According to an interview in 1936 with Mattie A. Heyser, his widow, he had come with the intention of buying a piece of land where the Flagler Museum now stands from Frank L. Dimick. When Heyser arrived and found that the land already had been sold, he was "disappointed but not discouraged" and purchased 80.24 acres in what is now Riviera Beach from Mr. Dimick for $500 in May, 1882.
 

Heyser, who was a bachelor when he came from Pennsylvania, married Mattie A. Spencer, the daughter of V. O. Spencer, a pioneer and the first postmaster of the area surrounding Lake Worth.
 

Sometime after their marriage the Heysers built a house on their land. In the words of Mattie Heyser, "We just started to build a home and live in it ourselves, but we kept on adding room after room, until we had a hotel three stories high with 20 rooms."
 

The August 30, 1888, issue of "The Florida Star," published in Titusville, notes that Heyser had moved into "his new hotel" which had been slightly damaged in a hurricane that month.
 

Oak Lawn House as it was called in the late 80s, or the Oak Lawn Hotel as it was known in the early 90s, was the third hotel on the lake. The name, Oak Lawn, came from the five large oaks on the property. The hotel was located in the original town site of Riviera Beach on the lakefront at what is now 10th Street. One of the large oak trees, now gnarled and split, is still standing on the northwest corner of 10th Street and Avenue C. It is estimated to be over 300 years old.
 

The Oak Lawn Hotel evidently was a success during the winter resort seasons, which were then only two months long. The neighborhood took its name from the hotel and thus for the first years of its history, the Riviera Beach area was known as Oak Lawn. The first post office was established under the name Oak Lawn in 1889 and was located in the hotel. The Oak Lawn area included the neigh- borhood only as far north as Sherman's Point, just south of the present Blue Heron Bridge, and extended farther south than the present borders of Riviera Beach.
 

"The Tropical Sun," the first newspaper in the Lake Worth area, published at Juno, describes the hotel and surrounding area in an article entitled, "Lake Worth, a General Write Up of All Points of Interest," which appeared in the September 19, 1891 issue:
 

"The house is situated upon a picturesquely wooded mound--of the kind very common in Florida. This is peculiarly divided into two portions by a wide, deep ditch intersecting it. Since Judge Heyser settled the place eight years ago, many old Spanish relics and curious objects of interest have been unearthed by the residents. It is indeed a most interesting and delightful spot. A well-appointed establishment, a fine garden, a profusion of dairy products, fine fruit trees, well kept premises, clever genial people make it just what it is--a pleasant home-place for rest and ease. It is nearer the inlet than any other hotel on the lake and is also on the county road leading to Jupiter and northward. The strawberry bed at Oak Lawn measures 33 feet by 48 feet and the yield last winter was 160 quarts.
 

"The popularity of the neighborhood is proven by the fact that during the first six months of the current year (1891) seven homesteads were entered in the vicinity. These live to the west of Oak Lawn, among them are the homesteads of Mr. Burnett and Miss Spencer and others. Much work has been done on these places, pineapples and trees having been set out."

 

The Handbook of Florida, an early travel guide published in 1891, lists the rates as $2.00 to $2.50 a day or $10.00 to $12.00 a week for bed and board. It praises the fishing as "probably as good as anywhere on the lake, while fine shooting is to be found within easy walking distance in any direction along the shore, or among the savannahs and woods to the westward."
 

A study of The Tract Index Dade County Deeds No. 1, which records the land deeds registered with the county in the 1880s and 90s shows--at least in part--when and by whom the land around Oak Lawn and within the present boundaries of Riviera Beach was purchased.
 

The Rev. Emmanuel Heyser, Judge Heyser's father, came down from Georgia and purchased the southeast corner of lot 2 section 33 from his son in 1883. By 1885 Rev. Heyser had been joined by his wife Mittie and was homesteading. "The Tropical Sun" reports that he was experimenting with new fruits and plants, but that his principal business was strawberry culture.
 

Between Rev. Heyser's place and the Oak Lawn Hotel were 15 acres purchased in 1890 by James MacFarlane, a Scotsman and resident of Palm Beach.
 

