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REAL HISTORY: Sarasota s first two luxury hotels Part I: Mira Mar
Andrew McAnsh s Mira Mar Apartments, hotel and casino offered the essential ingredient for Sarasota to be a go-to city.
Jeff LaHurd
This is the first of a 2-part series
No matter how beautiful a Florida community happened to be, visitors would do no more than pass thru without proper lodging to prompt them to stay. In Sarasota, which offered all the essential ingredients to be a go-to city, the lack of first-class accommodations was a glaring deficit.
Enter Andrew McAnsh, a Scot by way of Chicago who came for a visit in the early 1920s, just before that eras real estate boom was about to skyrocket.
A Bertha Palmer Biography has been named a must read for Sarasota residents. The biography is titled, “Suncoast Empire: Bertha Honoré Palmer, Her Family and the Rise of Sarasota”.
In recognition of the centennial of Sarasota County, the library system has chosen “Suncoast Empire: Bertha Honoré Palmer, Her Family and the Rise of Sarasota” as its One Book One Community selection for 2021.
Frank A. Cassell’s 2017 biography tells the story of Bertha Palmer, who was one of the wealthiest women in America when she traveled in 1910 to the small settlement of Sarasota from Chicago at age 61. Over the years, she invested in cattle and farming, turned marshlands, pine forests and tropical jungles into neighborhoods. She was a society queen who advocated for social reform and succeeded as an entrepreneur.
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.”
in illinois. it perish the thought you tell the truth. i ve never talked about raising the tax. reporter: it took a few minutes to get rolling. once the gloves stayed off, it stayed that way. outlined in the attack ads that became the trade mark of this campaign painting bill brady as extreme on social issues and reform. brady saying quinn has failed to set himself apart from rod blagojevich since taking over for governor in 2009. illinois needs a leader. pat quinn s proven he s not up for the job. i have a specific plan to cut the budget. i don t want to lose a generation of children in easily. my opponent wants to cut the education budget by $1.26 billion. that would fire 20,000 teachers in our state, cut scholarships for students who want to go to college by the tens of thousands. that s the reckless way to go. reporter: both simply ignored the actual questions they were asked to debate. particularly the governor choosing instead to hammer away at their issues of