1841 Oak Street – Honorable John Early Home

The two-story Colonial Revival style house at 1841 Oak Street, constructed in 1925, is a wood frame building and has weatherboard exterior siding. The building rests on a continuous pierced concrete block foundation and has a side-gable main roof surfaced with asphalt shingles. A brick chimney occupies the center of the roof ridge. The building is five bays wide on the first story and two bays deep. The house features a onestory screened porch with a flat roof porch on its east elevation. The central entry on the main facade is sheltered by a one-bay portico with a pediment supported by square columns. The main fenestration of the house features single and paired 4/1-light wood sash windows.

This home was originally built on Sarasota’s north side and moved on a barge to its present location in 1933, by Judge John L. Early and his wife Maebelle.

John Early, born in Virginia in 1898 came to Sarasota in 1924 to practice civil law and counted John Ringling, Charles Ringling and Owen Burns among his early clients.  He was elected to the state legislature in 1934, became Sarasota’s first municipal judge in 1945 and served as mayor in 1953. During his decades of ownership Judge Early enlarged the kitchen and added a first floor bedroom, a rear porch, and a veranda on the east side of the home.  Judge Early passed away in 1999 at the age of 102.  By that time had been honored as the oldest Eagle Scout in the country and was recognized as the oldest former legislator in the state.