If your future vacation plans take you to the southwest coast of Florida you might find you’ve been lured to the white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico near Sarasota.  Good for you, but while you’re in the area, consider spending a bit of time in one of the country’s premier museums nearby.
                                           
image via wikipedia

Established in 1927, the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art contains more than 10,000 objects including one of the largest collections of Peter Paul Rubens paintings in the world.  In 2007, a $76 million dollar expansion and renovation program was completed making the museum the 16th largest in the U.S.  The complex includes the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum and the famous Ca d’ Zan, one facade of which is pictured above.
                                                            
                                                           image via wikipedia

John Ringling was one of seven brothers, five of whom bought up failing circuses and created what became known around the world as the “greatest show on earth.”  He and his wife, Mabel, chose Sarasota as their winter home and, in fact, John and another man were instrumental in developing much of the city prior to the Florida land bust in the mid 1920s.
      
 image via wikipedia

Mabel Ringling had fallen in love with an area of Venice where they had a home on a lagoon so a Mediterranean Revival style home was built in Sarasota.  The house had 36,000 square feet of living space with 41  rooms and 15 baths.  It cost $1.5 million to build in 1924.  That would be around $20 million in today’s dollars.  It was named Ca d’ Zan–Venitian for House of John.  ( I had to look that up.)  It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mabel Ringling died in 1929.  John’s health began to fail along with the nation’s economy.  He remarried in 1930, lost control of his vast business empire in 1932, was divorced in mid 1936 and died virtually penniless later that year.  He was, however, able to retain his beloved Ca d’ Zan and its surrounding grounds which he bequeathed to the state of Florida.  It and the museum are now governed by Florida State University.