VENICE, Fla. — If John Nolen had ever met Elsa Dempsey, he would have been pleased. She and her family are the kind of residents the celebrated town planner had in mind when he arrived from Cambridge, Mass., in 1925 to plot out a new city on the Gulf of Mexico.

“Before we had kids, Jim and I said it felt like we were living in Club Med,” Dempsey said as she trimmed plants in her yard. Her 1926 home, where her husband grew up, is No. 8 on the Venezia Park District walking tour, which highlights more than two dozen historic homes and buildings in the Mediterranean Revival Style.