Chicago Paper Tells of Mrs. Palmer’s Winter Home on Sarasota Bay
February 23, 1911
With the foresight equal to that one might expect from the shrewdest financier of modern
times, Mrs. Potter Palmer has just closed a deal that gives her complete control of 70,000
of Florida’s richest virgin soil.
Yes, I know what you are going to say: “Some clever businessman closed the deal for
her.”
Nothing of the kind!
To be sure she employed an experienced surveyor to ‘cruise the land’ and make an
estimate of the value of timber contained on the entire tract.
No one will question the fact that she employed an expert to analyze the soils, to
ascertain the percentage of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
magnesium, calcium, iron and sulphur it contained, without which elements not a grain of
wheat or kernel of corn can be raised.
It is a foregone conclusion that all of these figures were submitted to Mrs. Palmer before
a legal document was signed. Furthermore, she inspected personally the entire tract
before instructing her attorney to pass on the titles. Since the legal documents were
recorded that transferred this great body of land to the leader of Chicago’s smart set, there
has not been the slightest rumor afloat among the ‘knowing ones’ that would discredit
Mrs. Palmer’s judgment in closing up this big land deal on the basis mutually agreed
upon.
On the contrary, it is generally understood that Mrs. Palmer has demonstrated shrewdness
in handling business propositions that some of our Napoleons of finance might adopt and
at the same time improve their financial standing.
Mrs. Palmer has traveled from coast to coast and visited nearly all the dreamland spots on
this continent, in search of an ideal location to build a beautiful winter home and beautify
a great landed estate to be handed down to posterity.
She has not only investigated the natural beauties and resources of America’s most
famous resorts and witnessed the great golden sunsets and sapphire skies from the deep
blue waters of the bay of Naples.
Italy’s fairy islands and picturesque mountains were Mrs. Palmer’s favorite places of
interest during her trips abroad.
After spending several weeks and months investigating the natural advantages offered in
various parts of the United States, Mrs. Palmer has decided that beautiful Sarasota Bay on
the Gulf Coast of Florida, with its delightful climate, golden sunsets, palm, orange and
grapefruit groves and stately pines, is the ideal spot, where nature has prepared a paradise
for the winter home builder.
Chicago Paper Tells of Mrs. Palmer’s Winter Home on Sarasota Bay
February 23, 1911
Mrs. Palmer’s holdings are located in Hillsborough and Manatee counties.
The land in Hillsborough County includes a 19,000-acre tract which joins the North
Tampa Land Company’s 21,000-acre tract. This company on the scene before Mrs.
Palmer, naturally had first choice of the desirable lands in this section. Part of the land is
located within four miles of the city limits of Tampa.
The Palmer land in Manatee County is east and south of Sarasota, a famous summer and
winter resort for Floridians on beautiful Sarasota Bay, fifty miles south of Tampa on the
Gulf coast. The Seaboard Air Line Railroad has surveyed and graded an extension of its
line through this property southwest to the town of Venice. Four miles of rails have been
laid to the first station south of Fruitville, named Palmer, in honor of Mrs. Palmer.
She has in Sarasota at present her architect and landscape gardener from Boston, who are
making sketches and gathering information on the ground as a preliminary to the laying
out of a winter home and estate.
The spot selected is at Osprey, twelve miles below Sarasota on the bay, and known as the
Webb place. It is beautifully located on a neck of land with groves of virgin trees on the
property. Mrs. Palmer has stated that the Gulf Coast of Florida with a little cultivation
will rival the fairest spots of Europe, being far prettier in natural beauty than the famous
spots of Italy and Spain, and much more desirable than Pasadena or other California
resorts.
Sarasota Bay, she says is prettier by day or night than the famous Bay of Naples.
Mrs. Palmer intends locating in this section permanently and has induced many of her
friends to buy and improve property near her. Separate houses will be built for members
of her family.
An era of prosperity has advanced this section to such an extent that land values are
increasing rapidly. The land is dotted with groves and cultivated farms. This section
seems to attract Northern people, especially of the better classes.
Hunting, fishing and sailing to one’s heart’s content and many golf courses and beautiful
drives help to make the spot attractive.
Among the Chicago people owning groves in this section are Earl MacNair, Mann, E.H.
Burch, E.C. Bode, W.B. Towles, W.A. Beckler, Mrs. Dodge, Charles S. Painter, Mr.
Obermiller, Owen Burns and W.D. Burch.
These people make annual pilgrimages to this land of milk and honey, where values
double during the year. It is destined to become the rich man’s winter playground for all
time to come.
Chicago Paper Tells of Mrs. Palmer’s Winter Home on Sarasota Bay
February 23, 1911
Florida is growing by leaps and bounds. The iron fingers of commerce are reaching out in
all directions, preparing to take care of the increased production of bounteous crops by
the army of new homebuilders. Marvelous development work is evidenced in all parts of
the state. The music of hammer and saw is heard in all directions.
Legions of workers from the north who haven’t had time to become acclimated to the
glorious Florida winter, have thrown off their heavy woolens for lighter wearing apparel,
rolled up their sleeves and are busy surveying, dredging, cultivating, planting and doing
the work that will pay the largest dividend on the energy and time consumed.
They have all come to Florida with the one fixed purpose, and that is to secure
independence for life. Mingle with them, talk with them and you will be convinced that
they are from the same stock of pioneers that settled the great Mississippi and Missouri
valleys and beyond, built an empire out of the mighty western country, which is now on
the eve of its fullest greatness. Study their faces closely and you will see written there the
characteristics of determination that will win success under any circumstances. They are
home builders that have come to Florida not only to make a comfortable living for
themselves but to lay by a generous annuity for their families after old age shall have
taken away their earning power.
In Florida the new home builder does not experience the hardships of the early settlers in
the West. Here he finds a climate where he can live in a tent during the entire year, if he
so desires. He can ride to the very door of his new home in a Pullman car from Chicago,
in thirty-six hours.
The old-time prairie schooner does not enter into the problem of transportation, as the
seeker of opportunity experienced during the early days of settling up the West.
Pioneering in Florida today is more like an outing as compared with the hardships
experienced by early settlers.
When thoroughly cultivated, Florida will produce more new wealth than any state in the
country similar in size. Today only 6 percent of the 85,000,000 acres of Florida land is
under cultivation, yet millions of new wealth is produced yearly. – Chicago Examiner