Home of Caitlyn Eck & Erik Schaum – 2018
This home is the newest one in Dean Park and is an updated version of the “Prairie Style” so popular in Dean Park and other Fort Myers neighborhoods in the 1920’s. This style, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, features broad, low-pitched roofs, overhanging eaves, horizontal lines and heavy, earthbound porch columns. This style can be seen at 2654 Providence Street in Dean Park and in many residences along McGregor Avenue and in the Seminole Park Historic District.
This new home replaces a ranch constructed on the site in 1957. The ground floor of the original structure was prone to flooding and was demolished in 2016 to make way for this new home. FEMA requires that the ground floor of any new structure be located above the 100-year flood level, so a substantial amount of fill was needed to raise the level of the site. The new design was approved by the Fort Myers Historic Preservation Commission.
The lot at 1585 Cranford consists of the northerly halves of Lots 12 and 13 on Block I of the 1920 Dean’s Subdivision map. The southerly halves of Lots 12 and 13 became 2705 Michigan Avenue. Lot 12 was one of several vacant lots remaining in Dean Park when John Dean died in 1938, and it was conveyed by his widow, Annie P. Dean, as the sole surviving director of Dean Development Corporation. Lot 13 had been purchased, but never developed, by H.C. Case, an early Fort Myers developer who purchased about a dozen lots from Dean Development Corporation.
Dean’s Subdivision, Block I, northerly half of Lots 12 and 13