Renovating a circus mansion Ringling's home reopens after $15 m

SARASOTA, Fla. -- The velvet curtains are rich and plush again, the gilded doorways are buffed to a luster, and the silver Tiffany vase which was John and Mable Ringling's wedding present is stuffed with fresh pink roses.

Ca d'Zan, the fabled winter home of the circus magnate and his bride is again bustling with glamorous parties and awed visitors -- 77 years after the terra cotta palace on the Sarasota waterfront first hosted the rich and famous.

After a six-year shutdown for a $15 million renovation -- 10 times the original cost of the mansion -- the home re-opened to the public in late April.

"I've met people here who no longer brought their friends by because of its condition," says John Wetenhall, executive director of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. "It really sparkles like the Venetian palace it was meant to be."

Ca d'Zan -- which means "House of John" in Venetian dialect -- was the Ringling's 22,000-square-foot winter home and was bequeathed to the state when Ringling died in 1936 at the age of 70.

The house sits on the 60-acre, waterfront grounds of the museum which houses the couple's art collection and a museum dedicated to the circus.

Showcasing artwork

Ringling left a $1.2 million endowment to care for the property, but over the years the money sat in state coffers and the house slowly deteriorated from the elements and the steady stream of visitors.

Now under the control of Florida State University, the restoration of Ca d'Zan is part of an ambitious plan to expand the art and circus museums and relocate Sarasota's Asolo theater there. The Ringlings' art collection is considered one of the top 20 collections in the nation, Wetenhall says.

The renovations were paid for with $12 million in state funds and $3 million in private donations.

While famed for the art it houses and the lifestyle it documents, museum officials say Ca d'Zan also tells the story of the Ringlings, who despite their wealth and fame found society snubbing them at first.

"One of the things that was talked about the Ringlings was because they were circus people, they had no taste," says Aaron DeGroft, the chief curator at museum who wrote his doctoral dissertation on John Ringling.

The Ringlings had wanted to build their winter home about 100 miles north in Tarpon Springs, then a sport fishing village. Seen as "new money," they found themselves unwelcome by the upper crust there, DeGroft says.

Chicago socialite Bertha Potter Palmer welcomed the Ringlings to Sarasota, and the couple soon staked out their waterfront plot near her winter home.

Living at first in a modest white clapboard house, Mable Ringling waded through the swamp in high boots and carrying a rifle to protect herself from snakes to begin her plans for Ca d'Zan.

Ca d'Zan was not just a party house, DeGroft notes. John Ringling knew the value of Florida's waterfront and invested millions of dollars in nearby St. Armand's Circle, Bird Key and Lido Key.

Investing in property

Ringling brought potential investors to the home, putting them up in spacious guest rooms with sweeping views of the water.

The house's beauty remains a testament to Mable Ringling's determination and style, DeGroft says.

She took her Brownie camera on tours of Europe to document the architecture and decor of great homes she hoped to copy in Ca d'Zan's 32 rooms. Those photographs lead the restoration decades later.

The Ringlings chose furnishings carefully for their home, which soon drew the likes of Rudolph Valentino, New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Will Rogers and fellow showman Flo Ziegfield.

John Ringling's bedroom furniture was crafted by Antoine Krieger, the finest furniture maker in Paris from the 1820s to 1850s, while Mable's was by Francois Linke, one of the most celebrated cabinet makers of the 19th century.

"It was a real reflection of who they were, which is someone who definitely knew the value of a dollar, but existed in a monied world," DeGroft says.

Amid the grandeur of the sitting room, a portrait of John Ringling shows him wearing a plain brown suit.

Will Rogers once complained the portrait wasn't accurate, noting it was the only time he'd ever seen John Ringling with "his hand in his own pocket," DeGroft recounts.

Sadly, Mable Ringling didn't have much time to enjoy her new home.

She died in 1929, at the age of 54, from diabetes and Addison's disease. DeGroft says little is still known about her. Diaries and letters which might have existed disappeared when John Ringling remarried a young socialite 18 months after Mable's death.

John Ringling died of strokes and pneumonia less than seven years later.

Wetenhall says the endowment languished in the state's hands, growing to just $1.8 million by 2000. "Under a mattress it would have done better than that," he jokes.

In less than two years under the university's control, the endowment is now at $4 million.