Editor’s Note: James Roosevelt Stockton Jr., one of the founders of Ponte Vedra Beach, died Aug. 16, 2025, at the age of 91. The following article was originally published Oct. 30, 2014, in Sand Castles.
Forty years ago, a developer’s dream to take some very raw land that was almost uninhabitable and turn it into a world class community became a reality. In 1974, the golf course and community James R. “Jimmy” Stockton Jr., envisioned on a safari in Africa four years before, opened to an enthusiastic response with brisk sales. Golf course architect Ed Seay and Stockton’s team succeeded in creating Sawgrass, the first planned unit development in St. Johns County, and Stockton’s vision for a modern Ponte Vedra was launched!
OUR ORIGINS: THE EARLY HISTORY OF PONTE VEDRA
Once a sleepy, 28-mile stretch of beach, Ponte Vedra Beach was first discovered some say by Ponce de Leon who landed briefly on our shores then settled on a more suitable landing site in St. Augustine in 1513.
Many communities along our Florida coast make the same claim. But whatever the facts are, one thing that we do know is that many visitors have set foot on our shores. From European explorers to Native Americans, this eclectic mix of settlers have walked our beaches, herded cattle, planted indigo and rice, made moonshine and mined for minerals.
In 1914, the National Lead Co. mined our sands from Jacksonville Beach to South Ponte Vedra Beach for rutile, zircon and ilmenite, which were in demand during World War I. They named their coastal mining town Mineral City, which is our present-day Ponte Vedra Beach. They constructed a club house and a nine-hole golf course for their employees, guests and visiting executives. In 1927, a log cabin was built to house their guests. Ten years later, they opened an inn.
THE TELFAIR STOCKTON COMPANY LAUNCHES A PREMIER RESORT
When the minerals were no longer in demand the National Lead Co. decided to cultivate a new crop of revenue from the land they owned. Florida was becoming a destination for tourists from the north. Capitalizing on the 17 miles of land they owned in Mineral City, the National Lead executives in 1928 hired Stockton’s grandfather’s company, the Telfair Stockton Co., to create an exclusive private club. This club would be designed to cater to the upper-class and upper-middle class.
Joe Davin was the land engineer and Jim Stockton Sr. was the designer, planner and manager of this new resort. All traces of the former mine were removed, and, in its place, beautiful landscaping was planted. Another change was needed. This new town, with their new brand, needed a new name!
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The origin of name Ponte Vedra came about when one of the executives of the National Lead Co. read an article about Ponte Vedra, Spain, as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, which was incorrect. Ponte Vedra the name, had a sophisticated, European appeal and was immediately chosen for the new town.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
This new resort town with its new European name was not easily accessible. James Stockton Sr. appealed to the governor, who was a personal friend, and made a request for a new road. The last segment of the East Coast Scenic Highway, from Jacksonville Beach south to St. Augustine was completed, and Ponte Vedra, the resort community, was ready for buyers.
THE MARKETING PLAN
Stockton, a graduate of Princeton University, contacted his friends and fellow alumni and asked them to come to Florida to visit the new oceanfront club at Ponte Vedra. To encourage membership, they were offered a very reasonable fee to join the club as non-residents.
British architect Herbert Bertram, designed the par-72, 6,811-yard Ocean course, creating the area’s first resort golf experience. Another first, according to golf historians, is that the ninth hole boasts the first island green ever built.
The Princeton pipeline proved very successful. The resort grew as the wealthy fled the severe northern temperatures in the winter for the more temperate southern shores in the new town of Ponte Vedra.
A SIGN OF THE TIMES
In 1929, just one year after the new town was named, the crash of Wall Street and the Great Depression slowed the growth along the Ponte Vedra coast. In 1942, National Lead Co. sold its interest to the Ponte Vedra Corp. owned by the Telfair Stockton Co.
Over the next 30 years, Ponte Vedra, the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and the surrounding community grew and prospered.
THE EARLY ’70S AND THE BIRTH OF STOCKTON’S PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT
Stockton, who had worked for his dad’s company in the ’60s, left in 1966 to start his own company, the Stockton Land Corp. In 1969, James Stockton Sr. passed away.
