Palm Beach Shores at 75: The Town Its Residents Finished

The Town of Palm Beach Shores will hold its 75th Diamond Jubilee on Saturday, November 7, from 5 to 9 p.m. at Sailfish Marina. The party will be held on the town's original South Dock. In the earliest sales brochures, that dock was drawn as part of a residents' amenity. It had 30 slips for Palm Beach Shores property owners, paired with a North Dock and a clubhouse for a residents' yacht club.

The residents' yacht club plan changed early. The developer sold all three lakefront properties before many homes went up. That pattern repeats through the town's first 75 years. A.O. Edwards drew the plan. Residents, volunteers and the Lake Worth Inlet's sand built most of what stands today. The anniversary is being assembled the same way.

The Developer Sold the Docks Before the Houses Went Up

Edwards came to Singer Island with a large résumé. The town's own history says he built railroads in England, India and South Africa, rebuilt London's Savoy Hotel, and built the Grosvenor House in 1927. His first impression of the site was not promising:

"In 1947, when I first drove across the then-existing rickety old wooden bridge, I was sure I was on a useless junket... One look was enough, and I decided that day to purchase the 240 acres as the site for my planned development."

He reportedly paid $400,000 for the land and spent more than $1.5 million on improvements. He then laid out 631 lots priced between $1,800 and $4,000. His early prospectus described more than lots: commercial buildings and apartments around the edges, a fountain at the head of a parkway, stone balustrades at the intersections, and a private beach for residents.

Some of that he built himself. In 1948 he built the Inlet Court Hotel, which was later renamed the Colonnades. John MacArthur bought it in 1963 and, according to the town history, ran his financial holdings from a table in the Colonnades Coffee Shop. The hotel was demolished in 1990.

The lakefront took a different path. Under new owners, the North Dock became Palm Beach Shores Marina for a short time, then Doty's Marina, and then Cannonsport in 1960. The clubhouse is now the Buccaneer Yacht Club. The two accounts of how Sailfish Marina came together don't quite match. Sailfish Marina's own history traces it to a late-1940s dock known first as Roy's Dock and then as Bill's Marina, after longtime owner Bill Bachstedt. It says Alex Dreyfoos bought the neighboring businesses in 1977 and combined them into Sailfish Marina & Resort, and that American Financial Group bought the property in July 2004. The town history places the merger of Sailfish and Bill's in the 1980s, when a third dock was also added. The two dates may describe different stages, but neither source settles it.

Edwards also served as the town's mayor, but it was a short stretch. The town was formally organized in 1947 and began its corporate existence in 1951 with Edwards as mayor. In between, property owners ran it informally, and Edwards was the controlling stockholder. When the first town election came in 1954, he could not run because he did not live in the town. Henry Peerson became the first elected mayor.

What the Residents Built Instead

With the developer mostly gone, residents filled in the plan. The parkway is the clearest example. Edwards provided the land for a palm-lined walk from Bamboo Lane to the inlet. The town history says residents laid the concrete walks, collected and bought plants with donations, and put them in the ground. The labeled trees along that walk, the butterfly garden started in 1992 at the corner of Bravado Lane, and the yearly Arbor Day planting that comes with the town's Tree City USA status all grew out of that work.

When lethal yellowing began killing the tall Jamaican coconut palms in the 1970s, the town bought 500 Malayan palm coconuts and offered them to residents at a "Pot Party Sale" behind Town Hall, so the sprouted nuts could replace the dead trees. Town Hall itself was once a warehouse, which the town bought from Edwards in 1952 and converted. It sits on Edwards Lane, named for the founder, as The Palm Beach Post has noted.

Volunteer groups started early and kept forming:

• Property Owners Association: organized in 1950 and incorporated in 1953 to advance the town's civic, cultural and educational interests.
• The Seasiders: started in 1951 by five women meeting for lunch, the same year the town incorporated, so this group also turns 75. The town history credits much of the early social life and many community projects to them.
• Palm Beach Shores Volunteer Fire Department: incorporated November 19, 1963. Its first engine, an American LaFrance bought in January 1964, cost $14,141.80.
• The Ladies Auxiliary: organized October 12, 1977, to support the firefighters and raise money for equipment. It turns 49 today.
• The Turtle Patrol: active since 1981. Volunteers mark nests before sunrise from April 1 to October 31, so this season ends this month.
• Top of the Hill Gang: residents who fertilize palms, paint balustrades and street signs, and stripe crosswalks. The town history says this saves the town considerable money.

The commission works on the same basis. The mayor, vice mayor and commissioners serve without pay. The 1960 census counted 855 permanent residents, and the 1990 census counted 1,030. That is a very small town to support this many organizations.

The Inlet Did Some of the Work Too

The beach got its size from the inlet. The inlet in its current location was dredged in 1918. Since then, sand building up against the north jetty has added hundreds of feet of beach to Palm Beach Shores. The town history says the beach has kept widening instead of eroding, and the town keeps up 3,000 feet of oceanfront.

The same dredging made the town's view across the water. Palm Beach County History Online says the 1918 deepening dumped material into Lake Worth and formed a ten-acre spoil island first called Inlet Island. It became Peanut Island after a planned peanut-oil shipping terminal was dropped in 1946. A Coast Guard station was added in 1936, the Kennedy bunker went in during the 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis, and later dredging grew the island to 86 acres in the 1990s. Palm Beach County's Peanut Island page still lists the John F. Kennedy Bunker as closed until further notice.

The town has not always welcomed what the inlet brought. In a 2018 Palm Beach Post story about local surf history, a veteran surfer recalled that in the 1960s, "Palm Beach Shores made it illegal to possess a surfboard in the town limits." The same story described a recent Surfer Magazine cover showing a rider near the pump house at the Lake Worth Inlet. Surfing and fishing keepsakes are now on the town's wish list for its anniversary exhibit.

The Anniversary Is Being Built the Same Way

The 75th celebration depends on residents. Anniversary chair Commissioner Anastasia S. Karloutsos is asking for 30-second to one-minute videos of favorite memories of living, working, surfing or visiting the town, plus personal photos, for a presentation at the celebration. "The older the photos, the better," the town's announcement says.

The Memory Lane Exhibit at the Palm Beach Shores Community Center will also be built from residents' collections. The town wants old postcards, mugs, T-shirts and pins, surfing and fishing keepsakes, and original items from POA, Ladies Auxiliary, Seasiders and Rotary Club events. The sponsor list is local as well. It includes Sailfish Marina at the top "Shine Like a Diamond" level, The Buccaneer, Island Grill, Palm Beach Shores Resort, the Rotary Club of Singer Island and the Seasiders.

The town has not yet posted ticket prices or a program for either event. Its notice says details and more events will follow. Credit card payments for bricks carry a 2.5% processing fee. Questions go to [email protected] or 561.844.3457. The town history behind most of this post is a revised edition from March 1998, compiled from clippings and recollections, and it warns that it may contain errors. The video and memorabilia drive could fill in the gaps it leaves.

If you're going through old Seasiders programs or Colonnades postcards for Memory Lane and wondering how your own lot on the parkway has held up since the $1,800 days, Joel Poulin would be glad to put together a complimentary market snapshot for your Palm Beach Shores home, built on the current numbers.