Lauderdale Manors and the 1950s boom ... of square dances and midwesterners

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale grew significantly during its second real estate boom.  Work began in February, 1950 on a ‘huge new development” - Lauderdale Manors - in the northwest section of the city. The first permits for Lauderdale Manors that year were issued for 15 houses on the 1500 and 1600 blocks of NW 11^th Street. The dwellings were to cost $7,000 a piece. 

The development, which originally took up one fourth of the old mile-square Chateau Park subdivision of the 1920s, was platted without any through streets. After the first real estate bubble burst in the 1920s, mortgage holders for the five or six houses built in Chateau Park came to pick up the pieces. According to builders of those first few homes, the mortgage people found things to be so bad that even the houses had been stolen. 

The more successful attempt of 1950 included houses planned on courts that ran east and west, a unique footprint at the time. The entire project was platted from NW 10^th Place to NW 14^th Court and from 15^th to 20^th Avenue where hundreds of houses were eventually built. The footprint expanded to about 24th Street (perhaps beyond) by the mid 1950s.

In 1955, other builders bought lots for new homes, expanding the Lauderdale Manors neighborhood. The Albert Construction Company built between 19th and 24th streets. As a sales promotion, they held free community square dances with free prizes. The builder collected names of attendees from dance ticket stubs and contacted them later about houses for sale for under $6,000. No doubt this marketing promotion appealed to the many midwesterners flocking to Fort Lauderdale at that time. 

 

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb 4, 1950

Later in 1955, ads for resales appeared for a variety of houses in Lauderdale Manors, including a three bedroom, one and a half bath (CBS construction) house for $11,250 furnished or $10,500 unfurnished with a down payment of $2,500.

It's unlikely square dances would appeal to today's home buyer in Lauderdale Manors; the demographics and dances have changed. And prices in 2020? Closer to $100,000 ... 

For more on Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, see index.

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Sources:

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Feb. 4, 1950.

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1955

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 7, 1955.

Tags: Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, film researcher, Fort Lauderdale communities