Ca' d'Zan - Satellite Oddity - Sarasota, Florida, USA
N 27° 22.979 W 082° 33.859
17R E 345313 N 3029826
Ca'd'Zan - Former palatial winter home of John and Mable Ringling, the Circus magnate. Featured in Virtual Globetrotting. Located in Sarasota, Florida, the Circus capitol of the World.
Waymark Code: WMPPTM
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 10/03/2015
Views: 5
The grandest mansion on Florida’s Suncoast. Today it stands as one of America’s architectural treasures.
Ca'd'Zan ( House of John ) The House:
"The 36,000 square-foot house sits on a waterfront site 1,000 feet long and 3,000 feet deep. It is five stories tall and has a full basement. Constructed from terra cotta “T” blocks, concrete and brick, it is covered with stucco and terra cotta and embellished with glazed tile. Decorative tile medallions, balustrades and ornamental cresting in soft red, yellow, green, blue and ivory highlight the pink patina of the stucco and terra cotta exterior." Text Source: (
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Taken from Wikipedia -
"Cà'd'Zan, a Mediterranean Revival residence in Sarasota, Florida, was the winter home of Mable and John Ringling (roughly translated the name means "house of John"). He was a circus magnate, a developer, and art collector. Lovers of the Venetian esthetic, the Ringlings chose the site overlooking Sarasota Bay for its vista, which reminded them of the lagoon of their favorite city. The Ringlings had been renting the residence of Mary Louise and Charles N. Thompson on their extensive Shell Beach parcel, and decided to purchase some of the land to build a permanent winter headquarters that would include a residence on the bay and a museum for their extensive art and artifact collection. An art school was planned to abut the museum, but it never was built. Mable's rose garden was the first completed portion of the complex.
Details of the Cà d'Zan bay front facade, also showing a portion of the tower on the eastern elevationArchitectural details of the house reflect influences ranging from the Venetian Doge's palace to the tower of the first Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Items collected by the couple during their international travels were featured in the residence.
The design of the residence was commissioned from New York architect Dwight James Baum in 1924 and it was built by the Sarasota developer, Owen Burns. The work was completed in 1926, as the Florida boom collapsed and the bank failures that would lead to the crash of 1929 began. The name of the residence is Venetian for House of John. The original cost to build the home was $1.5 million. Adjusting for inflation, that converts to approximately $16 million in 2006 dollars.
The residence was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1980s. It is among the adjacent Shell Beach structures listed together as a historic district, which includes the Ellen and Ralph Caples residence, the John and Mable Ringling Museum, Cà d'Zan, the Hester Ringling Landcaster Sandford residence, and the Edith and Charles Ringling residence.
The residence was restored in 2002 under the direction of Bill Puig. Most details of the original construction and decoration were restored faithfully except some of the interior color schemes." Text Source: (
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