Mr. Coachman was enthusiastic about the beauty of the Company’s lands in Highlands County in the area near the lakes then known as Lake Childs and Lake Stearns.  In order to show off this area to others, he invited approximately 160 of the business and political leaders of Florida to accompany him on a special tour of central Florida in December, 1920.

A little earlier in 1920, Consolidated organized the Lake Childs Company to develop lands adjacent to and near Lake Childs.  Consolidated Land Company sold the Lake Childs Company 538 acres, additional purchases were made from others, bringing the total acreage owned by the company to 976 acres.  W. N. Brown, an engineer from Washington, D.C., was employed to draw plans for the development - which included home sites along the lakefront and a club house on the lake with 10 acre lots back from the lake, on the east side of the highway.  Each 10-acre lot was to have citrus trees of different varieties – Pineapple, Temple and Valencia Oranges, Tangerines and Grapefruit and it was thought that they would be attractive, especially to retired people coming to Florida.  Accordingly, Albert DeVane was employed to prepare the land and set out the citrus groves for the 10-acre lots.  Groves were established on 483 acres – which is the basic portion of the Childs Grove now owned.

The Above shows part of what is now our Uptown Groves

The plans for the Lake Childs Company property seemed promising and the citrus groves were planted, but before anything else was done, the organization of Lake Placid Land Company was developed.

Through the efforts of Mr. Fentress and Baker, Fentress & Company, Dr. Melvil Dewey, owner of the Lake Placid Club of New York (and also the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System) became interested in establishing a Lake Placid Club South at Lake Childs.  On March 2, 1927, a committee of four, Calvin Fentress , W. J. Kelly, C. H. Worcester and W. F. Coachman, was the appointed to work out the problems in the negotiations.  The negotiations were long and hard – not the least of the problems was that Dr. Dewey wrote extremely long and harsh letters in simplified spelling!

The agreements finally worked out included:

• The name of the town, Lake Stearns, would be changed to Town of Lake Placid.

• The name of Lakes Stearns and Childs, would be changed to Lake June-in-Winter and Lake Placid, respectively

• Lake Placid Land Company was organized by an agreement dated May 7, 1927 between: Consolidated Land Company, Florida Industrial Company, Lake Childs Company, Lake groves Company, Polk County Trust Company, Trustee, Tropical Investment Company, W. W. Chase, C. W. Deen, A. H. DeVane, G. A DeVane, Jr., T. L. Hughes, T. U. Jackson, E. N. Morrow, L. C. Morrow and R. M. Stidham, each of whom agreed to give to the Lake Placid Land Company the property, including groves, owned in that area in exchange for stock of that Company.

• The Town of Lake Placid would pave streets, put in improvements , such as water system, purchase approximately 129 acres from Consolidated Land Company on which it would construct a golf course and club house, on the shore of Lake June-in-Winter.

• Lake Placid Land Company agreed to give approximately 3,000 acres to the Lake Placid Club.  This tract extended from Lake Placid to Lake June-in-Winter with frontage on both lakes.  (Part of this tract is now Placid Lakes Development and the Presbyterian Conference Center.)

• In addition, Consolidated Naval Stores Company guaranteed $50,000 in club memberships to Dr. Dewey.

• Dr. Dewey agreed to construct buildings and other improvements and open Lake Placid Club South.

The levels of the lakes in the area were of extreme importance to the proposed development and an engineer, Gilbert A. Youngberg, of Jacksonville, was employed by Consolidated to make an in-depth survey of this situation, which he did.

The plans were ambitious and as might be expected, with the break of the Florida Land boom, the collapse of the stock market leading into a depression, there were many problems along the way.

Source: Consolidated, A partial story