Our History
(Our construction)
Long before Continental Park was a park, playground, or neighborhood, the land beneath it was something far more elemental — a stretch of Miami-Dade’s ancient limestone spine. As one of the highest and driest points along the ridge of South Florida, the Kendall area sat above the surrounding sawgrass sloughs and the seasonal meanderings of Snapper Creek. Before drainage canals were built, this ridge was essentially an island during the wet summer months, elevated above a sea of Everglades marsh. The landscape was dominated by pine rockland — a uniquely South Floridian ecosystem of slash pines, palmettos, and native hardwoods growing directly out of porous oolitic limestone — interspersed with open hammock and farmland.
The area that would one day become Kendall took its name from a London merchant, Frederick Kidder, who arrived in the early 1900s to manage the citrus groves he co-owned in the region. By that point, Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway had extended its tracks southward through the area — reaching the vicinity of present-day Kendall around 1903 — opening South Dade to a trickle of farmers, merchants, and homesteaders willing to try their luck in the subtropical wilderness.
David Brantley Dice and the Founding of a Community
The story of Continental Park’s neighborhood truly begins with a family: David Brantley Dice and his wife, Jessie Van May Dice, who moved to the Kendall area from Little River, a northern Miami community, in 1916. They purchased land from a local farmer named J.J. Hinson and set about building a life in what was still largely open country. They established a farm and, recognizing the needs of the small but growing settler community around them, opened a general store — one of the few buildings in all of Kendall equipped with a telephone, making it an indispensable communication hub for the entire area.
For a time, the Dices lived above their store, serving neighbors who came from miles around. In approximately 1917–1920, they constructed a proper home nearby, built in the vernacular wood-frame style of the era using Dade County pine — a dense, resinous timber so resistant to rot, insects, and fire that it became the building material of choice for South Florida’s early settlers. David Dice became so central to the life of the community that he was regarded, informally but affectionately, as its “unnamed mayor.”
That home — the Dice House — still stands today, right inside Continental Park.
Kendall’s first school opened in September 1929, founded through a petition drive by pioneer families much like the Dices, and the area continued its slow, close-knit growth through the late 1920s and into the Great Depression. Early structures throughout the neighborhood were built from Dade County pine, and the community remained small and agricultural well into the mid-twentieth century.
Post-War Growth and the Birth of a Suburban Neighborhood
Everything changed after World War II. Across America, returning veterans and their growing families sought space, sunshine, and the suburban dream — and Kendall offered all three. Beginning in the late 1940s and accelerating through the 1950s, a residential construction boom swept through the area.
The mango groves and avocado farms that had defined the Kendall landscape for decades gave way to streets of comfortable single-family homes. The tiny hamlet that had centered around David Dice’s general store transformed into what we now know as the Continental Park neighborhood — a community of approximately 960 custom-built homes bounded roughly between SW 88th Street and SW 104th Street, and between SW 77th and SW 87th Avenues, in what is known today as East Kendall.
Some of the families who moved into Continental Park during those early post-war years never left. To this day, original residents from the 1950s can be found living in their homes — a testament to the community’s enduring appeal.
The Land Becomes a Park: Rock Pits, County Action, and a Community Promise
The land that now forms Continental Park itself has an equally interesting history. Miami-Dade County acquired the approximately 18.66-acre parcel in 1941. At the time, it was known as Rock Pit 79 and Sand Pit 70 — names that reflect the limestone quarrying operations that were common throughout Miami-Dade during the early and mid-twentieth century, when builders harvested oolitic limestone for road and building construction. These quarried depressions, once filled with water, became a distinctive feature of the South Florida landscape.
In 1958, through Resolution No. R-2035-58, the Dade County Board of County Commissioners formally transferred control of the property to the Park and Recreation Department for park and recreational purposes. This was the official birth of Continental Park.
The transition was not without tension. When initial park construction began, nearby residents expressed strong concerns about what kind of activity the park would attract. In response to their objections, the Park and Recreation Director gave the community a meaningful assurance: that the park would be designed to prevent the more intensive uses found in other neighborhood parks, and that night lighting — with the sole exception of low-intensity lights for tennis courts on the eastern portion of the park, across SW 82nd Avenue — would be prohibited. Development of the western parcel (the ball field area) was deliberately kept informal: a backstop, a skinned infield, and irrigation for the infield. The County kept its word, and that commitment helped define the park’s enduring, low-key neighborhood character.
In January 1968, the Pinecrest Khoury League requested use of the facility for organized league baseball play. The request for league use was granted, and in March 1968, the County Manager authorized full ballfield construction, based again on the Parks and Recreation Department’s recommendation — but the promise of no night lighting held firm.
A Community Fights for Its Character: The 1988 Night Lighting Resolution
By the mid-1980s, as Kendall’s population swelled and demand for recreational facilities grew, the Khoury League renewed its push for night lighting at the baseball fields. In November 1986, it submitted a formal request to illuminate the ballfields for evening league play. A survey of adjoining neighbors conducted by the Parks and Recreation Department confirmed that community opposition to night lighting remained strong and consistent.
The Parks and Recreation Director submitted a report to the County Manager on April 8, 1987, recommending against night lighting due to its impact on surrounding residential land uses. The Khoury League then took its case directly to the Culture and Recreation Committee, which recommended that a formal governmental facility review and public hearing be held.
