of a European castle. The island’s original blueprints (under the new owners) provide for forty one bay-front lots placed along the road surrounding the golf course.
Though the country was in the midst of the great Depression, several wealthy homesteaders, including John Swift (he of the meatpacking company bearing his name) and Harold Matzinger (a noted Wall Street genius) built mansions near the clubhouse.
In 1939, however, word filtered onto the island that Surfside, which had been incorporated in 1935, was casting covetous eyes at the island and, in fact, had discussed the possibility of annexing it at several council meetings.
Moving swiftly the island’s residents took advantage of a now sunsetted state law which at the time allowed any group of 25 or more people living relatively contiguously to form a municipality. With the assistance of Judge J. Julien Sutherland, who would become a founder, incorporator and first mayor of Bal Harbour Village, the island was incorporated as Indian Creek Village on May 19, 1939, the Florida legislature having passed the enabling act approving said incorporation two days previously.
Numerous changes have come to what remains a marvelous residential island, and no few of the homes are now owned by Jewish people, who, for some years, were not allowed to purchase property on the island. A new bride connects the island with Surfside and the new Village Hall sits proudly at 91st Street and Bay Drive.
Needless to say, Indian Creek Village remains both a magnificent enclave and a superbly managed and run municipality.
Category: HISTORY
