The McLeod House

Built around 1915, this house is most remembered for the McLeod family, who lived here from 1941 to 1998. Oscar Penn McLeod was born to a pioneer family near Perry, Florida, received a teaching certificate in 1918, and married Mayo Artie Reams at the Greenville Baptist Pastorium in Greenville, Florida, on September 8, 1918. He later completed a correspondence course in higher accounting that led to a CPA degree. After moving to Inverness in 1927, he worked as a bookkeeper for many local businesses and with the Work Projects Administration as superintendent, supervisor, and timekeeper for Citrus County school construction projects. In the 1940s he was appointed an auditor for the State of Florida Attorney General’s Office, and that work led to his being hired by John Ringling North of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus in Sarasota, where he worked until his death. He also served as a school trustee in Citrus County while raising 12 children here, 10 boys and 2 girls. For 28 years, a McLeod boy was on the Citrus High School football team, and many Citrus County children remembered going to the house because there was always somebody in the yard to play with. O. P. McLeod died in 1947, and Mayo McLeod died in 1982. The property was purchased by Richard and Sandra Dixon in 1999 and transformed into a boutique and tea room while retaining the name The McLeod House.

Inverness, Florida · United States