22440 Blue Creek Lodge Road

Description

SELLER SAYS BRING ALL OFFERS. Peace of Mind, Body and Soul when you see this rustic home sitting on almost an acre of Blue Creek right on the St. Johns River. Surrounded by the Ocala National Forrest. Back in the day it was the Blue Creek Lodge fish camp. Now it is a single-family home consisting of 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths. Home is split where you can rent out the Air B & B of 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living area, and 1 full bath with its own laundry area. In the main house the rooms are massive. All Cypress floors throughout this charming home. Very spacious kitchen with upgraded appliances and gas stove for the gourmet chef. Truly one-of-a-kind home with many different possibilities. Several split plan AC units throughout the home for the best in comfort. Whole house attic fanOutside there is an all-purpose deck for games or just sitting and watching the manatees stroll by. Truly a boater's and outdoor person's delight. The riverfront family room is large enough for the big family plus more friends. 2 mini split ACs in apartment less than one year old. Main house has 2 separate Air Conditioning units 1 for the house and one for the massive Florida room. Roof is approximately 10 years old. The road from Highway 40 out to Blue Creek and its long-standing residents has not changed much over the years. Many of the guests at the Blue Creek Lodge were the workers who built the Astor Bridge. The Astor area and much of the land along the St. Johns River was inhabited by Timucua natives prior to settlement by Europeans. Early attempts at settlement included an English trading post in 1763, and in 1822 a plantation growing sugar cane and oranges was established by Jewish immigrant Moses Elias Levy. By 1838 the Seminole Wars had begun, and the United States government established Fort Butler to defend the river as the primary route of transportation inside Florida. These earliest efforts at settlement all met with failure due to war or disease, and until the 1870s the area was largely deserted. In 1874, William Backhouse Astor Jr. from New York City's wealthy Astor family purchased over 12,000 acres (49 km2) of land, upon which he began to establish a town he called "Manhattan". New settlers arrived by steamboat to the town which Astor had endowed with a church, schoolhouse, botanical garden, and free cemetery. William Astor also built a hotel, sawmill, and eventually a railroad, the St. Johns and Lake Eustis Railway, which headed southwest towards the communities of Eustis and Leesburg. A few miles to the west of town, a satellite community called Astor Park grew up along the shore of Lake Schimmerhorn (named for Astor's wife, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor). Over the next twenty years Astor saw his town grow, but the Manhattan name never caught on. When William Astor died in 1892, the town was officially renamed "Astor" in his honor. John Jacob Astor IV inherited his father William's estate and continued to promote the town and their business interests in Florida. Following his demise in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the estate passed to his son, Vincent. William Vincent Astor was not interested in his grandfather's Florida enterprises, and so the Astor family's interests in the area were sold. This, combined with a severe decline in steamboat travel on the St. Johns due to increased availability of rail travel, signaled the end of the town's prosperity and prominence. The first Astor Bridge was built in 1926. By 1928, Astor's hotel had burned down, and the railroad was abandoned, leaving Astor without telephone or telegraph service for the next few decades. Today the community of Astor is largely reliant upon tourism and is a popular spot for winter visitors from the north and for fishing, hunting, and boating enthusiasts.