2016 Historic Homes Tour: Casa del Carnevale is a "fun house" for its owners

Nancy Morgan looked tiny next to the burly front door, with pocketing iron security gate, of her St. Armands Key home.

Nancy and David Morgan at their home on St. Armands Key. The elgant home is being featured on the March 6 Historic Homes Tour. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-19-2016.

Effortlessly blending the classy and the casual with her poofy white harem pants, teal sweater with an image of a European village, and flip flops, she welcomed me for a tour with, “It’s a fun house.”

It seems that way. Revealing itself in a long procession of surprises that were earnestly explained by David Morgan, Nancy’s soft-spoken but detail-oriented husband, the house is entertaining as well as spectacularly designed and decorated. It’s a reflection of its owners: elegant, but not fussy; refined and relaxed at the same time.

As I snapped photos, we walked up the original staircase and saw where the Morgans opened up the space at the top of it by removing a curving wall. “It had been like standing in a well,” she said.

We saw a guest bedroom and its original, phone-booth-like shower stall. “We have to be careful who we put in this room. They have to be able to fit,” she said.

The dining room on the south side of the house looks out onto a colorful metal mobile sculpture that celebrates the carnival. The south and north wings are connected to the main house by “hyphens,” or short passageways. The living room on the north wing is richly decorated, and looks out onto a patio with pool and bay views.

The rear porch has been converted into an air-conditioned loggia, where one can contemplate the view of the mangroves.

After 30 minutes of walking around, I said to Nancy, “If I forget to tell you later, this is on my Top 5 list of best Sarasota houses.”

The home of David and Nancy Morgan on South Washington Drive in Sarasota will be featured on the March 6 Historic Homes Tour. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-19-2016.

Its also on the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation’s list of 5 houses on its upcoming 26th annual Historic Homes Tour, which focuses on South Washington Drive on St. Armands Key.

Co-chairs Ron McCarty and Joyce Hart showed me the goods during a compact walking tour.

Joyce Hart knows the neighborhood. Her house, which she shares with her husband, fellow interior designer Jeff Hart, is right across the street, and it’s on the tour, also.

The event is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 6 in John Ringling Estates, the circus king’s 1920s boomtime development. Three of the houses are on the National Register of Historic Places.

The home of David and Nancy Morgan on South Washington Drive in Sarasota will be featured on the March 6 Historic Homes Tour. This sunroom originally was an open patio. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-19-2016.

Tickets are $25, $20 for Alliance members, and can be purchased at 96 S. Washington Drive on tour day. Tickets also are available in advance at Davidson Drugs.

“John Ringling Estates is part of the Ringling Isles that John Ringling was developing to make Sarasota a luxury resort destination,” said McCarty. “The five homes are wonderful structures that represent the real estate boom of the 1920.”

In addition to the Morgan house, homes on the tour include:

-- Casa del Mar, also known as the Thomas Case House, 25 S. Washington Drive, Thomas Reed Martin, architect. Built in 1925 and placed on the historic register in 1997, this house will be toured outside, showing the exterior features and the exotic garden.

-- 76 S. Washington Drive. The long-ago home of George and Dulcy Schueler’s was built for John Ringling as a spec house for John Ringling Estates by New York architect Dwight James Baum. It was placed on the Register in 1997. Dulcy Schueler was Mable Ringling’s sister.

The 1925 home of Jeff and Joyce Hart is among several on John Ringling's orignal St. Armands Key subdivision that will be featured on the March 6 Historic Homes Tour. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-10-2016.

-- 96 S. Washington. Next door is a house built on speculation in 1926 for John Ringling by Baum. It has been reported that Ida Ringling North, John Ringling’s only sister, lived here before she moved into the Bird Key mansion, New Edzell Castle, McCarty said. It is now the Hart Residence.

-- 236 S. Washington. “This is another fantastic, early 1926 Mediterranean revival house with great charm. We are not sure of the architect, but it looks so much like Thomas Reed Martin’s work,” McCarty said.

At 139 S. Washington, the Morgans explained that their house is known as Casa del Carnevale because previous owner Joe McKennon was a historian of the craft.

McKennon at one time said it was the house that the carnival built. After serving in the Army from 1942 to 1944, he married Marian and in 1946 they formed a tent repertory company, “Repertoire,” which toured the country for four years producing plays. “We could seat 3,200 customers and were the largest tent show in the nation,” McKennon told the Herald-Tribune in 1978. “We traveled in 12 trucks and lived in a trailer.”

They retired to the St. Armands house, which was built in 1937 by Charles Leigh, who co-founded the Lavoris mouthwash company in 1902. Marion Leigh McKennon was his daughter. Thus it is officially known as the Leigh-McKennon House. Paul Bergman was the builder; he also built the Crosley Mansion.

The house was featured as the 2003 “Jewels on the Bay” designer showcase home, two years after Joe McKennon died in 2001 at the age of 94. Marian McKennon, a champion of the Sarasota Opera, as well as a sculptor, painter, producer of plays and maker of marionettes, died in 1998 at the age of 98. They were married for 54 years; she was of high society, he was a former circus roustabout.

The Morgans, with a long resume of preserving and renovating old houses, bought it in 2004.

“Back when I was Nancy Frimbach,” Nancy Morgan told the Herald-Tribune in 2008, “I grew up on Siesta Key and graduated from Riverview High. In later years, when my mother was living at Plymouth Harbor, I used to bring her for walks on these lovely streets off St. Armands Circle. She lived in Sarasota from the 1940s, and knew many of the people who once owned these gracious homes ... Marian McKennon was one.”

The Morgans soon saw the need to make some changes.

Nancy Morgan leads a private tour of her St. Armands Key home, which will be featured on the March 6 Historic Homes Tour. Behind her is her husband, David Morgan, in blue shirt, and Ron McCarty, co-chairman of the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation tour. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-16-2016.

“It was a piano nobile (noble level) house. Mr. Leigh and his wife would come down (from the north) with the cook, the maid and the butler/chauffeur,” said Nancy Morgan, standing on the second level. “They lived on the first floor, and the Leighs lived up here. The reason we reversed things was, we bought this house, and after about a week, I realized that the cook, the maid and the butler/chauffeur were me. I was carrying all the stuff up to the kitchen. So I was thinking, maybe we ought to reverse this.”

The Morgans hired architect Wm. Thorning Little, builder Pat Ball and landscape architect Michael Gilkey to transform the house from an antiquated 4,000 square feet to about 7,800, not including terraces with views of bay and mangrove islands, and the new multiple-car garage.

Of special note is the woodwork in the additions, particularly the north living room. It’s made from a cypress log, 20 feet long and 5 feet in diameter, that was harvested from the bottom of a Louisiana swamp.

“It took several installations” to get it right, David Morgan said.

The house celebrates the entertainment arts with a large collection of circus and carnival posters and memorabilia. Tiles above the fireplace in the living room are decorated with raised images of performers.

“This house is right out of Architectural Digest with its beautiful touches,” said McCarty.

“This house is spectacular. And it is due to both of the Morgans’ ” eye for design and decor, Joyce Hart added.

Before heading on to the next house on our quick preview tour, I asked Nancy Morgan, “Did I mention that this is one of my top 5 houses in Sarasota?”