Introducing Belleair :
- Located In: Pinellas County
- Population: 4,114 (Source: Pinellas County)
- Community Type: Residential
- Area: 2 square miles
- Government: Commission and town manager/mayor and four commissioners elected for two-year staggered terms.
- Zip Codes: 33756
Belleair’s History :
Belleair’s history is inexorably linked with the regal resort built by railroad tycoon Henry B. Plant.
Plant constructed his majestic hotel on a bluff south of Clearwater in the 1890s. The Belleview Hotel celebrated its grand opening in 1897, treating its wealthy guests to yachting on Clearwater Bay, horseback riding and skeet shooting. Two other favorite pastimes were playing golf on the Belleview’s nine-hole golf course and participating in bicycle races.
Plant’s corporation eventually sold the hotel to John McEntee Bowman, owner of the Biltmore chain of hotels. The Belleview became the Belleview Biltmore Hotel.Things To Do In Belleair:
The town features three 18-hole golf courses attracting visitors from around the county, state and country.
Residents enjoy the recently-opened Dimmitt Community Center at 918 Osceola Road. This 14,000-square-foot center includes the Doyle Family Gymnasium, the Jack Eckerd Game Room, the John R. Yevich Conference Room, a multi-purpose club room and two lighted sports fields. The center offers a variety of youth programs including summer camp, tennis instruction, t-ball instruction, karate classes, art camp and sports camps as well as a flag football league and a dodgeball league.
What Makes Belleair Special:
Many early guests of Plant's Belleview resort enjoyed the area so much they decided to relocate to Pinellas County. Belleair’s first homes, built along North Indian Rocks Road, overlook the Belleview’s golf course. Following failed attempts at annexation by Clearwater, the town was incorporated in 1925.
During the Great Depression, the town saw its share of economic anxiety. Having defaulted on more than $1 million of improvement bonds, Belleair’s streets along the bay fell victim to neglect as vegetation began to reclaim them. In the 1940s, the Belleview Biltmore became an Army Air Corps training post, its greens subjected to frequent drills.
Not far away, in the shallow waters of Clearwater Bay, Clearwater resident Donald Roebling was testing his breakthrough invention. Roebling’s amphibious, tracking landing vehicle, dubbed The Alligator, would gain fame on the shores of Europe and in South Pacific beaches during the war.
By the 1950s, the town’s population had begun to increase. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, U.S. Steel purchased land in front of the Belleview Biltmore and an island west of the hotel. The resulting condominium communities swelled the town’s population to about 4,000.