In Sarasota, “Money talks, history walks.” I remember when there was a push to save Sarasota High School, long before Dr. Larry Thompson raised the funds to engineer a fantastic makeover of the Collegiate Gothic school which served generations of locals, myself included.
A group of former students devised a bumper sticker that read, “History Cannot Be Bought.” I still have one. On the sticker attached to my car I crossed the “not” part. Indeed, Sarasota history CAN be bought. And has been often, and for quite some time.
But concurrent with the losses, there have been important saves. In Part 1, I mentioned the Sarasota Opera House, opened in 1926 as the Edwards Theatre, the Sarasota Terrace Hotel, built by Charles Ringling and opened the same year, the Orange Blossom Condominiums, built in 1925. All assets to the community also serving as reminders of our storied past.
In 1912, Owen Burns – Sarasota’s first and most prolific builder – was 43 years old, single, and ready to settle down. Enter the young and beautiful Vernona Freeman, who came to Sarasota with her relatives for a vacation in March.
The Sarasota Times, always mindful of reporting on newcomers, wrote that Mr. Leonard L. Hill, “a well- known capitalist and Mrs. Hill a prominent society leader of New York City were guests of Mr. Owen Burns.”
The entourage was accommodated at Burns Villa, formerly the Halton Sanitarium/Hotel, which lodged both Bertha Palmer and Burns when each arrived in Sarasota in 1910.
The lovely Vernona was described as “one of New York’s most charming debutantes and a favorite among Sarasota’s younger set.”