Historical Context
Arlington Park Neighborhood
What we know today as Arlington Park Neighborhood consists of several platted subdivisions, including La Linda Terrace, DeSoto Park, Rose Lawn, Rustic Lodge, and many more. Today, we are limiting our walk to the Rustic Lodge Subdivision, which is one of the oldest areas.
This neighborhood was not part of the city of Sarasota at all. Back in 1916, it was part of the newly formed town of Sarasota Heights. Sarasota Heights extended from Hudson Bayou all the way south to today’s Bee Ridge Road and east to encompass this area.
The town was created because residents of the area did not want to be annexed into the city for fear of paying higher taxes without receiving greater services.
In 1926, Sarasota Heights ceased to exist because the city of Sarasota had grown so large that maintaining a separate town no longer made economic sense.
Rustic Lodge was platted in 1925. The original subdivision extended south from Bahia Vista to Waldemere Street and west from today’s Euclid Avenue to Shade. Street names have changed since the neighborhood was platted, too. Euclid was called Robert; Jefferson was called Harriette, and Shade was called Brown Street.
Beginning in the 1930, Arlington Park’s most famous residents were members of the Loyal and Rusenski families. The families were European performers whose abilities ranged from juggling to bareback riding. Numerous newspaper accounts exist of their civic undertakings including participating in fundraisers to benefit the local community. Loyal Repenski, also called Poppa and his wife Stella had three sons, Ramo, Gus and Timmy. Ramo was also a circus performer and Gus was a fisherman.
Quite a few circus families lived here, maybe because of its convenient location to downtown and the circus winter quarters which were located on north Beneva Road near today’s Glen Oaks Subdivision.
As local historians, when we look at neighborhoods, we are certainly interested in notable individuals like the Loyal and Repenski families, but equally interesting is to gain an understanding of the true nature of the rest of the neighborhood. Other than circus folks, many of the people who lived here were in service industries: grocery store managers, waitresses, butchers, saleswomen, and telephone switchmen.
Today the neighborhood continues to be a mix of individuals of all ages and varied walks of life. Newer homes are attracting younger families and are larger than our older homes many of which are occupied by long term residents of the neighborhood. Some homes are rental, but the majority are owner occupied.
The changing demographic of Arlington Park poses one of the greatest challenges to historic preservation. The challenge being how to sensitively update homes that were built as modest residences to the contemporary needs of the 21st century and how to build new homes which fit our neighborhood.
One way to diminish the impact of size differences between old and new houses is to differentiate the massing, by breaking the building form into several smaller components the appearance of the building’s size is diminished.
