Dean Park

John M. Dean, founder of the John M. Dean Furniture Company and the Household Furniture Company, two successful enterprises throughout Rhode Island, made his first visit to Fort Myers in 1898 on a hunting expedition.

By 1900, Dean had moved to Fort Myers and began acquiring large parcels of land in Lee County.  In 1901, Dean purchased 38 acres of extremely low lying land along Billy’s Creek for $8,500 which required significant fill.  Despite the significant doubt about developing a tidal basin, Dean beginning planning a new subdivision.  According to a local account, an assistant in the development visited the site on a nightly basis and gradually tapped down the surveyor’s stakes to reduce the recommended amount of fill to be brought on site, ultimately making Dean Park the lowest elevation in the city.  With the purchase of a dredge in 1912, Dean began filling the area, eventually pumping in 150,000 cubic yards of sand from the Caloosahatchee.  He employed 35 men to construct the city’s finest development of the period, and the first true real estate development of the time.  Dean also appreciated landscape and planted palms and lush shrubbery and trees.

Dean began marketing the lots in 1914, which included deed restrictive covenants to create a quality of construction worthy of his development.  Included in the deed covenants was the requirement that each home cost a minimum of $2,000, which prompted many prominent business leaders to move to neighborhood.  Though platted as “Dean’s Subdivision”, the neighborhood was initially know as Hyde Park, later to become Dean Park.

Dean also organized the Mutual Development Company that developed several subdivisions in Fort Myers, headed the Dean Development Company, Dean Brothers Groves, and the United Construction Company.  He was also one of the organizers of the Lee County Packing Plant.

Today, Dean Park remains much as it did so many decades ago, and retains many of the original diverse homes and features that made it so attractive in the 1920’s.

Dean Park was designated as the second Historic District in Fort Myers in April, 1997.