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Deerwood, Jacksonville — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Deerwood was Florida's first gated community, a Southside district of Jacksonville laid out from 1962 around a George Cobb golf course.
About Deerwood
Where to stay in Deerwood
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Deerwood keeps no rooms inside its gates, where the country club holds part of the ground and the homeowners' association owns the streets and most of the 45 lakes. Baymeadows Road carries the nearest beds. That road runs west from the gates to the Interstate 95 interchange that brought the business parks, apartments, and motels, while Southside Boulevard closes the western edge.
St. Johns Town Center is about two miles north on the Butler Boulevard side. You want this end of the Southside if a car and the run out to the Jacksonville Beaches matter more to you than a walkable block.
About Deerwood
What are the main landmarks in Deerwood?
Deerwood's landmarks stand at its edges, because the ground behind the gates is private. Jacksonville Country Day School went up at the community's southwest corner in 1960, and its public entrance is at 10063 Baymeadows Road, with a second drive that opens only from inside. Deerwood Village Mall followed in 1972 at the Baymeadows Road and Southside Boulevard junction, an open-air centre that Kemp, Bunch and Jackson roofed in cedar shake to match the lodge behind the gates.
Across the street, the Grand Boulevard Mall became the Deerwood Campus of Florida State College at Jacksonville. Deerwood Country Club stays members only.
What is the history of Deerwood?
Deerwood began on pine Richard Green Skinner bought south of Jacksonville in the 1890s for turpentine. His grandson Bryant Skinner laid the community out from 1962 and hired the architect George Cobb for the course. Stockton, Whatley, Davin and Company financed it, and the family gave land so the Jacksonville Expressway Authority could run Southside Boulevard through, ending a three-mile crawl in on the dirt track San Clerc.
San Clerc became Baymeadows Road. The course drew the Greater Jacksonville Open from 1967, forerunner of The Players Championship, and Gerald Ford taped a television interview at the club on November 2, 1975.
Where is Deerwood?
Deerwood sits ten miles southeast of downtown Jacksonville, with Southside Boulevard along its western edge and Baymeadows Road past its southern corner.
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Updated September 2026