One year later on a planned African safari that extended into two months, Stockton had time to think about the 600 acres of land he purchased west of Ponte Vedra Boulevard and the 1,600 feet of oceanfront land on the east.
“I wanted to create a modern Ponte Vedra,” Stockton said. “In 1970, during the Augusta National, I met Charlie Frazer who was developing Hilton Head a planned community.”
The idea of a planned unit development was a new concept in the early ’70s, Stockton said.
He set out to learn the new design that was taking shape all over the United States.
From Hilton Head to Palm Springs and north to Connecticut, Stockton toured the up-and-coming communities and returned home to begin his plan for a “modern Ponte Vedra.” This remote coast of North Florida, in the resort town his grandfather and dad had launched just 30 years before, was ready for the third generation of Stocktons to leave their mark.
He began to organize his team. A most fortuitous connection was meeting Ed Seay through friends and family. Seay, a recent graduate of the University of Florida, shared the same values and both were Marines. Their partnership was formed, and Seay’s first golf course design was a magnificent, challenging course that was destined for history.
But first the land needed to be tamed. According to Al Hammack, whose firm was hired for this project, “the original Sawgrass property was not very pretty. It consisted of palmettos, slash pines and was very flat.”
“Jimmy Stockton had a vision for a large, planned, gated community,” Hammack said. “He approached my consulting engineering/planning/surveying company: Bessent, Hammack and Ruckman, Inc. We had done the engineering for Amelia Island Plantation and he liked it.”
One million cubic yards of dirt were moved and in its path 100 acres of lakes provided the necessary drainage and elevation for the golf course, roads and building sites. Jimmy Stockton’s beachfront property was just across the boulevard. A curve in Ponte Vedra Boulevard was made so that there was room to build the Beach Club, pools and parking with direct access to the beach for members.
The team was now complete. With Hammack’s firm, Don Cheek as planner, Seay as golf course architect and contractors, Stockton’s dream team and the community were taking shape.
There was just one more item to get done: It needed a name.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? AGAIN!
This new community needed a name of its own. For days the Stockton team threw out all kinds of ideas. But everything fell short. Out of hundreds of names in a file one by one they were all discarded.
They started to use the name “Diego,” after all, the area was originally named that in the land grant called Diego Plains. But that name also was rejected.
The team was running out of time. They were down to deadline and getting pressure by their attorneys for a name.
That evening over drinks, Stockton recalled, with Ed Seay, Don Cheek and friends along with a good bottle of Dewar’s Scotch, a name finally appeared.
“Let’s call it Sawgrass,” Stockton said. “We certainly have plenty of it out there.”
For those unfamiliar with the plant, sawgrass with its sharp blade only grows in swamps. It is sharp as a knife and can cut your clothes to shreds!
Sawgrass was chosen as the name for the new community with the new concept in land development and a golf course whose name would be synonymous with golf greats throughout the world.
ED SEAY’S WORLD-FAMOUS GOLF COURSE
In 1974, the year the Sawgrass golf course opened, Deane Beman became the chairman of the PGA Tour. He was a visionary, and he set his sights on a permanent home for the “golfers’” own tournament.
Beman is quoted in the book “Golf’s Driving Force” by Adam Shupak with his sentiment, “We needed to have a with a community that would commit itself to as much championship as we would commit to the community.”
The North Florida community from in town to the Beaches welcomed the tournament with open arms and from 1977 to 1981 Sawgrass Country Club was home to the TPC, or back in those days it was called the Championship!
A MODERN PONTE VEDRA
Today, the developer and visionary Jimmy Stockton Jr. spends a lot of his time outdoors fishing and organizing fishing adventures, taking his travelers to far-away places. His home is on a beautiful sanctuary on the Guana River along the boulevard, in Ponte Vedra, where generations of Stocktons lived, developed and marketed to the world.
We know Ponte Vedra as our paradise in North Florida, and when we travel the world we return home wondering why we ever left!
