SARASOTA -- Based on the historical evidence, including a classic Spanish Eclectic bungalow that has just come on the market at 537 Madison Court in Sarasota, Owen Burns was a man of vision and achievement.
The house at 537 Madison Court as it appeared before its renovation in 1982. The house was completed in 1926 during the last months of the Florida Land Boom. Courtesy photo.
His resume is impressive. He was successful in his family’s business, the manufacture and marketing of home safes. In April 1910, he came to Sarasota from Chicago for a fishing trip and decided to buy 75 percent of the city for $35,000. The 41-year-old apparently saw some potential in the “sleepy fishing village” — which indeed it was, as opposed to the one you discovered a few years ago.
Owen Burns, Sarasota's first large-scale developer, built many houses in the Laurel Park and Washington Park subidivisions south of downtown Sarasota during the 1920s real estate boom. The house on the right, at 537 Madison Court, has just come on the market at $700,000, listed by Lynn Robbins of Coldwell Banker. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 7-10-2015.
In 1912, he met the lovely, 18-year-old Vernona Hill Freeman. She was vacationing here with her family, and when they stepped on the train back to Massachusetts, Owen jumped aboard with the intent of winning her heart, and her family’s approval. He had 1,300 miles of rail in which to get the job done. More than enough.
After a storybook June wedding in Sarasota, Burns set about creating a modern city. His contemporary, the famous Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer, concentrated on agricultural interests after coming to Sarasota in February 1910 and building a home at Spanish Point in Osprey. But Burns chose to take the frontier edge off the village by erasing the muddy bay shore with seawalls. He paved streets and developed both residential and commercial properties.
Burns “probably did more to make Sarasota a successful city than any other single individual,” wrote historian Jeff LaHurd in his 2006 book “Sarasota: A History.”
Burns was an established developer by the time the Florida Land Boom arose in the early 1920s. In 1924-25, he developed Laurel Park and Washington Park, middle-class subdivisions for merchants and working professionals just south of downtown. He started Citizens Bank and the Sarasota Yacht Club. He teamed with John Ringling to develop the keys.
He used his two sand dredges to fill shorelines — no longer legal — and create saleable real estate.
Also in 1925, he built the cottages of Burns Court and the El Vernona Hotel.
It was all happening fast, too fast. Across the state, real estate speculation was rampant. Buying property “binders” that required just 10 percent down, the investors’ goal was to resell the binders at a profit and get rich quick. A lot of people did get rich, but they failed to get out. Instead of taking their winnings from the Florida land casino, they re-invested on more binders.
Eventually, a number of factors caused the speculative bubble to burst. Bottom line, “we ran out of suckers,” said one real estate promoter, as investors with barely enough money for gas turned U.S. 1 black with a caravan of northbound Model-T Fords. By the time a fierce hurricane ravaged Miami and shook Sarasota in September 1926, the boom was all but dead. The hurricane finished the job. subber
Burns lost his fortune and much of his land holdings. John Ringling, with whom Burns had a business dispute (Burns lost in court), picked up the El Vernona for a song and renamed it the John Ringling Hotel.
Burns’ final act was to open a fruit business, selling guava and citrus products. When Burns died in August 1937 at his home near the bay, the Sarasota Herald reported that he “was a leader in practically every movement that saw Sarasota grow from a fishing village to one of Florida’s leading resort cities.” Burns was 67. (Ringling died nine months earlier, having also lost his fortune by the time of his death).
Washington Park In 1925-26, at the peak of the boom, Burns built a fine house, designed by and for architect Thomas Reed Martin, on Oak Street at Madison Court in Washington Park. Two doors to the north, at 537 Madison, another Burns-built house went up, with architecture that was inspired by Addison Mizner’s work in Palm Beach and Boca Raton, but on a much smaller scale.
That modest house bears little resemblance to the structure there now, which has just come on the market at $700,000 through Lynn Robbins of Coldwell Banker.
Seller Walter Baldwin moved into the house four years ago after selling the Burns house on the corner of Madison and Oak. In 1982, interior decorator Terry Rowe bought the property from its longtime owners and gutted and rebuilt the house, which was in “deplorable condition,” Baldwin said.
Rowe, who died two years ago, added an upstairs master suite to what had been a one-story house, as well as a distinctive chimney. Rowe improved the landscape with low walls that define the front yard and a privacy wall in the middle of what had been a shared double driveway.
The lion statue in the front yard is Rowe’s personal trademark.
The house also has a distinctive mauve color that is not far removed from the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on the color scale.
The entry porch at the front corner of the house was enclosed. The new front door is on the side, entered from the driveway, which is framed in an archway of bougainvillea.
The garage once had primitive barn doors; that building, too, was remodeled.
Inside everything is new. Rowe gutted the house, leaving only the exterior walls.
“Terry was schooled in architecture,” Baldwin said. “He was from a very poor family, and was three credit hours from his architecture degree when he had to drop out of school.
“Terry always worked with architects on all his projects,” Baldwin added, noting that Rick Garfinkel worked on this house. “If you knew Terry, you know he always followed code to a ‘T.’ ”
The galley kitchen is thoroughly modern, and was designed by Baldwin just a year ago. The neighbor across the street, custom carpenter and cabinet maker Paul Hafner, did the work. Furnishings are classic modernist pieces, such as an Eames lounge chair and ottoman, swan chairs by Arne Jacobsen and an Eero Saarinen “Tulip” one-legged breakfast table with Harry Bertoia side chairs. They are not included in the house’s list price, “but everything’s for sale,” said Baldwin.
Besides the house, Baldwin placed high value on the neighborhood, where Burns built about a dozen houses and which is within walking distance of Main Street, Payne Park and the courthouse.
“Everyone is just as pleasant as can be,” said Baldwin, a 35-year resident. “Every month or six weeks, we all go out to dinner.”
