- April 28, 2024
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Early 1900s Ormond Beach entrepreneur. Well-connected socialite. Prominent property owner.
No, this is not referring to John Anderson or Joseph D. Price, who built the Ormond Hotel, or even John D. Rockefeller, who spent his winters in The Casements.
This is Miss Margaret Alison Stout's story: the woman who commissioned a Queen Anne style home on the beachside, now seen by the thousands of people who drive on East Granada Boulevard each day.
The Macdonald House. The historic home doesn't formally bear her name — but the city of Ormond Beach may soon update its legal name on the Ormond Beach Historic Landmarks List for accuracy. And for local historians, it's about time.
"Her history would have been erased," said Suzanne Heddy, member of the Historic Landmark Preservation Board. "It would have been ignored if we hadn't included her name in the historic landmarks list, and that was the whole point."
Heddy, past president of the Ormond Beach Historical Society, said historians are often thought of as looking backward in time, but in reality, they're focused on the future — on preserving what's important for future generations.
On March 5, the City Commission voted unanimously to rename the MacDonald House to the Stout-MacDonald House. The renaming will require an amendment to the Land Development Code, to be reviewed by both the Planning Board and the City Commission in the coming months. Signage for the historic structure, however, will remain unchanged.
For many years, no one knew who originally owned the MacDonald House. It was named after William "Billy" and Elizabeth MacDonald, who bought the property in 1941, and owned and operated the nearby Billy's Tap Room.
Then in 2017, a historic structures report by Bender & Associates Architects — commissioned by the City Commission as the future of the MacDonald House hung in the balance with considerations of demolishing the structure due to its disrepair — revealed the identity of the home's original owner.
She could have built anything, but she built the Queen Anne Victorian. The first and only one that's still standing on the beachside. That alone was impressive." — SUZANNE HEDDY, member of the Historic Landmark Preservation Board
And it was a woman, likely one of some wealth as she not only commissioned the construction of a Queen Anne home on the beachside, but she hired prominent local architect Sumner H. Gove to build it. Among some of the other local structures Gove built were the original Clarendon Hotel in Daytona, an addition to the Ormond Hotel, the Ormond Yacht Club and the first Port Orange and Seabreeze bridges across the Halifax River.
"She could have built anything, but she built the Queen Anne Victorian," Heddy said. "The first and only one that's still standing on the beachside. That alone was impressive."
Building a home for Stout was not a causal endeavor for Gove, said Dr. Philip Shapiro, who chairs both the city's Historic Landmark Preservation Board and Quality of Life Board. He described Gove as a first-class architect.
"I'm going to take a hunch that she was an outgoing person," Shapiro said. "That's my hunch, in order to do the things that she was doing and make the connections that she made."
Not much is know about Stout's personal life. But here is what the Bender report revealed, her story pieced together by newspaper listings.
Stout was a native of Scotland, born on Oct. 17, 1856. By 1869, she and her family immigrated to New Brunswick, Canada, and they resided in Bathurst. Her father worked as a tailor and died in 1904.
It's not clear when Stout, who is identified as a single woman in her death certificate (meaning she never married), first visited Ormond Beach — or why. But, the Bender report states it had to be no later than 1900, as an article in a newspaper called the Indian River Advocate noted she was employed at the Ormond Hotel as its head of the news and curio department.
More evidence to show she was outgoing, Shapiro said, as that was a public relations position.
It was likely a seasonal position, as when she commissioned the construction of her home, she was listed in a newspaper article as a resident of Brooklyn, New York.
"Stout appears to have lived in the house semi-permanently at times, although newspaper listings make it clear that for many years she only stayed there during the winter season," the Bender report states.
In 1905, though, the report adds that a society listing in the New York Tribune mentions an "auction at the Ormond grill room attended by ladies from Boston."
And a "Miss M.A. Stout, of Ormond."
Stout was also close with Joseph D. Price's wife, Mary Belle. In 1914, three years after she had been widowed, a newspaper listing mention Stout had arrived in Ormond for the winter season, and that she planned to stay with Mary Belle Price at her residence, known as the Hammock Home, located at 311 John Anderson Drive. Mary Belle drove from Ormond to St. Augustine to pick up Stout.
Stout was also a close friend of John Anderson, who died in 1911. He left her $200 in his will, equivalent to over $6,000 today.
"Not being overly large she can by a little sharp trading and her usual economy make this pay for one plain dress — gray preferred," the will stated.
In his will, Anderson also mentioned Stout's "faithful work I can but remember with gratitude."
Aside from her work at the Ormond Hotel, Stout operated a boarding house at her Queen Anne home. A hotel directory from 1909 lists her as the proprietress of the Wayside Lodge, according to the Bender report. Rooms cost $21 a week.
According to a 2015 article by Ron and Alice Howell provided to the Ormond Beach Historical Society, Billy MacDonald's son Frank recalled that Rockefeller approached Stout in 1918 after he purchased The Casements. He sought to enlarge his property and offered to buy her home.
She refused him.
Stout also operated a gift shop at the MacDonald house, from at least 1920 to the early 1930s. By 1924, she added a library. By then, the home was composed of a shop, dining room, kitchen, bedroom and closet on the first floor; three bedrooms and a sitting room on the second floor; and two attic bedrooms, likely for housekeeping staff.
"Things were popping down here and she figured it out," Heddy said. "She got it. It's just an incredible story."
Stout died at the age of 77 on Sep. 2, 1933 in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, where she began spending portions of the year beginning in 1928, probably to be close to family, according to the Bender report. Her death certificate lists her cause of death as arteriosclerosis.
Every community adds to the American story. Stout may be long ago, but she added to that story." — DR. PHILIP SHAPIRO, chair of Historic Landmark Preservation Board
In her will, she left her Queen Anne home to her brother, John G. Stout and her sister Emma C. Stout, to be shared equally. The house was valued at $1,000 for the land, and $2,500 for the house and furnishings," according to Donald Gaby’s article, “The MacDonald House of Ormond Beach,” written for the Halifax Historical Society in 2001.
Her relatives sold the home to the MacDonald family in 1941, and the family owned it until 1964. The property was sold a few more times before the city purchased it in 1979.
The Ormond Beach Historical Society has no photographs of Stout.
"It's a little bit disappointing to not know what she looked like," Shapiro said. "It's a little disappointing we don't know more about her personal life ... I always say yet, because being involved with history through the historical society, information evolves."
Information is out there, Shapiro said. It's just a matter of how it will be discovered, and when.
"Every community adds to the American story," he said. "Stout may be long ago, but she added to that story. She added to the story of what was to become Ormond Beach. Back then, she knew Ormond, incorporated 1880. But she didn't know her that her structure was going to become a landmark."
If in 50 years, someone looks back on the city's historic landmark list, and sees the building as the "Stout-MacDonald House," they'll wonder who Stout was, Heddy said. And perhaps, they'll be able to learn about her in her own home — if the house is transformed into Ormond's museum of history.
Perhaps, at just seeing the name, they'll assume Stout was a man because of the time period.
"But it's not," Heddy said as she laughed. "It's not a man. This is the turn of the last century. This is a single businesswoman who had a little notions shop ... and she saw an opportunity of this open land across the street from the hotel."
