Plant Sumner House

Any idea why we’re visiting this house first? Because it was the first house moved to Heritage Village in 1976!

The Plant Sumner house was built in 1896 during the same period that Henry Plant was building his Biltmore Hotel in Clearwater. Have you heard of Henry? He was a big businessman, very involved with building railroads in the southeastern United States who also built some amazing luxury hotels, both helping the west coast of Florida become a tourist destination.

This house is like several homes built by Plant for employees and their families to live in - overseers of his railroad and foremen of the hotel’s building crews. These families lived in style with running water, indoor plumbing and even electricity. This house had electricity before the City of Clearwater did! The power connection came from the Belleview Biltmore which had its own power source.

By the early twentieth century it was felt that this house and others like it were taking away from the beauty of the exclusive hotel. Belleview officials sold some of these houses at low prices and required they be moved from the property.

Robert Sumner, who served as a minister, dairy farmer and Belleair postmaster, moved into the home with his wife Julia and family in 1912. The family occupied the home for more than 40 years!