Winter Beach — Vero Beach, Florida

Winter Beach is a separate, unincorporated community on the mainland north of the City of Vero Beach, governed by Indian River County rather than by any city. The Census Bureau treats it as a census-designated place, and Census Reporter puts the Winter Beach CDP at 6.9 square miles in its ACS 2024 5-year profile, with 724.7 people per square mile. The community has no council, mayor or city hall of its own, and county agencies supply services such as solid waste collection.

The community sits on the west side of the Indian River Lagoon, opposite Orchid Island. Its two state historical markers give the clearest reference points. The Winter Beach Pioneer Cemetery marker, placed in 2021, stands on 44th Court between 67th Street and 71st Street, and the 2019 Quay/Winter Beach Bridge Road marker describes a route running from 69th Street on the mainland east to Winter Beach Bridge Road on Orchid Island and on to A1A.

Winter Beach has had three names. The 2021 cemetery marker says the Indian River region drew pioneer settlers even before Florida became a state, mostly farmers seeking land to grow winter crops such as beans, cabbage and tomatoes, who later turned to pineapples and citrus. Some settled on the barrier island, some on the western shore of the Indian River, and some on the sandy dunes of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge. Woodley, established in 1893, was one of these communities. By the 1900s it had grown and changed its name to Quay, and during the 1920s the name was changed again to Winter Beach.

The older names survive in the records. Vero News, announcing a 2011 cemetery tour, described the burial ground as established in the 1890s to serve the small community of Woodley, later renamed Quay and, finally, Winter Beach. The bridge marker still uses the middle name, describing the 1923 road as running from Quay, later renamed Winter Beach, toward the barrier island. In the county records kept at the Vero Beach Main Library, the 1927 Vero Beach City Directory already carried a separate Winter Beach index of residents, on pages 168 and 169, alongside indexes for Gifford, Wabasso, Fellsmere, Sebastian and Roseland.

The Winter Beach Cemetery is the oldest public institution of the community. According to the state marker, citizens donated land for communal needs from the community's origin, most notably a cemetery, and the site was placed on the dune line of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge because that ridge reminded many settlers of the hills and mountains of their previous homes. In 1896 the cemetery was officially assigned to the Woodley Trustees, which later became the Winter Beach Cemetery Association. The marker calls it the final resting place for the community's original settlers and their descendants.

Vero News described the Winter Beach Cemetery in October 2011 as one of the oldest cemeteries in Indian River County, located on the Atlantic Coastal Ridge a few miles west of the Indian River Lagoon and still in use. Among its graves of historical interest is that of the poet Laura Riding Jackson. That month the Indian River County Historical Society opened its Telling Tales program series for 2011-2012 with a tour of the Winter Beach Cemetery, with tickets sold at the society's office in the Vero Train Station in downtown Vero Beach.

For a quarter century Winter Beach was a gateway to the beach. The 2019 state marker explains that in the early 20th century the Indian River was a highway, with few roads and no bridges from the mainland to the barrier islands in the Indian River County area. In 1923 a road with bridges was opened, crossing the river at the Narrows. It ran from Quay eastward to Hole-in-the-Wall Island, across the southern tip of Pine Island and over the main channel to join Jungle Trail on Orchid Island. Developers and tourists came over the narrow road and rickety bridges looking to build winter homes near the Atlantic beaches, while Orchid Island settlers sent winter vegetables and citrus back across to the mainland to be loaded onto the Florida East Coast Railway.

The crossing did not last. A bridge tender opened a metal swing span over the main channel, and Bridge Tender Park now occupies the site of the tender's home at the eastern end. After World War II the Winter Beach Bridge burned, the metal span was removed and only the pilings remained. The marker notes that Winter Beach Road and its bridge alignments are listed as one of Indian River County's Scenic and Historic Roads. Vero News reported in November 2022 that the marker was one of three new markers installed by the Indian River County Historical Society with the county Parks and Recreation Department, in a program funded through the Tourist Development Council of Indian River County and the Florida Division of Historical Resources, and that the county then had thirty-seven historic markers.

The island end of the old route is still a public road. Vero News reported in May 2018 that Old Winter Beach Road, built in 1923, was getting a $1.5 million rebuild along the half mile from Jungle Trail to A1A in Indian River Shores. The western stretch, where 36 inches of water had collected during Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, was to be raised 2 feet, and stormwater treatment was added to keep sediment out of the lagoon.

Winter Beach today is a small, older and comparatively affluent community. Census Reporter's ACS 2024 5-year profile counts 4,985 residents in 1,716 households, which average 2.9 persons, about 25 percent more than the 2.3 persons per household in the Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor metro area that covers Indian River County. The Winter Beach CDP has 1,787 housing units, and the median value of owner-occupied homes there is $472,200, about 1.3 times the metro figure of $351,500.

Income runs high by household and lower per person in Winter Beach. Median household income is $92,394, about 25 percent above the Indian River County metro figure of $73,491, while per capita income is $40,631, below the metro's $48,370. The median age is 57.6, a little above the metro's 55.3. About 38.3 percent of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 9.7 percent of residents are veterans and the mean commute is 21.9 minutes. Because the CDP is small, each estimate carries a wide margin of error, and the median age figure alone has a margin of 6.8 years.

County services for Winter Beach are decided by the Indian River County Commission, and in 2014 residents showed how much one of them mattered. County staff proposed closing the Winter Beach Customer Convenience Center on 65th Street, the least used of the county's garbage drop off sites, by January 5, 2015, saving an estimated $250,000 a year for the recycling program. According to the Indian River Guardian, more than 100 residents, most from Winter Beach, turned out to argue that the closing would lead to dumping in roadside canals and vacant lots, and the nearest other station was five miles south on 41st Street.

On December 16, 2014 the commission reversed course. Vero News reported that commissioners voted to keep the Winter Beach center open for the time being, after more than three hours of presentations and public input from Winter Beach, Gifford and other county residents.