Owen Burns developed and built the Burns Court Historic District in 1925, a pocket of Sarasota planned by architect Thomas Reed Martin. The plans here were drawn by architect Thomas Reed Martin, and in 1984 the National Park Service gave the district its historic designation. The district runs from Ringling Boulevard to Mound Avenue along South Pineapple and South Orange Avenues, and sits one to three blocks northwest of the triangular Pineapple Apartments site. It is bounded by the Laurel Park Historic District to the east, the Palm Avenue residential neighborhood to the west, and Hudson Bayou to the south.
The original cottages of the Burns Court subdivision occupied addresses such as 400–446 Burns Court and 418, 426, and 446 South Pineapple Avenue. Between 1925 and 1929 the landscape here changed drastically; the 1925 Sanborn Insurance Map showed no structures on the triangular property at South Orange and South Pineapple Avenues, and across the street there was only a single-family residence and its garage. Stand here and imagine the rapid transformation those years brought. Notice the low cottages lining South Pineapple and South Orange Avenues, with Hudson Bayou just beyond to the south.