Joseph Young House

The Joseph Young House is a historic home in Hollywood, Florida, associated with the city's founder and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Joseph Wesley Young built Hollywood as a planned city in the 1920s, one of the most ambitious real estate developments in Florida history, and his personal residence reflects the boom-era ambition of the period.

Hollywood developed quickly in the mid-1920s but was hit hard by the 1926 hurricane and the subsequent national economic downturn. Young himself died in 1934 before seeing his full vision realized. The city he created, however, survived and grew, and the Broadwalk and the street grid he laid out still define Hollywood Beach today.

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A story
Joseph Wesley Young was an audacious developer from California who arrived in South Florida in 1921 with a vision to build a complete city from scratch. He bought 1,700 acres of land between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, hired architects and engineers, and laid out the entire grid of streets, parks, canals, and public spaces before a single house was built. Hollywood was not a suburb or a development; it was a planned city in the tradition of the City Beautiful movement, complete with a civic center, golf courses, and the oceanfront Broadwalk.