Belleair is a residential town in Pinellas County, Florida, situated on the central Gulf Coast between Clearwater and Largo, where it overlooks Clearwater Harbor and the Intracoastal Waterway. With a population of about 4,300, Belleair is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater metropolitan area, yet it retains the calm, established character of an early Florida resort community. Its median age is notably high, and the town has long attracted retirees and second-home buyers drawn to its golf, waterfront, and small-town governance. The town's identity traces to the late nineteenth century, when Henry Bradley Plant, the railroad and steamship magnate who opened Florida's west coast to tourism, selected the site for a winter golf resort. In 1897 he had six holes laid out with elevated greens, an early seed of what became the Belleair Country Club, which today claims the oldest golf course in Florida. The adjoining Hotel Belleview — later renamed the Belleview Biltmore — was a Gilded Age landmark built of Florida heart pine, and its surviving structure, the Belleview Inn, still anchors the area's historic character. Golf architect Donald Ross later redesigned the club's championship course. Belleair's residential fabric reflects that heritage: leafy streets, estate-style homes, and waterfront properties line the bluffs and canals above Clearwater Harbor. The town functions largely as an owner-occupied, single-family community, and its small municipal government oversees parks, recreation, and public works. Day-to-day life is quiet, with shopping, dining, and services minutes away in Clearwater and Largo. The Gulf of Mexico beaches of Belleair Beach and Belleair Shore lie just across the Belleair Causeway, and the broader Tampa Bay region — St. Petersburg to the south, Tampa to the east — is within a short drive for employment, airports, and entertainment.