To the north of the hotel were 100 acres owned by the honorable Josiah Sherman, a winter resident described by the Sun as "an ex-senator and well known capitalist of Atlanta, Georgia." Senator Sherman purchased part of his land as early as 1884 and part in 1891. It was probably not until 1891 that he built a winter home there. The Sun reported that year that he planted more than 100 cocoanut trees and was draining a large portion of his land for the cultivation of upland rice. Preparations for a wharf and new house also were mentioned. Senator Sherman remarried in 1891 in Atlanta and returned to winter with his new bride at Oak Lawn. The area just south of the present Blue Heron Bridge is still known as Sherman's Point.
 

Several of the early pioneer families of Oak Lawn were black. Willie Melton is mentioned in the Sun as an early settler in the Lake Worth area. In 1888 he purchased about 6½ acres near the Oak Lawn Hotel from E. N. Dimick. A notice in the August 25, 1892, issue of the Sun offers condolences on the unexpected death of his wife and expresses "the sympathy of the entire community" to "one of the most worthy and progressive of our colored settlers."
 

OAK LAWN BECOMES RIVIERA
 

In 1893 Oak Lawn became Riviera. Several accounts have it that a visitor to the Oak Lawn

Hotel, usually said to be a journalist from Atlanta, was so taken with the beauty of the place that he called it the Riviera of America in dispatches to his paper. Probably the correspondent was describing the whole Lake Worth area rather than just Oak Lawn, but Judge Heyser acted immediately to change the post office name to Riviera. The Oak Lawn Hotel, which served as the post office, thus became the Riviera Hotel and the surrounding neighborhood was referred to as Riviera.
 

The 1896 Business Directory, Guide and History implies that this was a real coup on Judge Heyser's part and a surprise to the other communities on Lake Worth which would have liked to assume the name. The Directory reports that Judge Heyser was "the first to get hold of and appropriate the name for his house" and that "even before the other post offices around the lake had an inkling of what was being done, they received a notice from the (Postal) Department announcing the change." Besides serving as post office, the Oak Lawn Hotel had a telegraph office by 1893.
 

In 1899 the Dade County seat was moved from Juno back to Miami. Judge Heyser, whose constant attendance was required when court was in session, moved permanently to Miami. The hotel then was managed by several different proprietors and began to deteriorate. Business no doubt was hurt by the construction of such large, elegant hotels as the Breakers and the Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach in the late 1890s.
 

In 1900 Judge Heyser conveyed the Riviera Hotel Place to Ashton H. Cary, a Georgia doctor, in exchange for complete ownership of some property which they had owned jointly. Cary immediately put the hotel property up for sale.
 

CHARLES N. NEWCOMB ENVISIONS RIVIERA AS A RESORT COMMUNITY
 

Charles N. Newcomb, scientist, inventor and wealthy manufacturer from Davenport, Iowa, spent several winters in Palm Beach in the late 1890s. Newcomb and his family stayed at the Royal Poinciana and made excursions by boat to afternoon teas at the Riviera Hotel, then under the management of a family named Stone. Mrs. Newcomb was especially taken with the view of Lake Worth from the hotel. In 1901 Newcomb bought the hotel, which had by then been closed for several seasons and was some- what in disrepair, from Dr. Cary. In 1902 or 1903, after the hotel had been remodeled as a private home, the Newcombs began spending the winters there.

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The lakefront at that time was swampy. Newcomb invented a dredging device and filled the swampy area with sand. Extensive landscaping was carried out with 26 varieties of fruit trees planted on the rolling lawns. Newcomb called the house "Riviera" and the name was spelled out on the front lawn in white conch shells.

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Charles Newcomb knew Henry Flagler and when the railroad magnate's "houseboat," a two story clubhouse on pilings located on the lakeshore on Singer Island, needed repairs one season, Flagler arranged to use "Riviera." The Newcombs spent the winter at the Breakers in Palm Beach while Flagler and his illustrious friends, including the Vanderbilts, the Astors and Andrew Carnegie, enjoyed parties and afternoon teas at "Riviera."

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Around 1910 Newcomb purchased about 200 acres of land to the west of his original property. He believed Riviera would make a fine site for a resort community for winter residents from the north. He had the site, which stretched from Lake Worth on the east to just west of the Florida East Coast Railroad tracks and from what is now 14th Street on the north to what is now 10th Street on the south, platted and surveyed. The plat, which was filed in 1913, was the first recorded evidence of an attempt to attract residents in numbers to the Riviera area.

