Hugh Taylor Birch Beach

Description:

• The beach at the 180-acre Hugh Taylor Birch State Recreation Area is 400 feet long. Visitors enjoy swimming, wind surfing, sail boarding, sunbathing, and picnicking. Several large parking areas are convenient to the walkway underpass of A1A. From the parking lots to the beach, visitors will pass through a prime example of subtropical coastal hammock.

  Day visitors and youth or group campers heavily use this park. Regulars that make it their daily constitution enjoy several small trails. A linear lagoon is located in the center of park. The park rents canoes for use in the lagoon; however, no fishing is allowed. If you want to fish, travel to the north end of the park, where you will find a large parking lot, several picnic tables and access to the Intracoastal Waterway. The most common catch is snapper.

  A visitor center and the club headquarters for the Federated Garden Circles of Fort Lauderdale are housed in separate park buildings. The visitor center is the former home of park founder, Hugh Taylor Birch, a wealthy Chicago attorney that discovered this parcel back in the late 1890s. The park ranger station has information and hours pertaining to both buildings.

  Directions: The park is located at the intersection of A1A (Atlantic Boulevard) and East Sunrise Boulevard.