A riverfront home designed by of one of Florida’s most accomplished architects is now for sale.
Located at 4214 Ortega Forest Drive, in Jacksonville, the home was built in 1970 and was designed by the late architect and Florida Artist Hall of Fame inductee Robert C. Broward, who was a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright.
After studying architecture at Georgia Tech, Broward wrote to Wright in 1949 and studied under the architect at both Taliesin and Taliesin West, before returning to his home state of Florida to help with construction of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, the largest collection of Wright buildings in the world.
Like Wright, Broward was heavily inspired by organic, earth-friendly architectural methods, and when designing projects would often take into account things like the orientation to the sun and where rainwater would flow. A key signature of Broward’s was his use of Florida’s frequent rainstorms — many of his buildings incorporate decorative spilling effects.
“I don’t have to do what others want me to do. I never sell myself. People know what I can do. They can either want what I do or not,” said Broward in a 2001 profile in the Jacksonville Daily Record. “I feel architecture is one of the great arts and must remain so— it is not a business. It’s treated by too many as just a way to make money.”
Over the span of his 61-year career, Broward was responsible for over 500 projects in the Jacksonville area, including everything from government buildings and warehouses to churches, art museums and private homes.
In classic Broward form, this particular 3,892-square-foot house nicely complements its 1.14-acre wooded lot, and has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, Santos Mahogany hardwood flooring, two fireplaces, cathedral ceilings, a pool and more.
Broward, who died after a stroke in 2015 at the age of 89, was added to the prestigious American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows in 2011. The following year, he was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
The Broward home is currently asking $1.95 million, and the listing agent is Ted Miller of Miller & Company Real Estate.
A version of this story first appeared in our sibling publication Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
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