Riverview Village
By Diane Barile
Green Gables is the grand dame of the neighborhood called Riverview Village. Located on the bluff north of the Melbourne Causeway, on Riverview Drive, the street has some of the oldest houses in town. There is a mixture of homes and businesses.
During the 1890s there were grand homes of community leaders and winter residents. Cottages grew up along the Indian River Lagoon on a bluff over twenty feet above the business district below on what is now Front Street. A walking path or promenade followed the bluff line. All the homes porches and front doors faced the walkway and lagoon. A set of steps descended from the bluff called the Trysting Stairs. They were evidently a place to seal a kiss.
The homestead of Peter Wright occupied the top of the stairs. Wright, a black man, was one of the three founders of the village of Melbourne. Next door was the grand hotel, the Carleton. It welcomed guests from Christmas to Easter and was the center of community social life. Groups of visitors and investors, many from Ohio and Pennsylvania, stayed in the hotel, later building homes along the shoreline and buying investment property.
Elizabeth Eaton inherited her home from her aunt. The Melbourne Woman’s Club headquartered in a small house. The Stewart home was a family gathering place with a broad porch on the second floor especially for sleeping on steamy summer nights. During the Prohibition years, the McCoy family, noted rum runners, lived in the neighborhood.
Green Gables was the crown of the upper class residences. The Wells family was winter residents who lead society during the winter season. Mr. William Wells, in order to accommodate his horse carriage, built a road he call Prospect Avenue along the back of the bluff walk houses (now Riverview Drive). New houses were then built to face the road rather than the walking path.
Mr. Wells was dedicated to the development of Melbourne through his generosity and business acumen. He formed a high school and sponsored and built a lecture hall. These are gone, but Wells Park includes the Melbourne Public Library spearheaded by Mrs. Wells. The Melbourne Auditorium hosts a variety of events throughout the year. During the 1950s, the town baseball field was at the corner of Fee Avenue and Lake Street. Many children remember feeding the ducks and geese by the ponds in Wells Park.
Thirty years ago, there was an effort to create an historic district along Riverview Drive from the lagoon to US1and north from the Melbourne Causeway to Green Gables. The plan developed at Florida Tech called for preservation of neighborhood character by establishing community standards for the oldest houses in Melbourne. The plan was not approved. Today Green Gables is the surviving example of the 1890s Florida while time works the changes in Riverview Village.