The historic house at 1734 Avenue L in Fort Pierce, Florida — Zora Neale Hurston’s last home — has been preserved.
The Conservation Fund (TCF), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving endangered properties and protecting land and water, worked with the Zora Neale Hurston Florida Education Foundation (ZNHFEF) to acquire the property.
The organizations have announced plans to develop the site into a visitor and education center.
Hurston lived the last three years of her life in Fort Pierce. She had moved to the house on Avenue L in 1957, at a time when the neighborhood was still a segregated, African American section of town. Charles Bolen, the publisher and editor of the local paper, The Chronicle, had invited Hurston to join his staff because he knew she needed income.
Hurston’s time in Fort Pierce has been celebrated by preservationists who created the Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Heritage Trail in 2004. Eight locations are marked throughout the city, among them the location of Hurston’s gravesite and the last home Hurston lived in.
“People have been working behind getting this protected,” said Lauren Day, TCF’s Florida state director. “The way that we got called was we were approached by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment about the importance of this site, and then they connected us with the Zora Neale Hurston Florida Education Foundation and their whole group. They were working for a very long time to protect this site.”
The property at 1734 Avenue L was owned by Dr. Clem C. Benton, a community leader who offered the house to Hurston as a place she could live in for free. Hurston was the only person to ever live in the house. After she passed, Benton’s family maintained it for years but did not let another person occupy it.
“The family wasn’t really going to be in a position to continue to own it and take care of it,” Matt Sexton, president of TCF, told the AmNews. “They were mowing the grass a lot and stuff, but the structure itself is in need of a lot of work, and they weren’t really in a position to do any of that. So it was a change in the family with some need for planning for the next phase, or doing estate planning, and they agreed to sell it.”
TCF purchased the property in September 2024 and, because of a recent hurricane, has already had to replace the roof. The nonprofit plans to continue working with ZNHFEF to fundraise for stabilization of the property, the funding of the interpretation of the structure, and the establishment of a community garden on the lot next door to the property.
“Zora Neale Hurston’s final home deserves to be part of her enduring legacy,” said ZNHFEF President Marvin Hobson. “A home is a place of safety and refuge. As a writer in a male-dominated industry who worked during Jim Crow America, it’s easy to imagine the peace and comfort that Zora would have sought at her Fort Pierce home. We’re honored to partner with The Conservation Fund to ensure this property honors one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.”