ABSTRACT
Sanford Brookins was one of two African American architect-builders active in Jacksonville, Florida, during the first half of the twentieth century. He was born on May 9, 1877, in Macon, Georgia, to George and Charlotte Brookins. George Brookins was a farmhand. Sanford received training at the Dorchester Academy-probably the one in Liberty County, Georgia-before relocating to Jacksonville in 1904. After serving as a construction foreman for twelve years, Brookins established his own contracting business and was particularly active in house construction. By 1925 Brookins was credited with the design and construction of over 150 houses, with an additional nine houses designed and built for which he maintained ownership as investment property. With the continued growth of his business, Sanford Brookins and his wife, Leola Calloway Brookins, and daughter Daisy moved to a new home at 601 West 8th Street in the popular Sugar Hill neighborhood of Jacksonville in 1924.1
Many of the houses designed and constructed by Brookins were in Sugar Hill and in the newer subdivision known as Durkee Gardens, which was located between West 8th Street and West 13th Street northwest of downtown Jacksonville. Marketed to Jacksonville’s growing Black middle-class, this subdivision of predominately 1-story brick houses opened between 1934 and 1940. Contracted by real estate developer George P.Mason in 1925, Brookins was also responsible for the construction of several residences in the prominent White neighborhood of Riverside. Brookins is also credited with the construction of at least two summer cottages at American Beach, including his own summer home at 5485 Waldon Street that was completed in 1936, one year after the beach resort opened. In response to state-sanctioned segregation, American Beach was one of the earliest oceanfront resorts developed for African Americans. Located on Amelia Island in Nassau County, Florida, American Beach was carved from three large beachfront parcels purchased and platted between 1935 and 1946 by the Pension Bureau of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville, Florida.2
