Franc WEBBER Lord of Orlando & Venice, FL

Following in her father’s land development footsteps, Franc, daughter of Frank Webber, also got into #cflParadise land developing. Franc’s career interest along Orlando’s north shore of Lake Ivanhoe soon rubbed off, big-time, on her husband. Together, Joseph & Franc Lord forever altered the landscape of what at that time was a faltering town of #Sarasota, Florida.

Frank & Sarah WEBBER arrived in Orlando in the early 1880s. Their FAIR OAKS Lake Ivanhoe subdivision was platted in 1884. During 1885, the two conveyed several Orange County parcels to their daughter, then 22 years old and single, Miss Franc Mabel WEBBER.

Webber Avenue was the main Fair Oaks artery. The road still exists today, although as Historian E. H. Gore explained in his 1949 Orlando history, when it came time for the city to erect street signs, they misspelled the street name as WEBER.

Frank & Sarah built a home on Webber (Weber), while the daughter’s home faced Lake Highland, along a then unnamed dirt road that is now Highland Avenue. On a plat of 1887 this property is listed as “Mrs. F. W. Lord”.

Franc dabbled in real estate as did her father, a career that continued even after her marriage in late 1885 to Attorney Joseph H. Lord. Franc’s groom had come to Florida looking to make it rich in phosphate. Florida mining of the mineral was a worthy investment since new railroads were opening up South Florida, making it easier to transport phosphate to awaiting markets.

The railroad however also opened up Florida’s Gulf Coast. You may recall Winifred HODGSON of our March 13^th Post, a young English gal who came to America in 1887. Well, Franc’s husband went to South Florida in search of phosphate, but became instead a major Sarasota developer. Those same English investors, who had sold Orange County land to Miss HODGSON, were also developing the city of Sarasota. (One 1880s Englishman involved with Sarasota married Winifred, but that’s a story for another time).

Sarasota was already in serious financial trouble as Attorney Joseph Lord arrived. He found five roadways, like spokes of a wheel, leaving from the center of Sarasota. Called ‘Five Points’, Joseph H. Lord soon owned four of those five points of Sarasota. Before too long, the Lord’s owned nearly 70,000 acres along the Gulf Coast, land from Bradenton south to Venice, and even built one of Sarasota’s first skyscrapers.

Joseph H. Lord & Sons operated a successful real estate business well into the 20^th century, all from a Sarasota office in the ‘Lord Arcade Building.’ The father and son team were beneficiaries of a career first begun by Mrs. Franc Mabel WEBBER Lord at Orlando’s Lake Ivanhoe.

One main Sarasota artery is Webber Street. The first house was built on the east-west road in 1926. Perhaps the street was named for Franc, or maybe for her Widowed mother, Sarah, who came south with the Lord’s soon after her husband’s death at Orlando. Sarah died in 1912, Franc Webber Lord died April 9, 1936, at their summer residence in Chicago. Joseph H. Lord died nine months later, December 24, 1936, at their South Florida winter home.

Tomorrow: One boyhood crush – One Iconic Lake