About Sarasota, Florida (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sarasota is a city in the central west coast of Florida, USA. Sarasota Bay and several barrier islands (or "keys") facing the Gulf of Mexico are within its city limits. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 52,715. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 54,349. It is the county seat for Sarasota County.

Sarasota began to acquire a reputation as an artists' colony in the early 1920s. In the years that followed, artists of many disciplines, including writers, performers, musicians, and architects, have been attracted to the community. Sarasota is the home of Florida West Coast Symphony, founded by Ruth Cotton Butler in 1949, and its famous Sarasota Music Festival which draws students, musicians, professors, and lovers of chamber music from around the world for a three-week event of international importance; Sarasota Ballet; Sarasota Opera; The Players; and numerous other musical, dance, artistic, and theatrical venues.

In 1926 A. B. Edwards built a versatile theater that could be adapted for vaudeville or as a movie house. In the early 1950s an entire historic Italian theater, the Asolo, was purchased for the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art—to be rebuilt for performances of plays and opera—by A. Everett "Chick" Austin, the first director of the museum. The theater was built in 1798 and disassembled during the 1930s. Adolph Loewi, a Venetian collector and dealer, purchased the theater and stored it in his personal collection until the purchase and shipment to Sarasota for the museum. Later the theater was used for a burgeoning foreign film club that eventually expanded and built its own theater at Burns Court near downtown Sarasota. In the 1960s the Van Wezels made it possible for the city government to build a signature performing arts hall on the bay front that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin team under the direction of his wife, Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, who selected the distinctive, purple sunset color. Later, Stuart Barger designed and oversaw the construction of another Asolo. It is a multi-theater complex, farther east on the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art property, built around a rococo, historic Scottish theater, that was shipped overseas also. The new complex provides several other venues—traditional and experimental—as well as offices and study facilities for students of Florida State University's theater arts and film program.

The community also is renowned as the home of the Sarasota School of Architecture, a variant of mid-century modernist architecture incorporating elements of both the Bauhaus and Wright's "organic" architecture. The Sarasota School developed as an adaptation to the area's sub-tropical climate, using newly emerging materials manufactured or implemented following World War II. Philip Hiss was the driving force of this movement. Fellow architects in the adaptive designs were Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell. The second generation of the school includes Gene Leedy, Jack West, Victor Lundy, Mark Hampton, James Holiday, Ralph Zimmerman and William Zimmerman; Carl Abbott, Edward J. "Tim" Seibert, and Frank Folsom Smith still practice in the community.

Rudolph's Florida houses attracted attention in the architectural community, and he started receiving commissions for larger works such as the Jewett Art Center at Wellesley College. He took over at Yale in 1958, shortly after designing the school's building, and stayed for six years until he returned to private practice.

Sarasota is home to Mote Marine Laboratory, a premier marine rescue, research, and aquarium; Marie Selby Botanical Gardens with its renowned orchid collection; G-Wiz Museum, a science museum of hands on-appeal to children of all ages; Sarasota Jungle Gardens, which carries on early tourist attraction traditions; as well as many historic sites and neighborhoods.

Colleges in Sarasota include New College of Florida, a highly acclaimed public liberal arts college which serves as the honors college for the state; Keiser College of Sarasota, a private college offering majors in high-demand fields, Ringling School of Art and Design, a school of visual arts and design; and a satellite campus of both Eckerd College (based in St. Petersburg) and University of South Florida (based in Tampa). Several two-year colleges include Sarasota County Technical Institute and Manatee Community College.

For such a small community, Sarasota has many historic sites. The official list is growing constantly as residents realize the value of preserving their built environment and explore their local history.

Although many of the oldest modest structures built in Sarasota have been lost to the wrecking ball, the concentration of the most significant luxurious historic residences built during the 1920s boom period along the northern shore of Sarasota Bay have survived. This string of homes, built on extremely large parcels of high land along the widest point of the bay, is anchored by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art at its center.

Many of the distinct Sarasota neighborhoods are beginning to establish historic districts ahead of pressure for redevelopment. A surprising number of eligible structures remain and encouragement to preserve is increasing.

<<Back To Sarasota, Florida Bed and Breakfasts