The Site Review Committee — comprising representatives from Public Works, Environmental Resources Management, the Fire Department, Building and Zoning, the Planning Department, General Services Administration, and the County Manager’s Office — conducted a thorough review of the proposal. Their January 25, 1988 report concluded that while there was indeed growing demand for lighted recreational facilities county-wide, the specific configuration of Continental Park’s ballfields would only allow one field to be used at any given time. The proposed lighting infrastructure — four poles ranging from 52 to 76 feet tall with multiple luminaries — would spill light into the surrounding residential areas and drive noise and parking congestion to levels the committee found unacceptable. The committee noted that more suitable alternative sites existed elsewhere in the county, including Ron Ehman Park and K-Land Park.
On March 1, 1988, after a duly noticed public hearing conducted in compliance with Section 33-303 of the Code of Metropolitan Dade County, the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to deny the application for night lighting at Continental Park. The resolution — Resolution No. R-211-88 — was passed with all nine commissioners voting in favor of denial. The estimated construction cost of $60,000 and annual operating costs of $7,000–$10,000 were also factors the County weighed, especially as no funds had been budgeted for the project.
The 1988 resolution stands as a landmark moment in the park’s history: a united community, supported by its elected officials and county staff, reaffirming the original promise made decades earlier — that Continental Park would remain a quiet, neighbor-friendly green space.
Saving a Piece of History: The Dice House Comes Home to the Park
By the late twentieth century, the Dice House — David Brantley Dice’s historic 1917–1920 homestead at 9840 SW 77th Avenue, just blocks from the park — had fallen on hard times. It had served many lives over the decades: as a family home, a pre-school and daycare center, and briefly as the subject of a failed café rehabilitation. Hurricane Andrew’s fury in 1992 dealt serious structural damage, and by the early 2000s, the building had deteriorated to the point of condemnation by Miami-Dade’s Unsafe Structures Board. Demolition appeared inevitable.
The community rallied. In 2005, through a remarkable collaborative effort involving Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson, the Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation Department, the Dade Heritage Trust, Inc., the Miami-Dade Historic Preservation Board, the Dice House Coalition, and the building’s owners Beatriz and Bernardo Junco, the house was saved. Rather than be torn down, the Dice House was physically relocated — moved four blocks west from its original address to its new and permanent home at the northeast corner of Continental Park, at SW 100th Street and SW 82nd Avenue.
Funding for the restoration came from the Quality Neighborhood Improvement Program, the Dade Heritage Trust, and the generosity of the Juncos. On August 18, 2006, the restored Dice House was officially dedicated in its new location, where a historical marker erected by the Dade Heritage Trust and the Miami-Dade Historic Preservation Board now tells its story. The house was designated an official Miami-Dade historic site back in 1989, and it remains the oldest surviving structure in the Kendall area.
Today, the Dice House serves as an after-school recreation center for children and a community gathering space for residents throughout Miami-Dade County — a living, breathing connection to the very pioneers who first built this community.
Modern Improvements and the Park Today
Continental Park has continued to grow and improve in recent decades. In January 2014, more than 25 Continental Park residents and community leaders gathered — even in the rain — to celebrate $298,212 in park improvements that brought new stamped-concrete pedestrian crosswalks along SW 82nd Avenue leading to the Tennis Center, nine new street paver parking spaces, improved drainage to address chronic puddles, a resurfaced entry drive at the Recreation Center, and new concrete floors in the batting cages. Ribbon-cutters at the dedication included Miami-Dade County Parks Director Jack Kardys, Continental Park HOA President Holly White, and representatives from Commissioner Xavier Suarez’s office.
At that ceremony, HOA President Holly White captured the park’s meaning beautifully: "The park is the heart of our community because our park has kept this community’s heart beating from its beginnings.”
More recently, Continental Park has been the subject of a two-phase soil remediation project undertaken by Miami-Dade County to ensure the park remains a safe and healthy environment for all visitors. The western phase of remediation has been completed; the eastern phase was scheduled for completion in 2025. The Continental Park Tennis Center has remained open throughout this process.
Today, the park spans approximately 18 acres, bisected by SW 82nd Avenue into its western (ball field) and eastern (tennis center) sections. It offers a community center, the Continental Park Tennis Center, multiple baseball and softball fields, basketball courts, soccer space, a children’s playground, a picnic shelter, open green lawns, and walking paths that wind through pockets of preserved pine rockland — one of the rarest ecosystems in Florida — where native plants and wildlife can still be found. Year-round programming includes Fit2Play after-school activities for children ages 6–14, Active Adults 55+ fitness classes, Halloween hayrides, holiday celebrations, tennis tournaments, and old-fashioned Saturday night dances.
The park is free, open to all, and unfenced — just as it was always meant to be.
A Reflection on What Makes This Place Special
Continental Park is not simply a green space on a county map. It is the accumulated story of this community: the limestone ridgeline that once stood above a sea of sawgrass; the Dice family’s general store that held a telephone when almost no one else in Kendall did; the post-war families who planted roots in a neighborhood of mango groves and have never wanted to leave; the residents who fought successfully — twice, and unanimously — to preserve the park’s peaceful character against commercial pressure; and the coalition of neighbors, preservationists, and public servants who moved a century-old house rather than let it be demolished.
As our neighborhood continues to evolve — with original 1950s homes being lovingly updated alongside newer estates in Mediterranean and contemporary styles — Continental Park remains the anchor of who we are.