Rockledge Drive Residential Historic District: what's listed and why

The Rockledge Drive Residential District has been on the National Register of Historic Places since August 21, 1992 (reference number 92001045). It runs about two and a half miles along the west bank of the Indian River, from the Cocoa city line south to Park Avenue, and averages only about 400 feet wide: the road, the houses facing the river, and their back lot lines. The nomination counts 124 buildings, 100 contributing and 24 not, along with five contributing boathouses on the riverbank.

It was listed as part of a Rockledge multiple-property submission that also covers the Barton Avenue and Valencia Subdivision residential districts. The form was prepared in July 1992 by the state’s Bureau of Historic Preservation in Tallahassee.

What the district covers

The listing takes in 219 through 1361 Rockledge Drive, 15 through 23 Rockledge Avenue and 1 through 11 Orange Avenue. Its periods of significance run from 1875 to 1949, and the significant years the Park Service records are 1880, 1887 and 1924.

The nomination describes the road itself as “among the most scenic historic roads in Florida”: narrow, two lanes, lined with palm, oak, citrus and pine. Every building in the district faces the river. Some of the seawalls and sidewalks built along the Drive in the 1920s are still visible.

The styles

Most of the district is plain. The nomination says wood frame vernacular houses make up the majority, nearly all built around the turn of the century: generally two stories, steep cross-gable roofs, masonry pier foundations, a porch or veranda on every one, horizontal siding with wood shingles in the gables. The houses at 587, 635 and 1101 Rockledge Drive are its examples.

The rest, by the form’s count and description:

• Colonial Revival, the second-largest group. Its examples are 351 Rockledge Drive, built in 1922, and 629 Rockledge Drive, built around 1905 by John Derby, a local land developer and citrus grower.
• Mediterranean Revival, seven buildings, all from the mid-1920s land boom. The two-story house at 219 Rockledge Drive, built in 1923, has a stepped parapet, barrel-tile pent roofs and stucco walls.
• Queen Anne, two houses, which the form calls among the most significant buildings in Rockledge: the H.S. Williams House at 1219 Rockledge Drive and the John D. Shepard House at 621, built around 1890 with a round corner tower and a conical roof.
• Bungalow, two houses, including 1347 Rockledge Drive.
• Boathouses, five, one to two stories, with garage-style boat bays. The one behind 709 Rockledge Drive has a hip roof and a rooftop deck reached by stairs from the riverbank.

The houses with names attached

The H.S. Williams House, 1219 Rockledge Drive, is a two-and-a-half-story Queen Anne with an octagonal corner tower and a hip-roofed veranda. Hiram S. Williams built it in 1880. He was one of the town’s founders and, as a state legislator, sponsored the 1887 bill that incorporated Rockledge. The nomination calls it the oldest documented building in Rockledge; its main alteration is aluminum awning windows in place of the original wood sash.

The Julia Wood house, 653 Rockledge Drive, was built in the 1880s for Julia Wood and is singled out for its link to the town’s earliest years.

The Rockledge Municipal Building, 11 Orange Avenue, is the only building in town designed for government use, according to the form. The council first asked local architect Richard Rummell for plans in 1921 to replace the old town hall at 24 Barton Avenue, then shelved the idea for lack of money. Bids went out in November 1924, construction started in September 1925 on councilman and builder W. Herbert Bower’s bid of $18,240, and the building was finished in early 1926 in the Mediterranean Revival style. It held two bays for the fire engines, the police office, the council’s meeting room and the town library, and it served as the main community building until a new City Hall went up on Barton Avenue in 1988.

What the listing says about the town

The nomination reads the district as a timeline. The early frame houses record Rockledge’s pioneer years and its ties to the citrus trade, tourism and the east coast railroad between about 1885 and 1895. The Colonial Revival, bungalow and Mediterranean Revival houses show the town’s steadier growth after 1900, ending in the boom of the 1920s. What changed least, by the form’s account, is the setting: the houses, the river and the road between them kept “a high degree of integrity.”

The changes it does note are the ordinary ones. Original wood siding has been covered with aluminum or vinyl on some houses, wood sash windows have been replaced with metal, and the 24 noncontributing buildings are all houses or outbuildings put up after World War II.

Seeing it

Rockledge Drive is a public road, and the whole district can be seen from it. The houses are private homes.

Further Reading

• Flagler: Rockefeller Partner and Florida Baron by Edward N. Akin
• Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon