Extraordinarily entertaining light reading. Particularly fun history of local sites for those living today in Palm Beach, Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami and Miami Beach.
A fascinating and captivating series of vignettes of the “characters” who created Florida, from a swamp, from the 1890s to the 1930s.
Starting with Henry M. Flagler, John D. Rockefeller’s business partner, and the builder of: (1) the railroad to Key West that became the spine of Eastern Florida; (2) monumental hotels in St. Augustine, Palm Beach and Key Biscayne; and (3) a Palm Beach residence for his 37-year-younger third wife, a, “marble masterpiece [that] was dubbed “the Taj Mahal of North America” by the New York Herald. It combined Greek and Roman architecture with French and Italian Renaissance motifs, and endures today as the Flagler Museum.”
Knowlton’s book brings back to life the colorful real estate characters who developed Florida’s Southeast coast, and their various friends and acquaintances. Almost all first became very wealthy and ultimately died broke. Knowlton’s portrayal of Addison Mizner, the Palm Beach architect, entertaining roaring twenties society in his Worth Avenue apartment, accompanied by his pet monkey, gives a taste of those times.
The lengthy list of familiar names during the central period, includes, among many others, Gershwin, Capone, Ruth, Weissmuller, Swanson, Kennedy, and Ponzi, and the central, lesser known entrepreneurs, drunkards and philanderers around whom this book, and Florida in the twenties, revolved: Carl Fisher, George Merrick, Paris Singer, David Paul Davis and Addison Mizner.
Knowlton also makes an interesting argument of the Florida land boom and bust of the twenties as a primary cause of the Great Depression; reprised in 2008 with the collapse of the mortgage market leading to that financial crisis.
Highest recommendation for those looking for fun, light reading.
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Extremely interesting well researched read
I love the history of the 20’s and live in Florida. This book is a well- researched and fun look into the real estate boom along with the socio-economic scene. The history and changing landscape of the Everglades along with the wild ways ignoring Prohibition are touched on. One of my favorite historical reads ever.
