32 Starr Farm Beach Road
John J. Flynn, the son of Irish immigrants, was one of Burlington’s most enterprising businessmen from the last third of the 19th century to his death in 1940. Born in Dorset, VT in 1854, he moved to Burlington as a young man and started working for a dairy farmer. He soon became the manager, and then the owner of the farm. From there on there was no stopping him. He went into the grocery business, and then into real estate, with sidelines like the local trolley lines and the Chittenden Bank. Real estate was his primary business, however. In Walton’s Vermont Register for 1903, his ad simply says “John J. Flynn, REAL ESTATE, Burlington, Vt.”
One of John Flynn’s large pieces of property, in the north end of Burlington, was Starr Farm, originally known as Judge Leavenworth’s Farm. It stretched from North Avenue to the lakeshore. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, Flynn started to develop the lakeside portion as a summer home colony for Burlington families. It is said he particularly favored attracting families with children; he and his wife Nellie had no children of their own.
The book “About Burlington, Vermont”, published in 1905 by Hobart J. Shanley & Company, Burlington Vt. has a section “North Avenue Again” (p. 18), notes; “Passing the S.W. Thayer School on the avenue, we come to the road which leads west through the woods to the summer residence of Mr. J.H. Sternbergh of Reading, Pa. The lake shore in this vicinity is very picturesque and especially attractive to summer residents. Already on one portion of it, north of Appletree Point, known as “Star (sic) Farm Beach”, are several summer cottages, owned, and occupied during that season, by Burlington families. Here also is the house of the Mohican Club. At the mouth of the river is a summer hotel called “Riverside”. “
The earliest found documentation of #32 Starr Farm Road is a lease of the property dated 24 December 1908, submitted for record Jan. 4, 1909, from John J. Flynn and James B. Henderson (another realtor) to Ida I. Patten. It appears that Mrs. Patten already owned a cottage, built in 1907, and a barn, also on the property. There is also another cottage mentioned, and it is not clear if that cottage was actually on the property, or just nearby; the lease contains a discussion of the renter’s rights and duties. The annual rent is $10. As might be expected, owning buildings on rented land has been a problem for owners of the buildings over the years.
The Patten family owned a feed and grain store in downtown Burlington, and lived in town. They kept up their lease until the 16th of April, 1929. Ida was then a widow, and a son seems to have been running the store, whose stock had started to change with the times. Ida passed her furnished cottage, and “a barn or garage” by quitclaim deed to George E. Little, listed in the Burlington City Directory (1929) as Manager of the Free Press Printing Company, and later as President of the Free Press Association and Vice President of the Vermont Savings and Loan Association. The deed wasn’t actually recorded at City Hall until April 1, 1930. So generations of the Little family have kept the traditions of Starr Farm Beach for over 90 years, families celebrating summer fun and friendships at the lake; a special part of Burlington’s history.
Inage Credit: Redfin
REFERENCES
Land Records of Burlington City
Burlington City Directories 1909-1990
Allen, Charles E., About Burlington, Vermont, Hobart J. Shanley & Company, (Burlington, VT., 1905) p.18.
Feeney, Vincent E., Finnigans, Slaters, and Stonepeggers, Images From the Past,(Bennington, VT, 1909). pp. 119-121.
Burlington Daily News (Burlington, VT) 22 Jan 1909, Tue. p.6, Newspapers by Ancestry
The Burlington Free Press, (Burlington, VT) 18 Aug 1937, Wed. p.8, Newspapers by Ancestry22 July 1998
The Burlington Free Press, (Burlington, VT) 22 Jul 1998, Wed. p.4, Newspapers by Ancestry
Findagrave.com, John J. Flynn