“The 12-room, four-bedroom, porticoed Victorian house,” said an Orlando Opera Company Designers’ Show House brochure in 1980, “has been enlarged, added on to, rearranged and literally moved from the path of Interstate 4.” A descriptive sentence indeed, the fundraising promotion for the Opera Company contributes significantly to preserving an incredible story of one of Orange County’s few remaining historic residences of the 1880s. Not mentioned, though, was that the historic personal residence has also served through the years as a retail business and offices from time to time, including being the one-time branch of Colonial Bank (photo insert above).
Although the Opera Company’s brochure credited Donald M. Howe as the builder in 1885, we now know the residence was in fact built by Robert Howe in 1883, a slight discrepancy by the Designer’s Showcase House promoter who otherwise provided invaluable information to piece together a piece of amazing Orlando and Central Florida history.
The original lakeside location of the historic Howe-Cheney 1883 residence was buried in the 1960s beneath the concrete pavement of Interstate 4. In fact, much of a “subdivision” that was Platted in January 1925 by the Cheney’s and named “GLENDONJO Park,” for the original name of the Cheney estate, is buried beneath Interstate 4. Of the 41 homesites in 1925 Glendonjo Park, a few corner lots facing Colonial Drive near the railroad tracks became the new location of the historic Howe-Cheney residence. Glendonjo Drive, the main road through the 1925 lakeside subdivision platted during the height of Florida’s Boom of the Roaring Twenties, has since been renamed Garland Avenue.
1925 Plat of Glendonjo on Lake Concord
Of dozens of homes sketched on John G. Sinclair’s 1884 Birds-Eye View of Orlando Florida, the Howe-Cheney residence appears to be the sole-surviving homeplace after 140 years, a home that has an extraordinary connection with the history of the Orange County seat.
As I explain in Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City, two Pennsylvanians built the city’s first water plant. The Orlando Water Works began pumping water to residents in 1887, but in 1890, a court appointed receiver took control of the defunct company. The water company’s assets eventually fell under the management of John M. Cheney, the very individual who bought the Howe residence and made it his family’s estate on Lake Concord. Cheney’s water company thereafter became the Orlando Utilities Commission.
With assistance of The Daughters of the American Revolution we can correct another error of Orlando history. Glendonjo was described in one source as having been named for the three sons of John M. Cheney. Glenn, however, Cheney’s first born, was in fact his daughter. Glenn Alexander Cheney, born at Orlando in October 1887, married Douglas R. Ellerbe.
The historic Howe-Cheney residence, birthplace of the Orlando Sorosis Club, was also the location for several Orlando Chapter of the NSDAR Flag Day Picnics. One such DAR picnic in 1935, reported the Orlando Evening Star of 9 June 1935, met “at the home of Mrs. J. M. Cheney and Mrs. Douglas Ellerbe, on Glendonjo Drive.”
An earlier 1913 DAR Flag Day picnic was attended by fourteen Orlando Chapter members. In Part One of this series, I introduced Elizabeth (Alexander) Cheney’s Patriot; Part Two told of Caroline (Packard) Schuller’s Patriot; and Part Three spoke of Maud (Neff) Whitman’s Patriot. Yet another attendee in 1913 was Jessica (Johnson) Branch, a lineal descendant of Corporal William Johnson (1759-1849) of the Virginia Dragoons.
Orlando DAR member Jessica (Johnson) Branch (1859-1949) came to Orlando in 1904. With her husband William they ran a bookstore in downtown Orlando. Jessica, however, should be forever remembered as the person who suggested “The City Beautiful” as Orlando’s slogan. In 1909, her recommendation replaced “The Phenomenal City,” the city’s slogan since 1886.
Robert & Hadassah Howe no doubt would have difficulty today locating their 1883 estate and grove they once called Kalorama, Greek meaning, “nice view.” John & Elizabeth Cheney, the couple who likewise fell in love with the nice view but renamed their “beautiful home” by combining letters of their children’s names, would also find it difficult today to pinpoint the location of their “porticoed Victorian house” on Lake Concord. Each may also ask, who was responsible for placing that wide expanse of Interstate concrete atop two of the most enchanting and historic lakes in Orlando: Lakes Ivanhoe and Concord?
While the house too would likely be unrecognizable to the first families who occupied it, one fact of the structure remains. Once lakeside, then relocated to 715 Glendonjo, only to be reassigned a Garland address, this home, once fronting Sweet Street prior to the roadway being renamed Colonial Drive - truly is one of the oldest and most historic residences to grace our Orlando skyline today. It’s a shame that thousands pass by this fine old residence daily without knowing of its amazing history!
To fans of Central Florida history, I hope you will stop by Writer’s Block Bookstore in historic Winter Park on Saturday, August 10, 2024, between 4PM and 7PM, and say hello. I will be signing copies of my Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City and my other books.
Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City, and my award-winning, The Ladies were Daughters Too, as well as all my Central Florida history books, (including a very special new addition to the family of Central Florida history books) will be available at Writer's Block Bookstore on Saturday, August 10, 2024. Or, buy any of them now at Amazon.
My next In-Person Presentation:
Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains of Lake County
Tavares History Research Center
August 22, 2024 – 7PM
Rick@CroninBooks.com for details
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