Mark Honeywell, founder of Honeywell Heating Controls, bought Boca Chita Key in 1937 and over the next two years built the coral rock structures there. As president of the Committee of One Hundred, a social club for industrialists, he hosted many social events at Boca Chita from 1936 to 1951. After his wife, Olive, died from injuries sustained in a fall at Boca Chita in 1939, Honeywell halted his plans to further develop the island. He sold his estate in 1945, and forty years later the island was added to Biscayne Bay National Park.