"This used to be a great neighborhood. They've stolen a lot of our residential character," said Rudolph Eckhardt, 68, looking out his front window at the cars zooming by on West Broward Boulevard. "Now it's a racetrack. And it's going to be an even bigger racetrack."
In a few weeks, construction crews will begin widening West Broward Boulevard east of Florida's Turnpike from four lanes to six. Telephone lines already have been moved. Homeowners have been paid for 10 feet of their front yards.
Speeds on the thoroughfare eventually will be increased to 45 miles an hour.
That, and the rapid development of Plantation, has the homeowners of Country Club Estates petitioning the city for a land-use change that would allow houses to be converted to medical and professional offices.
They don't want strip shopping centers, fast-food joints or gas stations. In fact, under the proposal, houses could remain residences if the owners wanted.
"We built our house out here in a pasture with cows and mosquitoes," said Tadaoki Yoshioka, who has lived with his wife in the neighborhood for 15 years. "But you can't hold back development. Time changes everything. You can't hold back."
Country Club Estates is one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. Settled in 1955, its 13 houses are on the south side of West Broward Boulevard, east of Florida's Turnpike, west of Northwest 46th Avenue and directly north of the Fort Lauderdale Country Club golf course.
Country Club Estates was developed by Luther Remsberg, a real estate executive and cattle rancher, who bought 1,200 acres in Plantation in the early '50s -- at $50 an acre. Remsberg, one of the city's pioneers, sold the lots in acre parcels.
Even though he realized the city's future, he steadfastly refused to change the neighborhood.
Today his widow, Mildred, is reluctantly ready to part with her three-bedroom pink house sitting on two acres. She already parted with a row of grapefruit trees she and her husband planted years ago, lost to the new lane.
"It makes me sick. I went along with the rest of my neighbors. What can you do?" said the 82-year-old woman. "You can't stop progress, I guess. But if it gets too much for me, I'll sell and get the hell out of here."
Residents know they stand to make a lot of money if they sell their houses for commercial use. Some local property appraisers say the values could double if the land were sold for commercial ventures.
Gary Matthews, a veterinarian who has lived on that stretch of West Broward Boulevard for 12 years, thinks his property value has decreased by $45,000 as the street has grown wider and busier. He predicts the street's next widening will push values even lower.
Several years ago, Julia Anderson put her house with the backyard mango and avocado groves on the market. It drew lookers, but no takers for three years.
"People would look at the house but then they would realize the cars," she said. "It hurts to see it go this way. We're all quiet and peaceful and it would be better left that way. But we can't."
Fighting to change a neighborhood from residential to commercial has surprised city officials.
"I've never heard of such a thing before. Usually people are fighting any commercial change," said Harry Tessler, a member of the city's Planning Board. "But we'll certainly give them a listen when it comes up."
The issue hasn't been officially scheduled yet, but the planning board chairman and the attorney representing the neighborhood say it should be discussed sometime in May.
John Rinella is the only one of his neighbors opposing the change.
"I don't want a 7-Eleven next to me," said Rinella, a physician who has lived there since 1967. "This is a residential area. I want to live next to people who own homes, not next to commercial enterprises."
Those enterprises will be strictly controlled with tough sign, landscaping and traffic-flow regulations, said Robert Huebner, the attorney representing Country Club Estates.
The Fort Lauderdale Country Club, located directly behind Country Club Estates, isn't keen about a change either.
"Certainly we would object to it. People on the golf course want to look at well-manicured lawns, not parking lots of offices," said John Dawkins, president of the 58-year-old private club that has 700 members. "Crime and vandalism might also be a problem. People would climb the fence and get into the club."
Mayor Frank Veltri opposes the change, too.
"God bless 'em," Veltri said. "I'm in sympathy with their concern. But I don't think the widening of Broward Boulevard will be that injurious."
The city Review Committee, which has already considered the proposal, called it a "dangerous precedent."
No more dangerous, however, than the speeding cars on West Broward Boulevard, residents say.
Said Eckhardt, who even replaced his jalousies with soundproof windows: "We're sitting here watching the racetrack, like it was the Indy 500."