The Pink House - Circa 1916

The Pink House at 201 Ocean Avenue was built around 1916.  A weathered plaque found in the house states that the land was originally sold by the Melbourne Beach Improvement Company to Neffie S. Long who then sold to Florence Peel in 1922.  Around 1925, the house was bought by Walter Brown.                   

Almost twenty years later Walter kept his promise, this time, in 1925, as both a husband and father. He opened a real estate office in the Brown House Hotel across the causeway on New Haven Avenue and, with his wife Ella Belle and daughter Dianne, rented a small upstairs apartment from Mrs. Trowbridge, the town’s postmistress. A short time later, the family purchased the cypress house across the street from the casino that they named Port d’Hiver (say port-DEE-vair) or, Winterport. 

By all accounts, the Browns were a lively, educated and well traveled family. Walter, born in 1882, spoke several languages and was an accomplished horseman, oil painter, cook and gardener. His wife, Ella Belle, born in 1883 in Chicago, spent much time in England with her mother and Aunt. 

The Browns wintered in Florida and summered in Vermont. They employed a local man, an African-American named Nate, to care for Port d’Hiver when they were absent.  Nate and his wife took excellent care of the house, washing the windows and putting things in order, so that when the family returned each season their home was an open and welcoming place. Ella Belle and Walter spoke French often, adored their dog Freckles and created for their daughter, Dianne, a cheerful and cultured environment. 

Dianne’s daughter, Mariella Blackwood (or Mimsy, as she is known to friends and family), remembers her grandparents hosting many wonderful parties in their formal, “almost New Orleans” style home. The exterior of the house was pink with an ornate iron screened-door on the front and detailed iron railings surrounded the second floor porches. She describes the sunporch of the house as being decorated with items her grandparents collected from around the world with Polynesian masks hanging on the walls and the kitchen adorned with brightly colored Mexican tiles. The living and dining rooms of the house were very formal.  Oriental rugs in navy blue covered wood plank floors, family portraits and oil paintings hung on the walls and in the living room, Victorian chairs and loveseats were covered in black velvet .  
 
Upstairs, Walter’s bedroom was on the south side and had doors opening to a porch that faced east, looking out toward the ocean.  It was painted a soft yellow and had a heavy 4 poster mahogany bed with beveled glass inlays on the posts. Across the hall, the north bedroom was painted a pale blue, with windows facing the ocean and a door that led to a long shaded porch that ran along Ocean Avenue. Outside, between the main house and the carriage house, was a garden, walled and formal with bougainvillea, alameda, lilies and a trickling fountain. The carriage house was Walter’s artist’s studio.       
 
Time passed, Dianne attended the old Melbourne High School, married Harry Blackwood and, as a young girl, taught Sunday School at the Melbourne Beach Community Chapel.  Walter and Ella Belle occasionally rented out the upstairs rooms for about $8.00 per month. In the late 1930’s “Pop” Dennis, the operator of the Casino, directed people to the cypress house across the street for seasonal rentals. In an essay by Rena Huke, she said that she and her husband wandered into the casino looking for an inexpensive place to stay and Pop pointed to Port d’Hiver and said, “Why don’t you try that place? They never even lock the doors.”   In subsequent years, the property passed to Dianne and Harry and the family turned Walter’s paint studio into a small apartment. The main house was rented to various people, including a young lawyer and his wife, George and Sheryl Schmitt who lived in the house for 10 to 12 years before buying the property in the 1970’s. George and Sheryl lived and worked at 201 Ocean Avenue for almost 40 years. 

I don’t know much more about the Brown family’s time here in Melbourne Beach, but I do know from Mrs. Blackwood’s essay that Walter’s mother-in-law was a woman named Mrs. Delia Belle Taylor and she owned a small house on the south side of Ocean Avenue looking north up A1A that she called “Suits me.”  Apparently, on the corner where the gas station currently is, was a house that locals called the 50/50 house (because it was halfway between the ocean and river), but the couple who lived there, a fun-loving couple named Sims, called “Suits us.”  Well, Mrs. Taylor thought that was so clever, she named hers “Suits me” and her best friend who lived next door, Mrs. Lincoln, named hers “Me, too.”  Mrs. Taylor sounds like she was a lively character, whom locals say wore all of her jewelry at once and carried a large cone that she would hold to her ear to hear what people were saying to her. From reading the various essays in Mr. Thomas’ Melbourne Beach: The First 100 Years by 19 Townspeople, one gets the feeling that the Brown’s— Walter and his wife Ella Belle, her mother Mrs. Taylor, daughter Dianne and her husband Harry, the grandchildren Mimsy and Harry,—were a fun-loving, gracious family and an integral part of life here, in early Melbourne Beach.

To Make a Reservation Online, Click Here

Contact Port d'Hiver Port d'Hiver Bed and Breakfast Inn Toll-free: (866) 621-7678 info@portdhiver.com 201 Ocean Avenue Phone: (321) 722-2727 www.portdhiver.com Melbourne Beach, Florida (FL) 32951 Fax: (321) 723-3221