Plantation's first homes were built in 1947 on acre lots with fruit trees
Frederick C. Peters bought about 10,000 acres here around 1939 for his cattle. After World War II the plan changed to a residential city: architect Russell Pancoast drew the master plan, and the Old Plantation Water Control District was chartered in 1946 to drain the land through canals. The first homes, designed by Robert Law Weed, went up in 1947 on East Acre Drive. The pitch was a two-bedroom house on an acre with 20 fruit trees.
The early years were wet. Ninety-three days of rain and two hurricanes flooded many of the first houses, and two more hurricanes in 1948 broke a dike. Plantation incorporated in 1953 with about 300 residents and reached 8,500 by 1963. Doors in the oldest parts of the city have often been changed several times, and the wall around them has seen decades of humid summers. On these homes, the existing slider is often a later retrofit set into an older wall, and a frame that is slightly out of square explains why a door drifts or will not lock.
Jacaranda and Plantation Acres are two very different halves of the city
After Peters died in 1964, his family sold about 5,400 acres west of University Drive to the Gulfstream Land Development Company, which built the Jacaranda community with the goal of a Coral Gables for Broward. The Jacaranda Golf Club course dates to 1970. In 1973 the city annexed Plantation Acres, designated a Special Public Interest Rural District to protect its landscape, along with Melaleuca Isles.
- Jacaranda and the golf communities: doors from the 1970s onward that open onto fairways and lakes. Grass clippings and grit fill the track, and the rollers on older units are often worn flat.
- Plantation Acres: larger rural lots and a wide range of house ages. Where a home has a wide multi-panel door, the panels need to stay in line so the interlocks seal.
- The original east side: retrofitted sliders in older houses, where the first job is often squaring and adjusting the door rather than replacing parts.
The Fort Lauderdale Country Club, founded in 1926, and the Plantation Golf Course, opened in 1950, are reminders that fairway homes here go back a long way. The older the course-side house, the more likely its door has been reworked over the years, so what is actually installed should be checked before any parts are quoted.
Canals and summer rain still shape how Plantation doors fail
The canals that made Plantation possible are still part of its streets, and its land is low. Plantation Pumping Station No. 2, opened in 1949, was built to push water out of the city into the North New River Canal, which tells you how much water this ground has to shed. Summer storms put standing water against the bottom of doors. A Plantation slider sheds rain through drain holes in its outer sill; when grass and grit block them, water fills the sill channel and spills inside.
Three habits prevent most problems:
- Vacuum the bottom track and wipe it with a damp cloth. No oil or grease.
- Clear the weep holes with a thin wire before the rainy months.
- Look at the bottom of the moving panel. If one end sits lower than the other, a roller has failed and the door will soon scrape. See roller repair and track repair.
Plantation is in the HVHZ, so new doors need the right approval
Broward and Miami-Dade are the High Velocity Hurricane Zone of the Florida Building Code. A replacement slider for a Plantation Acres ranch or a Jacaranda home needs a Miami-Dade NOA or an HVHZ Florida Product Approval. Ask for the approval number before you buy and confirm it covers your opening size. If your home is in an HOA community, check whether a new door style or color needs approval.
Plan Plantation door work before the June start of storm season. Test every slider before it begins: full travel, lock, and a look at the glass edges. Broken glass is a job for emergency glass repair, and planned upgrades are covered under sliding glass door replacement.
Plantation borders Sunrise to the west and Davie to the south. Every city is on the Broward County page.