11 Scotia Plantation

[11] Scotia Plantation

John Brown came to Hypoluxo from his native Scotland in 1894. One of his children – James Murray Brown – would become Hypoluxo’s first mayor.

Acquiring sizeable plots of land, Brown owned much property from the highway to the lake. He grew crops and was known as the “Pepper

King.”

John Brown named his comfortable two-story frame house on the lakefront Scotia (for Scotland) Plantation. It was sold after his death in 1919 and became a restaurant, Upton’s Chicken Dinner House. During Prohibition in the 1930s, the place was a popular roadhouse – distinctive for its red light that could be seen from some distance.

Son James Murray Brown also accumulated much land south of his father’s place. As a gentleman farmer, he grew asparagus plumosus ferns used in the florist industry. The beautiful southern mansion he built on his property -- elegant with its built-in cypress bookcases, window seats and hand-carved staircase balustrades – was also called Scotia Plantation.

The mansion was featured in the 1981 Hollywood thriller “Body Heat” staring Kathleen Turner and William Hurt.

Brown sold his mansion in 1967. Vacant and falling into disrepair, it was destroyed by fire in 1999.