Presenting

Continued from page 63. Though Ringling started out with buying 20 acres of waterfront land in 1911, by 1917, Ringling would own the Clubhouse and Grounds of the Sarasota Yacht Club. This parcel included 1,200 feet of frontage on Sarasota Bay and 6,000 additional acres of inland property purchased at $2.25 per acre; that would be a little more than a Starbuck's latte today for Bird and Lido Key acreage. Soon, the Ringling family owned all of the keys off the coast of Sarasota, most of which were visible from the magnificent back porch of Ca'd'Zan. Owning the keys was one thing, but getting across to their tropical paradise was a whole other challenge. Who but the owner of a circus would have the resources to recruit his own circus elephants to haul the huge timbers across the bay to build his famous causeway bridge? Where others saw beautiful land only accessible by boat, Ringling applied his master plan to connect an extraordinary village, resort and shopping destination by bridge to the mainland. We now know it as St. Armand's Circle. Ringling's promotion of Sarasota and his gravitation to industry leaders like Edison and Ford also drew him close to the managing director of The Ritz- Carlton at that time. Together, they decided to explore the Sarasota area to find the perfect location for a new luxury hotel. In 1926, on the site where the Long Boat Key Club now resides, Ringling and The RitzCarlton built the most extraordinary resort including the 130-acre, 18-hole golf course that was considered by 64 | FLORIDA HOMES MAGAZINE golf professionals to be one of the finest courses ever created. Valued at $130,000, Ringling planned to donate this course to the city. He continued his grand generosity by donating additional acres to The Ritz-Carlton intended for vegetable and flower gardens. The inside of the resort was adorned with thousands of fittings, doorknobs and bath fixtures shipped down the coast by barge to decorate the hotel. Tragically these knobs went untouched by guests as both Florida and the nation's economy crashed in the late 1920's before the resort was completed. The project was stopped and the entire RitzCarlton structure and grounds crumbled back to the swamp, that was cleared to build it. Abandoned and overgrown, the original site of The Ritz-Carlton sat for over 30 years until 1962, when new investors demolished the remains and built the Long Boat Key Club we see today. Sarasota land values shot up in 1923 with $12 million in transactions occurring every month. The population skyrocketed from 3,000 inhabitants in 1920 to 15,000 in 1926. Between 1924 and 1926, the number of real estate firms in Sarasota went from fifteen to over two hundred! Established as the largest metropolis south of St. Petersburg, Sarasota would suffer devestating loses by 1930. Major hurricanes pummeled the coast killing hundreds and devastating much of the bay front paradise Ringling had created, while the stock market crash of 1929 gutted Florida's economy. Sadly, the unprecedented growth was followed by an unprecedented fall. Ringling's impact aggregated way beyond his immediate investments, buildings, art collection and cultural vision. Together with his teams of artists and architects Ringling developed much of downtown Sarasota, which still stands today. When Ringling died in 1936, he was deep in debt and his estate, valued at $20 million, was cleverly preserved and transferred to the State of Florida including his precious art museum, the Ca'd'Zan home and 32 acres on Sarasota Bay. Ringling played a clever final slight of hand trick by donating his beloved treasures to the State only days before the banks were to foreclose rumors say, thereby leaving

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