Gillespie's Roseburn

Roseburn - 1672 Morrill Street, Sarasota, Florida

Laurel Park was not always Laurel Park. The name is a recent addition. The nine city blocks of downtown Sarasota that make up the historic district were first platted in 1886 as Block G of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company’s Town of Sarasota.

One of the first homes constructed in the district in the 1880′s was Victorian in architecture on the south side of Morrill Street where the parking lot for the County Administration building is today.

In the early 1900′s the house was remodeled and a greenhouse was added to accommodate a bride’s love of flowers and plants. It became the residence for Sarasota’s first mayor, John Hamilton Gillespie and his wife Blanche and they named it Roseburn.

The Prew School occupied this building from the late 1930s until prior to its demolition in the mid 1980s.

—This post thanks to www.laurelparkhistoricdistrict.com