Bud, Seaside's founding dog, lived to the ripe old age of 21. For most of his life, until his legs gave out, he wandered around Seaside inspecting construction sites and restaurants.
Time was, families coming to the beach stayed in simple cottages... in beach towns where porch-sitting and strolling were activities at least as important as swimming and sunbathing.
In 1946, on one of the family's summer pilgrimages to the shore, Robert Davis' grandfather, J.S. Smolian, bought 80 acres near Seagrove Beach, on Florida's northwest coast. His intention was to build a summer camp for his employees, but his business partner wanted no part of what must have seemed like a worthless tract of sand. The Smolian family continued coming to that same shore every summer and occasionally J.S. would take young Robert to the fields at the western edge of Seagrove Beach and walk around the tract.
