a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME, Issue 4, November 2014

Brown’s May Not Have Been the First Inn on the Beach

by Seth Bramson, Miami Beach Historian

To celebrate Miami Beach’s centennial (March 26, 2015) the City of Miami Beach will publish a monthly monograph of Miami Beach history through February of 2016. Issues will focus on chronology, events, places and people. Through the complete series, the reader, the historian, and those interested in Miami Beach in general will enjoy a look back at the history of the city that, for its size, has had more words and stories written about it than probably any other city on Earth.

Biscayne House of Refuge in 1890s.

The conventional wisdom dealing with Miami Beach’s history has, for almost the entire history of the city, held that the first hotel on Miami Beach was Brown’s Hotel, south Ocean Drive. The only problem with that wisdom may be that the U.S. Lifesaving Service’s Biscayne House of Refuge may have been the first Miami Beach building to serve as an inn or hospitality venue with the arrival of Captain William Fulford as its keeper in 1890. Located between 72 and 73 streets on the ocean and what is now Collins Avenue, it first opened in 1876 as one of several entities placed approximately 20 to 25 miles apart along the lower Florida east coast for the purpose of rescuing shipwrecked sailors. 

Fulford, who had captained vessels operating along Florida’s east coast beginning in the late 1880s, was intrigued with the area that would someday become Miami. As he traveled the sea-lanes he eventually picked a site where he would establish his homestead, a place that would be known first as Fulford and, later, as North Miami Beach. The captain with his wife took over a ramshackle, run down building (the aforementioned Biscayne House of Refuge) in 1890. Lttle by little he began rehabbing it, buying new furniture, replacing rotting wood, repairing stairs and fixtures and generally making it a comfortable spot for visitors. The story told in its entirety in “From Farms and Fields to the Future: The Incredible History of North Miami Beach” and in “Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach.”

While the Biscayne House of Refuge was first established in 1876 to help shipwrecked sailors and castaways, it became progressively less important in fulfilling that function as ships and navigational devices improved. According to one account, the Fulfords -- gracious and genial as they were -- always warmly welcomed visitors. Eventually they had so many patrons at the House that it must be concluded that at least some of them paid for the privilege of being the Fulford’s guests.

That same account goes on to state that, with three rooms and a kitchen on the main floor and a huge dormitory-type room under the upstairs sloping ceiling, there were a surprisingly large number of applications for room and board for short-term visitors, some of whom were turned away due to lack of space.

Utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables, which were gathered from their farm located on the mainland side, was part of the requisite for property improvement necessary to verify the homestead claim that the captain had made on the tract that he planned to purchase from the government in what is today’s North Miami Beach. The dining table the House of Refuge developed a reputation for fine and high quality board to go with its sometimes-available rooms.

With the revelation of these facts, it might be reasonable and justifiably argued that, in addition to being the Lifesaving Service’s outpost on the lower east coast of Florida, the Biscayne House of Refuge was, even before the now-famous in Miami Beach history Brown’s Hotel was built, that hotel’s predecessor as the first hostelry on what would eventually become the world’s most renowned winter resort.

Aerial view of the original site of
Biscayne House of Refuge between
72 and 73 streets in North Beach.

Today, the site of the House of Refuge is memorialized with a large bronze historical marker that is located between 72 and 73 streets on the east side of Collins Avenue. The Lifesaving Service eventually became part of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard to the City of Miami Beach traded the former Life Saving Service’s property, now known as North Shore Park that extends from the ocean to the canal just west of today’s Dickens Avenue between 72 and 73 streets. The city gave the Coast Guard the then-underwater property that was developed by that branch of the service to become today’s Miami Beach Coast Guard station, located on the southeast side of the MacArthur Causeway.

As with so much of Miami Beach, today’s Coast Guard base and the adjoining Terminal Island was once completely under water while the former Life Saving Service property is now one of the jewels of the Miami Beach park system. North Shore Park, from oceanfront to Dickens Avenue from 72 to 73 streets, hold warm memories for thousands of Miami Beach children and adults who danced at the band shell, roller skated on Friday nights on the basketball courts, were taught tennis by the late, great “Py” Pyfrom and were coached in various sports by the likes of the late and beloved Jack Lasry, Margaret Swett, Sonny Neham and others who remain in the hearts and minds of so many Beachites.

Reader’s comments are welcome and should be addressed to Professor Seth H. Bramson, Office of the City Manager, City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139.

In addition to serving as the Miami Beach City Commission appointed historian, Seth Bramson is the historian in residence and adjunct professor of history at Barry University and adjunct professor of history at Nova Southeastern University’s Lifelong Learning Institute. He is also the company historian for the Florida East Coast Railway.