Bird Key Real Estate
Beach Homes in Sarasota - Barrier Island Real Estate
About Bird Key
Developed in the 1950's by Arvida, the island is a boater's
paradise, with many of its homes situated directly on the
bay or on deep-water canals. Bird Key is an exclusive enclave
of 500 single-family homes. Today, many of the 1950s-style
homes are being renovated or rebuilt, among them some of
the biggest, most extravagant homes in town. Bird Key also
boasts its own prestigious yacht club.
History
of Bird Key
1959 was a watershed for Sarasota. Just as the completion
of the Mira Mar on Palm Avenue in the early '20s had signaled
our emergence as a fashionable resort, the announcement
the plan to develop Bird Key and John Ringling's other
Sarasota properties (bought for a reported $13.5 million)
indicated that Sarasota's days of being a small, quiet
town were numbered.
In the '20s, Andrew McAnsh, the
developer of the Mira Mar, had been welcomed to town
by a brass band and a wildly
enthusiastic crowd who knew how important his world class
hotel was to Sarasota's future. Pictured frequently in
the press in a vested suit and straw hat, he was labeled
a "town builder" and, pronounced, "I am
sanguine that Sarasota has a great destiny."
The first phase in the grandiose development program was
to be Bird Key, and its promotion surpassed anything ever
seen in Sarasota. Full page ads, slick brochures, television
and radio spots, articles in Life, Time, Sports Illustrated
and other national publications touted Sarasota throughout
the country.
The object of all this promotion
had originally been the spectacular domain of Thomas
Worcester. He added to the
14 acre isle in 1912 by dredging pp 30,000 cubic yards
of sand, planting trees and tropical foliage and building
New Edzell castle, a $100,000 showplace named after the
ancestral Scottish estate of his wife. In a letter to Worcester,
she wrote of Bird Key: "This is what I want for my
old age ... Oh! Words cannot paint the scene imagination
cannot conceive of such grandeur." It was to be their
retirement paradise, but Mrs. Worcester died before its
completion.
In the early 1920s, John Ringling purchased the property
from Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Pickett and linked it to the mainland
with the Ringling Causeway. When Ringling died in 1936,
he bequeathed it to his only sister, Ida Ringling North,
who lived there until she died in 1950.
Bird Key Development Corp., whose
president was Ida's son, circus head John Ringling North,
bought the property
in 1951 with the intention of expanding it to almost 300
acres. Their plan for luxury home sites would offer less
than a decade later, but the Ringling consortium received
a less that enthusiastic reception. During a particularly
acrimonious public hearing, State Rep. James Haley asked
the Ringling group's attorney, "Why don't you go back
to New York and run your own business?" A.B. Edwards,
one of Sarasota's most revered citizens, feared that the
development would hurt the bay. He warned, "When you
interfere with the channels, bars, currents and waterways,
you're liable to have trouble." After several modifications
and a number of hearings, votes and court actions, the
Ringling proposal was shelved.
The approved plat included 511
home sites 291 were on the water with the then futuristic
concept of underground
utilities, a $250,000 yacht club of Colonial Bahamian design
and the most attractive feature of all, "the sheer
beauty of Bird Key's tropical vista."
On Oct. 15, 1960, after one year's work, the project was
completed. Lots were priced from, $9,000 to $32,000 and
sold quickly.
For more information about Sarasota, Florida real estate contact us at 941.323.5605 or email
us.
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