NEIGHBORHOODS
20
ROB DOWNEY
Mediterranean Revival was a popular architectural style in St. Lucie Estates and other coastal South Florida communities during the 1920s and 1930s. A
number of these houses remain in the development today, including this example with its terra-cotta tile roof and elegant colonnade.
Going home again
The heart of one of Stuart’s earliest
developments remains unbroken
BY JESSICA ARMSTRONG
Hundred-year-old mango trees shade the
terracotta barrel-tile roofs of Mediterranean
Revival houses. Coconut palms, waist-high
ferns and Allamanda shrubs with their
buttery yellow blossoms grow along trails that wind
through the middle of the streets.
Welcome to St. Lucie Estates, one of Stuart’s earliest
and most beautiful subdivisions. Its sandy acreage was
once a pineapple plantation — and later mangos after
competition from Cuba hurt the local pineapple industry.
Before this property was subdivided, houses were
a half-mile or more apart, and the only other structures
were board-and-batten sheds.
“You can’t go home again,” asserted novelist Thomas
Wolfe. “Maybe, maybe not,” says my husband, Don
Armstrong Jr., who grew up in St. Lucie Estates.
We recently moved back to Don’s beloved childhood
neighborhood after spending 20 years living in Auburn,
Alabama, where I taught journalism at Auburn
University and Don taught architecture at nearby
Tuskegee University.
Before moving to Auburn, Don was one who spearheaded
the revitalization efforts of downtown Stuart
in the late 1980s. He also founded Stuart Heritage and
the Stuart Heritage Museum, and as an architect did
the first major renovation of the Lyric Theatre, which
placed the building on the National Register of Historic
Places.
Don’s family history coincides with the history of
St. Lucie Estates and Martin County. Both his parents >>