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Charles Newcomb's dreams for Riviera were never to be fully realized. As can be seen from the elaborate drawing he commissioned and from the plat, Newcomb envisioned a grand hotel on Lake Worth at Sherman's Point and the conversion of his own home into a club house for the new resort community. A bridge was shown linking Riviera with Palm Beach where Peanut Island and the Inlet are now. A small park was planned on Lake Worth and a larger one, Osceola Park, surrounding Lake Edith and Lake George was planned for the west side where Riviera Beach Elementary School now stands.

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The town site was cleared and streets were laid out, paved with oyster shells and named according to Newcomb's plan. The main north-south street was named Montreal (now North Broadway) because it was part of the major highway which ran from Montreal, Quebec, to Key West.

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The house in which Miss Edith L. Newcomb now lives, at 21 13th Street West, originally was built as a model to show the type of bungalow that the resort community would contain.

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During 1913 a series of auctions was held to sell the moderately priced lots. The February 27, 1913, issue of "Tropical Sun" quotes C. D. Hinson, an assistant to Mr. Newcomb, as reporting that "land sales at Riviera have been moving along nicely under the able management of auctioneer Willingham, something in excess of $25,000 having already been taken in."

 

When Dorothy Halsey, a widow, came to Riviera with her young daughter of the same name in 1913, there were 30 families living in the original town site who had purchased their land in the auctions. That year Charles Newcomb built a house for the Halsey's at the corner of Commercial and 13th Street. Mrs. Halsey operated the first grocery store in town from this house, the Riviera Cash Grocery. She also had the only gas pump in town and in 1915 she opened a post office. It had taken Mrs. Halsey a year to get the necessary 30 signatures on the petition required by the federal government to establish the post office. She served as postmistress, volunteering the use of her grocery store-home for the post office without pay. This building stood until recently at 444 W. 13th Street. There was no mail delivery and every- one came to the post office to pick up their mail. From 1918 to 1919 the post office was closed and its services were transferred to West Palm Beach, but in December of 1919 Mrs. Halsey reopened it and served as postmistress until 1926.

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NEWSPAPER REPORTS

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The Palm Beach Post,  Fri, Jul 11, 1919, Page 1

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RIVIERA HOTEL PROPERTY SOLD TO T. J. CAMPBELL FOR $30,000

PURCHASER WILL MAKE CLUB HOUSE OF BUILDING AND IMPROVE LAKE FRONTAGE—            

ROAD WILL BE OPENED ALONG LAKE TO PROPERTY.

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Purchase yesterday by T. J. Campbell of the Riviera Hotel and grounds from C. N. Newcomb is another instance of the high importance attached by real estate experts to the development going on a few miles north of West Palm Beach, the cutting of the inlet from the ocean to the lake being chief of the several big projects in that region. The Riviera Hotel is a building of 21 rooms on a tract having 350 feet frontage on the lake and extending west 230 feet. In front of the hotel is a splendid park.

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The location is highly advantageous for the use to which the property is to be put. It is directly opposite the inlet, the hotel building being the most conspicuous point on the mainland in the view from the ocean. Just north of the hotel is the Kennedy & Geer development, Aquarium Park, which is to be the biggest thing of the kind in the United States. South of the hotel property is the site of the terminals that are part of the inlet district's development, where is to be the docks and the railroad connection.

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The price paid by Mr. Campbell to Colonel Newcomb is understood to be approximately $30,000. The board of county commissioners has acted favorably upon a petition for hard-surfacing a road that runs in front of the hotel property. Leaving the Dixie Highway at the Reed subdivision, there is a fine lake-front road to and beyond the Riviera hotel, making a splendid drive, certain to be largely used by residents and tourists in visits for pleasure and business to Aquarium Park, the inlet terminals and other points. With the idea of making the hotel a club house and resort for motoring parties, yachtmen and fishing parties, Mr. Campbell will put the hotel in charge of a staff of high-class hotel and catering people. Specializing in shore dinners, for which sea foods are abundant, it is intended to make Riviera Hotel noted for the excellence of its cuisine and the perfection of its service.

