Constructed on this site in 1888 by Mrs. Hannah Cummings and her daughter Grace, Myrtle Cottage was the first house in the area known as Melbourne Beach. Its construction was made difficult by the lack of roads or docks, and while it was being built the Cummings family camped on the beach at the nearby House of Refuge, a shipwreck lifesaving station. After its completion, the family lived in the large house and took in boarders, including Major Cyrus Graves, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Whiting, Mr. Alfred Wilcox, and others who helped found Melbourne Beach. Myrtle Cottage was always an important part of the community, hosting church services and Sunday school classes until 1892, when the Community Chapel was built, and again when chapel repairs or bad weather required temporary use of the house. In later years, the house served as a rooming house for students from the Florida Institute of Technology. In 1982, it caught fire and burned to the ground as a large number of people watched in dismay, though residents of Melbourne Beach still fondly remember the Grand Old Building.