Sarasota, FL - Ca d'Zan

My, did we have a fun day today. One of the main attractions in Sarasota is The Ringling, a complex of buildings, gardens, statues and a magnificent miniature circus. We got up early so we could get there at 10:00 when they opened. There are 3 major attractions here at the Ringling: the home of Mable and John Ringling, one of the founders of the Ringling Bros. Circus, the Circus Museum with a massive miniature of a circus, and a marvelous Museum of Art, the 16th largest collection in the US. We bought our tickets and decided to visit the home, Ca d’Zan, first, since we can get lost in museums and might run out of time for the home.

Well, first, who was John Ringling? He started poor, amassed a great fortune, became a world-renown celebrity as he traveled abroad extensively but died with $311 in the bank. He was born in 1866 in McGregor, Iowa, the 5th of 7 sons and 1 daughter to 2 German immigrants. There wasn’t much entertainment in small towns in the Midwest in the late 1800’s except a traveling circus which enthralled the Ringling brothers. They practiced singing and dancing, they played musical instruments and finally they began a small touring company of touring performers and a small circus act. (John Ringling is the one with the hair.)

Officially called the Ringling Bros. United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals or, more commonly, The Ringling Bros. Circus, it grew and also purchased other small touring circuses and added other acts. John was the advance man who would precede the circus, make all the arrangements in the next towns on the tour, put up posters, find sites for the circus, etc. By 1889 the show had a seating capacity of about 4,000 as it played throughout the Midwest. Admission was 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children. John also proposed using the trains to move the circus rather than horse-drawn wagons.

Here’s a picture of a miniature circus - actually this is a picture of part of the circus. Since it was so big, I couldn’t get it all into the picture. I never imagined that a circus would take so much space, employ so many people and be such a large operation. Obviously the back lot is much larger than the Big Top itself where the performances take place.

And, here’s another picture to show the back lot. The big Top is the tent in the foreground.

In 1907, the Ringlings finally purchased their largest competitor -- Barnum & Bailey Circus for a price of $400,000. It then was named the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Combined Shows, The Greatest Show On Earth®. Obviously it was a small city moving around the US and Canada, a small town with huge tents, poles, 1200 people, rhinos, giraffes, lots of elephants, horses, and all the things these need - especially food. Sometimes they would play only one day in a town but they also put on two or more shows in a town. First to move into a town were the background people, those who took care of the performers: the cooks (who served 3 meals a day for the 1200 people in a tent), the blacksmith, a medical team, the vets, the saddlery, the barbershop, some of the set-up people etc. They would do this often while the circus was actually performing in the last town. Then the circus itself loaded up after the performance and arrived in the next town. Huge tents would go up, the traveling cars for the animals were set up, food was brought in, other tents were set up - the performers change tent, the side-show, the Big Top, the midway and others. Then, as the circus Set it up, perform, take it down and move to the next town for the same process. I imagine the set-up took longer than the show itself.

Food for the performers and roadies along with the food for the animals was all purchased in the local area. What a boon for business. John Ringling’s brothers died off within a few years of each other and he was the sole owner of the circus until he died in 1936 when his nephew took over and then the nephew’s cousin. However, by 1956, the circus had slowly faded as an institution in America replaced by the TV. On July 16, 1956 the last performance under the big top took place in Pittsburg, PA. LIFE magazine wrote that ‘a magical era had passed forever.’ Well, they were right for a few month until a new owner bought the circus and it is still going strong even now.

Ok, that ’s the Ringling Bros. history, but what about John and Mable Ringling who married in 1905. Because her family had ties to the Sarasota area, the couple began wintering there and chose Sarasota as the spot for their magnificent home, Ca d’Zan on 20 acres of waterfront property. Ringling not only ran the family’s mammoth circus operations, he also invested in Florida real estate, oil production, banks and other businesses. He amassed quite a fortune and he and Mable traveled the globe purchasing a large collection of Baroque art.

To ‘store’ this art they built a 56-room mansion, completed in 1925 at a stunning cost of $1.5 million dollars ($21 million in today’s dollars). Here they installed a $50 thousand dollar organ and their $35 thousand dollar bedroom set. On the roof are tiles from Barcelona from buildings slated for demolition to enlarge the streets. He brought the tiles to America in 2 barges. Mable Ringling even had a gondola at the dock ready to give her and her guests rides along the shore.

Here is a picture of the back which faced the bay. Nicely they had tables and chairs set up for tourists to enjoy the view here also.

They also built a fabulous museum to house the rest of the art. But Mable died in 1928, the stock market crash of 1929 erased much of his fortune, a second marriage was a failure and when he died in 1936, the rumors were that he had only $311 in the bank. However, to preserve his home and art museum from his creditors, he willed it to the State of Florida. The Art Museum flourished but the home fell into disrepair until the early part of this century when Florida transferred the house to Florida State University and provided $40 million to renovate it and build some new buildings. Finally in 2002, the home reopened for tours with the leaky roof fixed, the furnishings refinished and the interior doors regilded.