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The building is to be modernized and the grounds and walks will be fixed to add to the natural beauty of the location. Lake Worth is famous as a freshwater yacht harbor. With the inlet opened and the channel of the inland canal at the very doors of the hotel, it is certain that the hotel will be the first stopping place of the many yachts, house boats and cruisers that visit Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. All of the traffic of the vast number of pleasure craft that visit the east coast is expected to make acquaintance with Riviera Hotel.

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A big fishing camp on the point just south of the inlet, designed for the patronage of society people who have cottages at Palm Beach, is to be located just across the lake from the hotel property. Mr. Campbell is known as a man of such initiative and enterprise as to warrant the expectation that he will make Riviera Hotel one of the most popular resorts on the east coast. L. G. Biggers is credited with having brought to Mr. Campbell's attention the fine opportunity that existed at Riviera for a proposition of this character and he negotiated the deal with Colonel Newcomb.

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The Palm Beach Post Sat, Oct 25, 1919, Page 1

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HOTEL LAKE VIEW BEING REMODELED FOR WINTER SEASON

T. J. Campbell's Hotel at Riviera Will be Under Management of Mrs. Isabelle Hammerstrom—

Building and Grounds to be Thoroughly Modernized.

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Contracts were placed yesterday for some of the many changes which will be made at the Riviera Hotel, which will be henceforth known as Hotel Lake View, as T. J. Campbell, the owner, proposes to make the establishment one which will give the people of this community and the thousands of tourists who come here each season something out of the ordinary. Mr. Campbell, since his purchase of this elegant lake front property, has been planning to not only make a large number of changes in the building itself but to beautify the surroundings in such manner as to make the entire property most attractive. Work will commence on Monday on the grounds, while already are workmen engaged in modernizing the building.

The entire hotel is to be redecorated and refurnished, and already have the orders been placed.

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Everything will be of excellence—as it is the design of the owner to cater to those who demand the best. Mrs. Isabelle Hammerstrom, who spent the winter here five years ago, and who will be remembered by many, has arranged to take full charge of the house and arrived yesterday to superintend the numerous changes which will be introduced. Mrs. Hammerstrom has been successfully conducting her summer resort at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and her known excellence through the middle west as a caterer of ability will be a factor in the success of the enterprise Mr. Campbell has in view.

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"I am anxious to make this a place where shore dinners and lunches can be served in a style which will add to the attractions of this county—for there is no doubt we shall cater to a large territory," said Mr. Campbell. "We will have more to say about what we are planning to do as the days pass, but right now we are busy in lining out the many changes and additions we shall need there to make everything attractive and homelike and convenient for the people. We shall spare no outlay to make this a popular spot."

 

 

 

The Palm Beach Post Mon, Nov 10, 1919,  Page 1

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Buys Interest of H. G. Geer and Will Co-operate With T. J. Campbell

In Making Riviera Attractive to Visitors.

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Charles A. Kennedy, of the Atlantic Fish Company, has bought the interest of his partner, H. G. Geer, in Aquarium Park, four miles north of this city, and will operate the property alone. Litigation started by C. N. Newcomb to restrain the construction of tanks at the park, on the ground that a road was interfered with, has caused a modification of the original plans, but the park will be opened nevertheless. Although there is no partnership arrangement between them, Mr. Kennedy and T. J. Campbell will cooperate in their separate enterprises at Riviera. Mr. Campbell owns the Riviera Hotel, which has been leased to a man who will operate it. As the lessee of the Riviera Hotel will provide shore dinners and other attractions, Mr. Kennedy will not put in a dining room at Aquarium Park as originally planned. The hotel is expected to be an attraction for the park, and the park an attraction for the hotel. The lessee of the Riviera Hotel is to build an addition, install hot and cold water and maintain an orchestra.

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The Palm Beach Post, Mon, Oct 17, 1921 , Page 6

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LAKE VIEW HOTEL BEING REDECORATED

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Workmen are engaged in repairing the exterior and interior of the Lake View Hotel in preparation for the coming season. New floors are being laid, the entire house is being redecorated, the furniture is being refinished and new furniture installed. On completion, this hotel will have had a thorough refinishing from top to bottom, and will present, both in and outside, a pleasing appearance.

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