Developer built fortune in Detroit, lost one in Florida
By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
Published July 23, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - To maintain his sanity during the Depression, developer B.F. Stephenson bought a farm.
"That's what kept him from jumping out of a 10-story building," said his son, James. "It kept him busy."
Stephenson had been one of Detroit's premier builders - the Stephenson Building and developments such as Hamtramck, the largest Polish community outside of Poland. A streetcar line and a Detroit highway were named in his honor.
"The Stephenson Superhighway - Detroit's first complete superhighway," the Detroit News wrote in 1924.
In St. Petersburg, Stephenson established the Marina Land Co. He battled the Depression to develop the Alta Marina subdivision (Bahama Shores). After World War II, Stephenson teamed with his son to initiate Stephenson Manor.
"He was all business," said James F. Stephenson, a Realtor and former City Council member (1967-1971). "He gave the common man a chance to own his own piece of America."
In 1881, Burnette Fechet Stephenson was born in Port Huron, Mich. He came to Detroit at age 12, gained a ninth-grade education and later managed the estate of Sen. James McMillan - "a position he held for a number of years," the Detroit News reported.
Stephenson's baptism into real estate in about 1907 earned him $5 commission per sale. About eight years later, he attained his first fortune by selling lots for $1 down, $1 a week in Highland Park near Henry Ford's plant.
"Detroit was going nuts with all the automobiles," said James, now 76, one of B.F.'s four children. "He was building houses for the masses and was well established by World War I."
By 1926, Stephenson had constructed the 10-story Stephenson Building and developed communities such as Hazel Park, named after his wife, whom he married about 1924 after his first wife had died.
In all, Stephenson developed nearly 5,000 Detroit-area home sites. He owned a cherry orchard with 18,000 trees and established the first Michigan plant to quick-freeze cherries for baking.
After purchasing a winter home at Third Street and 62nd Avenue S here in 1926, Stephenson established the Marina Land Co. and began his Alta Marina subdivision.
Alta Marina covered 100 acres from Bahama Shores Drive to 56th Avenue S, between Fourth Street and Tampa Bay. "It was one of the nicest developments in the city," said Fred Deuel, who has been a surveyor and engineer locally for 50 years. "B.F. dedicated a lot of right of ways, (including) 54th, 58th and 68th avenues."
The press wrote: "The Alta Marina tract, one of the most elaborate and ambitious of the boom days, was originally built by B.F. Stephenson, whose palatial yacht (Anona) was a familiar sight in the north yacht basin." Stephenson was an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club.
The Alta Marina office, Stephenson's design, colored its 60th Avenue S location with an artesian well and a tower encircled by a winding staircase. "It looked like a castle," said Helen Gandy O'Brien, 80. "In the 1920s, we'd get mother to stop by the artesian well. It was architecturally unique."
In 1935, Stephenson purchased Hanna Park (31st Street, north of Pinellas Point Drive) and a 350-acre farm in St. Clair, Mich. "He built new barns, had a dairy, pigs, chickens, hay, wheat, oats and corn," said James, who owns the property today.
By 1939, the Depression had overpowered Stephenson. He sold Alta Marina to a Chicago and Indianapolis real estate agent, Paul E. Lundmark, that year for $60,000.
"The boom broke," James Stephenson said. "He watched his deck of cards crumble. It changed him. In his younger years, he was very jovial. When the Depression happened, I don't remember him ever laughing."
In 1953, Stephenson began developing more than 300 acres from 54th Avenue to Pinellas Point Drive S, between 22nd and 34th streets. Raccoons, rattlesnakes and red foxes inhabited the area. His son James joined him in the project.
On the tract that would become Stephenson Manor, paved streets and curbs fronted each 76- by 124-foot lot. Corner lots ran $2,000; inside lots were $1,600.
"The people are awakened to the fact that this is the last big section which can be developed as a good residential area," Stephenson said. "A tremendous number will come."
People came, but Stephenson realized little success. On May 14, 1954, he died of pneumonia after surgery in St. Anthony's Hospital. He was 72. His son would make Stephenson Manor happen.
"The city lost a very dynamic individual and a friend," said James Stephenson, whose son James Jr. now runs the concern, which owns about 700 acres throughout Pinellas and three other counties. "We are now three generations of developers.'
