Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: The Belair Historic District lies between South Flagler Drive and South Dixie Highway. It is bounded by Plymouth Road on the south and Pilgrim Road to the north. The area was part of a Homestead Act land grant given to South Carolina author James Woods Davidson in 1885. Colonel John Huntington Jones of Rhode Island acquired the land and, in 1895, sold it to Richard Hone. An Englishman, Hone built the first house in what would be the district and used the land as a pineapple plantation. Following Hone’s mysterious murder, the land went through a series of sales until William and Sophie Ohlhaber purchased it in 1923. In June that year, Ohlhaber platted the Belair subdivision and constructed the first house in the subdivision for his family. Many of the historic homes were built in the 1920s and early 1930s, during the Florida Land Boom. With the onset of the Great Depression, much of the development dropped off and many lots remained unsold. Entirely residential in nature, the district consists of Mediterranean Revival, Mission Revival, and Wood-Frame and Masonry Vernacular style houses. In 1993, the City of West Palm Beach designed Belair as a local historic neighborhood.