Who We Are
From a scrub oak wilderness to one of the finest communities in southwest Florida.
Vanderbilt Beach is the area bounded by the Cocohatchee River on the north, Vanderbilt Beach Road on the south, Vanderbilt Drive on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico on the west.
Old aerial photos from around 1952 show it as a wilderness of scrub oak on the eastern fringe, with mangrove stands and lagoons before the sandy Gulf beaches. It was not until 1950 to 1952 that a hydraulic dredge opened a channel from Wiggins Pass to what is now the Vanderbilt intercanal area. That dredging opened a passage to the Gulf and invited salt water into the backwater areas. Two more dredging operations created the first solid, buildable land, and the finger canals and streets were constructed in the mid-1950s.
J.B. Conners, the land development pioneer of Vanderbilt Beach, was a road builder from Tampa. When he began developing the area, the only inhabitants were the occasional occupants of a fish camp to the north and a few farmers. It is said he chose the name "Vanderbilt Beach" as a marketing touch, to create an impression of wealth and prestige. Conners began platting in 1953 and completed it in 1959, envisioning a deed restricted community of single and multiple family homes, parks and open spaces, and easy water access.
To preserve that vision, he created the Vanderbilt Beach Property Owners Association in 1968 and transferred to it the responsibility for protecting the deed restrictions. Many of the area's old-timers still remember an early era of hayrides, cookouts, easy drives to the beach, and organized sailing and fishing.
In the late 1970s the building boom began, with single family homes and condominiums for full and part time residents, and a small commercial section grew at Gulf Shore Drive and Vanderbilt Beach Road. In recent years the neighborhoods have been built out, many original homes have been torn down and rebuilt, and the area now offers a wide variety of home styles and sizes.
While our community continues to change, every effort is made to preserve the quiet residential character we all enjoy. Traffic, density, zoning and compliance, and water quality are now the prime concerns of local residents, and they are exactly the concerns VBRA exists to address.