Fort Lauderdale is the oldest and largest city in Broward County, and its housing runs the full span of South Florida history — 1920s land-boom bungalows in Sailboat Bend, post-war ranch homes in Coral Ridge, mid-century waterfront houses along the Las Olas isles, and glass condo towers built in the last fifteen years. Each of those eras put a different lock on the front door.
How Fort Lauderdale Was Built
Fort Lauderdale grew from a New River trading settlement into a city during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The boom collapsed in 1926, and the city rebuilt slowly through the Depression and the war years. The real expansion came after World War II, when returning servicemen who had trained in South Florida came back to stay. Neighborhoods pushed north, west, and out onto dredged finger islands through the 1950s and 1960s. Beginning in the 1990s and accelerating through the 2000s, downtown and the beach corridor filled with mid- and high-rise condominiums.
The practical result is that Fort Lauderdale has no single typical house. A locksmith working here needs to know what he is walking into before he arrives, because a 1926 bungalow and a 2015 condo have almost nothing in common at the door.
Sailboat Bend and Rio Vista — the oldest housing
Sailboat Bend, just west of downtown along the New River, holds some of the oldest surviving houses in the city, many dating to the 1920s. Rio Vista, south of the river, developed in the same era and expanded through the 1930s and 1940s. Both are historic districts with wood-frame and masonry homes, original doors, and in many cases original door hardware.
Locks you will find: Mortise locks are common in the oldest houses — a heavy rectangular lock body recessed into the edge of the door, with a separate knob spindle and a keyhole below. Rim locks mounted on the interior face of the door also appear. These are durable mechanisms, but replacement parts are scarce and the cylinders often no longer match any key in the house.
On a historic home, the right answer is usually not to rip the hardware out. A mortise lock body can frequently be serviced and a new cylinder fitted, which keeps the original brass on the door and still gives you a key nobody else has. If the door has been re-bored for a modern cylindrical lock at some point, that changes the approach — we look at the door before quoting.
Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, and the post-war neighborhoods
Victoria Park, north of Las Olas, and Coral Ridge, north of Oakland Park Boulevard along the Intracoastal, filled in through the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. These are the classic Fort Lauderdale ranch and mid-century homes — low rooflines, terrazzo floors, jalousie windows in the older ones, carports rather than garages.
Locks you will find: Cylindrical knob locks from Schlage and Kwikset became the residential standard during the post-war building boom, and they are what went on most of these doors. Deadbolts were not standard equipment in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many of these homes had a deadbolt added later, sometimes well and sometimes not.
Two things worth checking on a post-war Fort Lauderdale house. First, whether the deadbolt actually throws its full length into the frame — a bolt that only extends part way is close to useless. Second, whether the strike plate is fastened with short screws into the door jamb trim rather than long screws into the framing behind it. A strike plate held by three-quarter-inch screws will pull straight out under a kick regardless of how good the lock is.
The Las Olas isles and the waterfront homes
The finger islands off Las Olas Boulevard — Nurmi Isles, Seven Isles, Hendricks and Venice Isles, Idlewyld — were dredged and developed largely from the 1930s through the 1950s, with heavy rebuilding since. Many original houses have been torn down and replaced with much larger homes over the last twenty-five years.
Locks you will find: On the rebuilt houses, modern hardware and often multi-point locking systems on tall entry doors — a single handle throw that engages bolts at the top, middle, and bottom of the door. These are excellent locks when adjusted correctly and frustrating when they are not, because a door that has settled even slightly will bind and the handle will not fully engage.
Waterfront homes also have more exterior openings than people count: the front door, a side service door, a garage-to-house door, sliding doors to the pool deck, a gate to the dock. A rekey that covers only the front door leaves most of the property on old keys.
Downtown, Flagler Village, and the condo towers
Downtown Fort Lauderdale, Flagler Village, and the beach corridor added thousands of condominium units from the 1990s onward, with the heaviest construction after 2005. These buildings are managed properties with controlled lobby entry, elevator access control, and individual unit locks.
Locks you will find: Standard residential cylindrical locks and deadbolts on unit doors, sometimes with the building own keyway. Fob or card access at the lobby, garage, and amenity doors, controlled by building management rather than the owner.
The important distinction in a condo: the building controls the common doors, you control your unit door. Buying a unit and assuming the building access control protects you is a mistake — the previous owner unit key still works until you rekey it, and building management usually has no record of how many copies were cut over the years.
Salt air is the local variable
Fort Lauderdale runs from the ocean to well inland, and the difference matters for hardware. Within a mile or two of the beach and along the Intracoastal, salt in the air corrodes lock internals faster than most people expect. A cylinder that turns roughly, a key that has to be jiggled, a deadbolt that binds halfway — these are frequently corrosion, not wear.
Corroded cylinders can often be cleaned, re-pinned, and lubricated with a dry lubricant. Once the cylinder body itself is pitted, replacement is the honest answer. On exterior doors near the water, stainless or heavily plated hardware is worth the difference in cost.
What we do in Fort Lauderdale
- House rekey — new pins in your existing locks so old keys stop working. The right call after a purchase, a tenant move-out, or a lost key.
- Lock change — when the hardware itself is worn, corroded, or wrong for the door.
- Deadbolt installation — the single most cost-effective upgrade on any door that does not have one.
- Home lockout — non-destructive entry. We ask for identification showing the address before we open anything.
- Sliding and patio door locks — latch replacement and secondary blocking hardware.
- Mailbox locks — cluster box cylinders in condo and HOA mailrooms.
Call Broward County Locksmith
Broward County Locksmith serves Fort Lauderdale and the surrounding Broward communities. Licensed and insured. Flat-rate pricing quoted before we dispatch — you know the number before anyone gets in a truck.
Call (954) 888-8800.
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