Plantation lies directly west of Fort Lauderdale, running about seven miles from State Road 7 to Flamingo Road, with Sunrise along its northern and western sides and Davie to the south. It filled in from east to west over half a century, and the housing changes as you cross it: early east-side homes, decades of single-family streets, condominiums from the early 1970s, apartment complexes that became condos in the 2000s, and the rural district of Plantation Acres at the western end. Each brings a different kind of air conditioning trouble. Rooms added to older houses sit at the end of ducts that were never planned for them, homes from the Jacaranda years are well into their replacement systems, and condo closets framed for 1970s air handlers don't always fit what is sold today.
Plantation was incorporated in 1953 on land Frederick Peters had assembled along State Road 7. The first houses went up on East Acre Drive in 1947 as two-bedroom homes on one-acre lots set with fruit trees, and the city's master plan barred neighboring houses from looking alike and set minimum lot sizes. After 1964 the Gulfstream Land Development Company bought 5,400 acres west of University Drive for the Jacaranda community, and in 1973 the city annexed Melaleuca Isles and Plantation Acres, which is designated a rural district. Growth was rapid from the 1970s through the 1990s; Census estimates put about half of today's homes in 1970–1989 and about one in six before 1970.
More about homes in Plantation
The state condominium registry adds condominium communities from the early 1970s, such as Lauderdale West and Polynesian Gardens, plus roughly 1,600 apartment units across the city converted to condos between 2003 and 2007. In a converted unit the closet, the ducts and often the equipment are as old as the building, whatever date the condo documents carry.
Plantation's average August high is about 90°F, and its climate is classed as tropical rainforest, with no truly dry month, so equipment here spends most of the year removing moisture as well as heat.
When most homes were built
- Before 1970
- 1970s–80s
- 1990s–2000s
- 2010s +
Salt-air exposure
- Inland
- Near tidal water
- Oceanfront
Inland, with no direct salt-air exposure
Typical buildings
- Single-family homes
- Condos
- Jacaranda
- Plantation Acres
- Lauderdale West
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