VERO OVERVIEW
BEACH DEVELOPMENT SLOW
The city’s Central Beach neighborhoods started to develop later
in the 20th century. Its streets south of Beachland Boulevard were
named for flowers, while those north of the boulevard were given
tree names. In the 1940s, Indian River County native Deward
Howard used to hunt bears and wild hogs in Central Beach. He
also took to the woods in search of cabbage palms, and never
had to look far to find them.
“They were plentiful,” Howard said in a 2007 radio interview at
his Central Beach home. “I mean they were everywhere. We just
went after the cabbage for special occasions. It’s a lot of hard
work getting those things. Now, a bear, he can get those things
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with his hands. A bear can get
one by himself!”
With the notable exception of
Sexton’s Ocean Grill restaurant
and Driftwood Inn, there wasn’t
much business on the beachside
until mid-century. Ocean Drive
was a shell road bordered by palmettos
on the west side when
businessman S.B. Taylor built
four cottages and a bathhouse
on the ocean and named the
complex Taylor Town. He later
added a swimming pool and
motel, the Seahorse Inn.
“There were no shops of any
kind,” his daughter, Mary Young
Alex MacWilliam, a World War I
Johnson, recalled in a radio
veteran, helped begin development
interview. “You could go up to
on the beach with the construction
the Ocean Grill and get an ice
of the Riomar subdivision. He later
cream.”
served as Vero’s mayor and a state
Johnson said her father
representative.
bought the land by paying the unpaid taxes on it during the early
years of the Great Depression.
Taylor Town is long gone. Gloria Estefan’s stunning multimillion
dollar hotel, Costa d’Este, now sits on the property.
“Daddy knew the minute he came to town that he should buy
oceanfront property, that it would someday be very valuable,”
Johnson said. “He would not be surprised with what’s there now.”
Longtime beachside business owner Callie Corey said in a radio
interview there were no schools and few homes on the barrier >>
Vero’s community building, constructed in 1935, is now The Heritage Center.
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