The Chidsey Library or Chidsey Building is a historic building located in Sarasota, Florida, at 701 North Tamiami Trail. The building was home to the city's first public library from 1941 to 1976.
Location
20 m
Art Center Sarasota is the community art center in Sarasota, Florida. The Center includes four rotating exhibition galleries and a sculpture garden. It is member-funded and offers adult and youth classes, workshops, and programs.
The center was established in 1926 as the Sarasota Art Association.
86 m
The Sarasota Municipal Auditorium, listed in the National Register as Municipal Auditorium-Recreation Club, is a historic multi-purpose facility built-in 1938. It is located at 801 Tamiami Trail North and is owned/operated by the municipal government of Sarasota, Florida. The auditorium has 10,000 square feet of exhibit space on its main floor and also contains an Art Deco style stage measuring 1,500 square feet.
The auditorium has been used for many community functions and recreational activities. It has also been known as the Sarasota Exhibition Hall and the Sarasota Civic Center Exhibition Hall. The auditorium is located on a large parcel of public land that is reserved for civic, the government uses. On February 24, 1995, the complex was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
120 m
Sarasota Music Festival is an American classical music festival held annually during the month of June in Sarasota, Florida, under the sponsorship of the Sarasota Orchestra. The festival was founded in 1965 by conductor Paul Wolfe, who remained director of the festival through the summer of 2006. After Wolfe's retirement, conductor and composer Robert D. Levin became the festival's director. In 1984 it was designated by the Florida State Legislature as the "Official Teaching and Performing Festival of the State of Florida." In 2016 Jeffrey Kahane was appointed the festival's Music Director.
Like the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival not only presents concerts by established artists but also consists of a summer music academy in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops designed to provide an intense training and networking experience. In 1984 the festival was designated by the Florida state legislature as the "Official Teaching and Performing Festival of the State of Florida". Every year the festival receives hundreds of applications from students in America's best music schools, such as the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the New England Conservatory, the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, the Juilliard School in New York City, the Shepherd School of Music of Rice University, and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. However, less than 60 students are chosen to participate in the program each year. Since the festival's debut 45 years ago, dozens of former festival students have gone on to join such prestigious American orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Likewise, former festival students are now on the faculty at most of the major conservatories and music schools throughout the United States.
Each year the festival hires roughly 40 guest artists to not only provide training to the students at the festival but also to perform in a series of public concerts at the Sarasota Opera House and the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center throughout the month of June. Some of the faculty artists, such as violinist and conductor Joseph Silverstein, have been faculty members at the festival for decades. Former students at the festival who have since become faculty artists include violist Robert Vernon, violinist Ani Kavafian, oboist Allan Vogel, bassoonist Nancy Goeres, and cellist Timothy Eddy, among others. Students at the festival are also given the opportunity to perform for the public as part of the festival's orchestra and in chamber music concerts.
247 m
The Gulfcoast Wonder & Imagination Zone, referred to as G.WIZ or GWIZ, was a science museum located in Sarasota, Florida neighboring the Sarasota Bay. The museum was in operation from August 2000 to September 2012. The museum was home to the Blivas Science & Technology Center. The building was demolished in May 2019 as part of the city's "The Bay" redevelopment plan of the Sarasota Bayfront.
296 m
The El Vernona Apartments-Broadway Apartments is a historic site in Sarasota, Florida. It is located at 1133 Fourth Street. On March 22, 1984, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
This three-story, L-shaped plan, stucco and cast stone Mediterranean Revival building was designed by Dwight James Baum as the Broadway or El Vernona Apartments, named for Vernona Hill Freeman Burns, the wife of Owen Burns, the developer, later being known as the El Vernona Apartments-Broadway Apartments. Today, the building is commonly known as the Belle Haven. The reinforced concrete and hollow-tile construction complex was built by Ricketts and Haworth, owned by the Burns Realty Company and opened for occupancy in March 1926. The construction permit was issued for the complex by the end of October 1925 and construction materials were received by the contracting firm by December of the same year. By March 1926, the fifty-five-room complex of twenty furnished apartments was ready for occupancy and the total cost of the complex was $250,000.
The site of the apartment complex overlooking Sarasota Bay, marked the northern gateway of the Broadway Development that included the El Vernona Hotel, the Burns Realty complex, and the new headquarters of the Sarasota Times newspaper. The Broadway development was spearheaded by Owen Burns, who commissioned the architect Dwight James Baum to design the hotel, offices, and apartment for his development. The area was well-planned and unified by the selection of the Mediterranean Revival Style for all new buildings. In addition to the Broadway buildings, the architect Dwight James Baum designed the Ca' d'Zan residence for John Ringling that also was built by Burns, as well as the Sarasota County Courthouse that was donated to the county by Edith and Charles Ringling.
The Broadway or El Vernona Apartments are significant for architectural design and associations with the nationally renowned architect Dwight James Baum and the locally significant developer, Owen Burns. The Broadway Apartment is the most architecturally-intact Baum-designed building in Sarasota.