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| Griffith 1907/ Creative Commons |
By Jane Feehan
This started out as a piece about famous filmmaker David Wark Griffith (1875-1948*) and his property purchase in Lauderdale Harbors in 1925. It evolved into something a bit different.
D.W. Griffith had directed scenes for a few movies in Fort Lauderdale from 1919-1923 (Idol Dancer, Love Flower, and The White Rose). He praised the area for its jungle-like unspoiled beauty in 1919. But on a return trip, Griffith became disenchanted with the new seawalls installed along the New River and moved some of his filmmaking to a studio in Hialeah, west of Miami. In 1920 Griffith told a reporter that he did not think he would move operations from California to Florida, though Florida had “inducements.” D.W. Griffith was not only a director of singular filmmaking talents but a polite and tactful man of his time.
So, I was surprised to see a story in the Fort Lauderdale Herald dated Nov. 30, 1925 that Griffith had purchased a block of lots in Lauderdale Harbors, a subdivision being developed and promoted by W.F. Morang and Son. The neighborhood sits on the west side of today’s Intracoastal, north of SE 15th Street. The sale to the film director was reportedly handled by C.P Weidling, described as co-founder of the city’s first law firm, first publisher of the Fort Lauderdale Herald and one-time representative in the Florida House of Representatives.
Griffith, wrote the reporter, had traveled to Tallahassee to have Weidling handle the transaction. Weidling hinted the filmmaker bought a block of lots to build a movie studio. Griffith, said Weidling, liked it here and was going to spend the winter in Fort Lauderdale. The article proffered that Griffith described the land next to the Las Olas Inn (today A1A and Las Olas) as “the most beautiful on the East Coast and the New River was the most beautiful [river] in the world.”
Griffith may or may not have said that. What was true was Fort Lauderdale was booming. Morang was developing and dredging canals in Rio Vista Isles, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, the Seven Bridges area off Las Olas Boulevard and other nearby sites. One report from the Morang sales office claimed daily average lots sales of $150,000 … with opening day kicking off with $750K in business. On Nov. 7, the developer reported a sale of one block of lots for $500k to a “syndicate of 10 men,” a record for a single land purchase in a subdivision.
But no sale involved Griffith. On Dec. 8 the director denied he purchased the Lauderdale Harbors land. In a telegram sent to The Miami Herald he said though he did not buy the Lauderdale Harbors property as reported by the Associated Press, he would tour Florida to “ascertain its possibilities for that purpose [a movie studio] as no one believes more than I in Florida’s tremendous possibilities.” I did not find denial of his land purchase in the Fort Lauderdale News.
The hurricane of 1926 halted real estate sales and destroyed hopes for developing Fort Lauderdale and South Florida. The Great Depression hit the United States a few years later but Fort Lauderdale and Florida bounced back in the late 1940s and 1950s. Today, Lauderdale Harbors claims its place as one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods where homes now sell for $850,000 to $33 million.
The story about the land sale to D.W. Griffith ... was it a high hope or a sales promotion?
For more on Griffith, including his perilous sea adventure off Fort Lauderdale, see index.
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*Griffith died financially destitute and is buried in Crestwood, Kentucky where his grave is cared for by an organization of fans.
Tags Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale communities, Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods,
D.W. Griffith, David Wark Griffith, Lauderdale Harbors, Fort Lauderdale history
Sources:
Miami Herald, Nov. 12, 1920
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, July 24, 1925
Fort Lauderdale Daily News July 30, 1925
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Nov. 7, 1925
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Dec. 1, 1925
Fort Lauderdale Daily News Nov. 30, 1925
Miami Herald, Dec. 8, 1925