A Deed Restricted Community

Venetian Isles is an upscale waterfront community consisting of 525 homes. With deep water canals, the area is great for power or sail boats of any size. Venetian Isles is a group of manmade islands located in Tampa Bay and reached by bridges, via Overlook Drive, Grand Canal Boulevard and Mermaid Point. The neighborhood with both young and old, contains professional people, executives, business owners, military personnel and retirees. The location is a favorite of those working in both St. Petersburg and Tampa because of the stress free drive to most business locations.

The Other Venice

Typical Front Yard View

Architecture

Since Venetian Isles is a deed restricted community, the homes were all built to comply with the following: minimum size living areas, concrete block construction with tile roofs, on minimum lot sizes, no fences except chain link and all homes had to have sodded lawn yards. Sibley Homes, Tessier Homes and Rutenberg Homes were the builders of all the homes. The first homes were sold in 1967 for $28,000 to $40,000, including lot, dock and fully landscaped yard.

Most lots were sold by 1975, when, by that time, the homes were built for $50,000 to $60,000, including lot and dock, landscaping, etc. Because of the rapidly increasing value of waterfront property during the 1970s and 1980s, most of the homes have or are undergoing remodeling, or extensive rebuilding, with Mediterranean style architecture. Home values now range from $650,000 to over $2 million.

History

Mr. George R. Davis, a major developer on the Suncoast in the 1950s, was a "spark plug" in the development of Venetian Isles. Venetian Isles was billed as the area's largest and most costly waterfront project in 1958. At one time, Mr. Davis directed the operations of eight major developments up and down the Suncoast simultaneously.

All Homes have this as a rear view.

One of the more significant events of the Venetian Isles development was obtaining the deed to the submerged waters of Tampa Bay that would become 60% of Venetian Isles. In 1959, Florida Governor Leroy Collins, signed the submerged land rights to Venetian Isles Development Corporation for $34,412.50. Due to problems of filling the submerged lands, building seawalls and bankruptcy proceedings involving the various developers of Venetian Isles between 1959 and 1963, actual development of homes did not start until 1968.

In the early 1970s, Sibley Homes took over the remaining lots from the Robert H. Lee Corporation of South Carolina and went on to build on all of the lots. He then transferred the authority and responsibility of maintaining and enforcing the deed restrictions to the newly formed Venetian Isles Homeowners Association., Inc. in 1970. Venetian Isles was developed as a submerged water landfill project and, as such, was built at an elevation of approximately 5-7 feet above the natural shoreline. This natural shoreline is now known as the development called "Shore Acres" which borders Venetian Isles on two sides. Venetian Isles residents have been spared the flooding problems of the past 19 hurricanes that have hit Florida since 1950. Hurricanes Agnes in 1972 and Elena in 1985, which caused extensive damage in Pinellas County, did damage some outlying homes in Venetian Isles that face the Skyway Bridge, but no flooding problems occurred to any of the other homes