When Dr. Fred Albee and his wife visited the Venice-Nokomis area in 1917, they liked it so much Albee bought large parcels of land. By May 1924, he owned Bay Point, most of Venice, and more than twenty-five miles of waterfront property.
Albee hired the famous city planner, John Nolen. Buildings were to be "Northern Italian" design, with sloping roofs and exteriors of smooth white stucco. Advertisements called Nokomis "The White City" and "Pearl City" because of the white stucco.
He founded the Venice-Nokomis Bank, the only boom period bank in the area to remain open during the Great Depression. Albee donated land for the Venice-Nokomis Methodist Church and the Nokomis school.
Albee was an eminent orthopedic surgeon who had pioneered work in bone grafting (patterned after his grandfather's tree grafting) and reportedly performed almost half of all bone grafts during World War I. He invented orthopedic tools, taught his techniques to surgeons worldwide, and was decorated by the governments of fourteen countries.
In 1933 he opened his Florida Medical Center in the former Park View Hotel in Venice. His patients ate nutritious food from his farms and groves. His dairy supplied two kinds of ice cream, one without sugar for diabetic patients. Albee had a plane he used to fly in patients. Patients had free heliotherapy (sunshine as an aid in healing), but salt glows were $1 extra. The medical center closed in 1942 when the U.S. Army turned the building into a military hospital.
At his death, his 14,000 acres of property included Casey Key, the Venezia Hotel, fourteen houses, an inn, restaurant, docks and fishing center, and twelve houses for worker's quarters.