Here are some of the pictures I took of the inside of the house. The formal living room looking out over the bay.

Ceiling tiles in the ball room - note they are all pictures of dancing couples.

The music room with a huge organ off to the right.

A place setting at the dining table. Gee, I only put out a spoon, fork and a knife.

The ceiling in the dining room which looks like wood but is plaster formed and painted to look like wood. There are even striations in it.

An, of course, the view.

After we had walked through the house, we toured the grounds and the special gardens. At the end of one garden, The Secret Garden, Gary discovered the secret: the graves where John and Mabel Ringling are buried, not marked on the map of the Ringling, with no sign telling tourists that they are here. Very secret but, if you come here, don’t miss this.

Time to head on to the Circus Museum - maybe after a bite of lunch. 

Sarasota, FL - Under the Big Top #1

After touring Ca d’Zan, we headed into the Tibbals Learning Center and the Original Circus Museum. Learning Center? Ah-h-h, who wants to tour a learning center? Oh, but wait, there is a marvelous treasure in here - a huge miniature circus with:

        42,143 items, not including tent pegs and ropes and other teensy tiny parts

        8 large tents with poles

        1500 workers and performers

        7000 folding chairs - that actually fold

        500 hand-carved animals

        152 circus wagons

        and dishes and tableware to serve 900 people

These can all be packed into the 55 railroad cars that have also been hand-crafted.

As we were walking in to see all this, another older gentleman walked in looking like a tourist in his plaid shirt and jeans. The guard leaned in to us and whispered that Mr. Tibbals was walking in. I rushed over and asked if he minded if ‘I took his picture. Or - are you on you way to something?’ ‘Sure, you can take my picture but I’m on my way to the bathroom.’ Oh, I’ll get your picture later.’ and he took off. I wandered in to see his miniatures and got so intrigued that by the time I got back out to the entry, he was long gone. All I got was this picture of a picture which shows him with a small miniature pail from his miniature circus.

He’s an amazing man, just as John Ringling built a circus, so did Howard Tibbals - but his was much smaller at 3/4” to the foot. Born in 1936, the year that John Ringling died, he watched circuses perform from the age of 3 and became fascinated with them. For his 12th birthday, he was given a lathe and jigsaw and thus began his passion. He began with the big Top in 1956 and then a wagon out of balsa wood in 1959. He ‘completed’ most of it in 1974 and began to exhibit it in 1982 at the World’s Fair in Knoxville. He wanted to call it “The Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus’ since that was the model he used but the Ringlings refused so he called it the Howard Circus. In 2004 he set up his circus in its current location at the Tibbals Learning Center. Here is also a full-scale model of his workshop.

Is it all accurate? Absolutely. He collected almost one million photographs and measured historic wagons, train cars, and other circus equipment to construct his scale model. You can see open-air bathrooms, trapeze artists swinging through the air in the big top, butchers cutting up meat for the animals, an infirmary tent, every scene is accurate and, in its own way, tells a different part of the circus story. Inside the ticket taker’s wagon is a scale model cash register with scale model dollar bills and coins. Can you see these? Nope, but Tibbals knows that they are there and they are accurate.

Here’s a small section of the food tent for the circus people. Note the detail. All of the facial expressions, all of the characteristics, all of the clothing is different. There are knives, forks, spoons, salt and pepper shakers, plates, cups and saucers, benches on sawhorses, glasses - everything necessary to the feeding of a multitude.

The perimeter of the model is approximately 450 feet, or the length of 1.5 football fields. The area is large enough to park 11 school busses. You can see open-air bathrooms, trapeze artists swinging through the air in the big top, to butchers cutting up meat for the animals, every scene is accurate and, in its own way, tells a different aspect of the circus story. The first question you ask as you walk around the 450’ perimeter of the model is: ‘Was the circus really this large? Were there really this many people?’ Yes and yes. In fact, Tibbals says that it should be bigger.’

This is the scene inside the big top. The trapeze artists swing and the bareback rider swings around the circle.

To say that Gary and I were fascinated by this miniature circus is an understatement. section showing how the circus unloaded the wagons from the trail. Note the guy leading the tongue of the wagon to ensure that it came straight down the ramps and the team of horses actually pulling it off the railroad cars with the ropes.

On the second is a wall devoted to circus history from the Romans to the current circuses traveling around the country. There are several small movie screens with pictures of elephants and giraffes walking off the railroad cars, lots of clowns making the crown laugh, trapeze artists swinging through the air. The museum, the miniature circus, the circus paraphernalia, the history and all the circus artifacts make this a fascinating museum.

If you are coming to Florida, make a side trip to stop at the Ringling - and allow more than a day. We actually left today at 4:45, after buying our 2nd day tickets so that we could return tomorrow to visit the Art Museum which we haven’t even looked at yet. .