Saint Edward's School — Vero Beach, Florida

Saint Edward's School is an independent college preparatory school in Vero Beach that teaches pre-kindergarten through grade 12 on one campus along State Road A1A, beside The Moorings. It is affiliated with the Episcopal Church and sits outside the public School District of Indian River County. In March 2025 Vero Beach 32963 described Saint Edward's as a school with 635 students, 95 faculty members and a $20 million annual budget, preparing for its 60th anniversary.

Its history is tied to Riomar. The school opened in 1965 inside the former Riomar Club clubhouse, used that Spanish-style building for 45 years, and left it in 2010 when every grade moved to the A1A campus. The Florida historical marker for the Riomar Clubhouse and Saint Edwards School, placed in 1991, tells the first half of that story; local reporting from 2009 to 2012 tells the second.

The Riomar Club chose a site on Club Drive for its clubhouse, which was completed and opened in 1930, according to the state marker. The building was a Spanish-design stucco clubhouse with pecky cypress beams inside, styled after Palm Beach, and it served as a social center that drew permanent residents and winter visitors to Vero Beach. The parcel later measured about 5.5 acres, bordered on three sides by Riomar Country Club fairways.

In 1965 the clubhouse was purchased to start an independent school affiliated with the Episcopal Church, and Saint Edward's School opened with 33 students in grades 5 through 8, the marker records. A 2025 account in Vero Beach 32963 adds that the Semon family, founders of Riomar Country Club, sold the school the clubhouse for its main building, and that the payment came due during the school's first money crisis in March 1966.

The Riomar building remained the Lower School for decades. After the Upper School moved to A1A in 1972, the clubhouse housed kindergarten through grade 6 and added pre-kindergarten in 1983. It was renovated in 1988 with its exterior character kept, and Bishop William Folwell dedicated the renovated building on November 3, 1988.

Saint Edward's nearly closed in its first year. According to the March 2025 Vero Beach 32963 anniversary story, the school was launched by the Episcopal Bishop of Florida in fall 1965, and by March 1966 it was out of money. The remaining board steadied it by the end of that academic year through local donations, arrangements with the bank and the Semon family, and $20,000 in bonds issued by the Episcopal diocese.

Growth came under Peter Benedict, headmaster from 1970 through spring 1995. When he retired, Saint Edward's had 756 students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 on two campuses, the Riomar Lower School and the A1A Upper School, according to Vero Beach 32963 in May 2020. Benedict modeled the Vero Beach school on New England college preparatory schools, and its library carries his name.

Benedict stayed involved in Vero Beach after leaving the school. The same May 2020 report notes that in retirement he took part in the rebirth of McKee Botanical Garden and served as president of the Indian River Land Trust, and that in 2009, as Saint Edward's faced debt and falling enrollment, he recommended the head of school the trustees then hired.

Debt forced the move. A major expansion begun in 1999 required an $18 million letter of credit from Wells Fargo, and when the expected growth did not follow, the school was overleveraged, Vero Beach 32963 reported in July 2019. On October 28, 2009 Vero News reported that Saint Edward's would close and sell its Riomar Lower School campus, move all grades to the south A1A campus, reduce enrollment from 728 students by 10 to 20 percent, and retire $15 million in debt over five years. About 220 pupils from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade then attended the Riomar building.

The October 2009 plan went beyond real estate. Saint Edward's set a target enrollment of 580 to 650, capped annual tuition increases at about 4 percent, cut financial aid to a level it called sustainable, promised higher faculty pay, and aimed to negotiate a debt plan with a bank by the end of January 2010. The Lower School would move into the Middle School building on the A1A campus, and the Middle School into a retrofitted building on the northwest part of that Vero Beach campus.

A trustee-led pledge drive called the Pirate Fund sought $13 million to clear the debt, and by March 2010 Vero News reported it close to its goal, with enrollment for the next year expected near 600, down from 725. Tuition that spring ranged from $16,600 for kindergarten to $22,100 for the upper school in Vero Beach.

Children were taught at the Riomar Lower School until 2010. The parcel was listed for $4.9 million, did not sell, and was taken over by Wells Fargo Bank in November 2011 in a debt settlement, Vero Beach 32963 reported in May 2012, when a developer planned a 10-lot Riomar subdivision on the site. The old Riomar school building had no official historic designation, so the city of Vero Beach preservation ordinance allowed only a 30-day window to document it before demolition.

The single A1A campus now carries the whole program. In May 2023 Saint Edward's held its 50th commencement, for a Vero Beach graduating class of 49, according to Vero Beach 32963. The class had spent most of its high school years under the pandemic, and the ceremony marked a return of school traditions.

Figures published in March 2025 show the scale of the Vero Beach school six decades on. High school tuition was $36,900 per student per year, which did not cover the full cost; annual expenses exceeded $19 million and were filled by giving and by the Pirate Ball, whose fundraising record stood at $335,000. Twenty-one percent of students were legacy students, children of alumni. The 2025 Pirate Ball, held at The Moorings clubhouse in Vero Beach, also marked the 50th year of the school yearbook.

Leadership changed in the same period. Vero Beach 32963 reported in July 2019 that the head of school hired in July 2009 to lead the recovery would retire on June 30, 2020, and that a nationwide search was under way, along with a five-year strategic plan drawn up in fall 2018.