by Nick Wynne
CHAPTER 7
George Edgar Merrick
Mr. Merrick was passionately in love with Florida; and to me, he always seemed to believe in Florida in quite a different way from that of most of the other “developers” that I encountered there. He loved Florida for its own sake, and not for the money that could be made out of its exploitation; he saw in Florida the last outpost of the United States, a fresh and unspoiled territory which it would be criminal to let develop along haphazard, ugly, or unscientific lines.
—T.H. Weigall, Boom in Paradise, 1926
What Carl Fisher was doing in Miami Beach with his own money inspired a number of imitators, some more successful than others. One of the most innovative and remarkable men of the boom was George E. Merrick, who parlayed a small 160-acre family farm into a planned development of 3,000 acres. Although some historians like to portray him as a “rags-to-riches” phenomenon, the reality is that Merrick was the product of a solid middle-class environment, the son of a Yale graduate and himself a graduate of Rollins College. He also attended Columbia University in New York in pursuit of degrees in law and literature. Unlike his major rivals—Carl Fisher, who grew up without a father in his mother’s boarding home, and David P. Davis, who never graduated from high school—George’s upbringing was stable.
George returned to the Miami area upon his father’s death in 1911 to manage the family farm, Coral Gables. Married to Eunice Peacock, the daughter of Coconut Grove pioneer Alfred Peacock, in 1916, he set about acquiring more acreage and making what he now called the plantation into a profitable business venture. Eunice brought a considerable dowry of land to the marriage, and by 1920, Merrick had expanded his holdings to more than one thousand acres and operated the largest fruit and vegetable farm in South Florida. Eventually, his holdings would amount to more than ten thousand acres.
Soon after his marriage to Eunice, Merrick began to plan to convert his agricultural lands into a large planned development for year-round residents. The success of Palm Beach in drawing wealthy winter residents and the much-ballyhooed plans of Carl Fisher in Miami Beach convinced him that such a project was economically feasible. Unlike Palm Beach, with its hotel/spa emphasis, and Miami Beach, with its projected seasonal residencies, his planned community would concentrate on attracting a permanent population of middle-class retirees and young families. The only ingredient missing to make his dream a reality was money.
When George presented his idea of a planned Coral Gables community to bankers in Miami in the hopes of securing their financial backing before the war, none of them was interested. Since few of them believed that that “damned fool” Carl Fisher could make his development of Miami Beach pay off—and using his own money at that—why should they risk investing their funds in turning a truck farm into houses? No, they reasoned, George E. Merrick should stick to what he does best, and that was to farm. Far from being discouraged, he decided to set up a real estate office in Miami to learn the business of selling land from the ground up and gradually accumulate enough money to make his dream a reality. A personable and educated individual, Merrick was a quick learner whose enthusiasm and integrity made him successful. In staid prewar Miami, his family connections, enhanced by his marriage to Eunice, also helped.
By 1920, the atmosphere had changed dramatically. Large amounts of money—more than ever before—were in circulation in the United States, the automobile was supreme as a cultural symbol and an eager public, weary of war, was ready to spend the money accumulated during the industrial expansion fueled by the war. What could not be purchased outright could be had on the ubiquitous installment plan that dominated consumer spending. Americans were ready to spend and spend big. Prohibition, the new Jazz Age and the end of the Victorian era, exemplified by the infamous “flapper girls,” signaled the beginning of the Roaring Twenties and the age of truly conspicuous consumption. Fisher’s Miami Beach lots had started to sell, and everyone in the nation knew that Miami was “America’s playground.”
Merrick benefitted from the hoopla created by Fisher in Miami Beach, Mizner in Palm Beach and D.P. Davis, who had invested the money he made operating food stands in Jacksonville during the war in a large Miami subdivision, Shadowlawn. Although George’s reputation as a businessman was very good, the bankers he approached to fund his proposed development were still reluctant to lend him large sums, since Coral Gables was inland and far removed from the beach. Nevertheless, he continued to look for other sources of funding and soon made connections with several large insurance companies that were willing to take a chance. Unlike the locals, the idea that waterfront property was essential to any successful development did not figure in their assessments of his chances. With financing arranged, Merrick plunged ahead.
To ensure that his new community met the highest standards of the City Beautiful movement that was in vogue during the first decades of the twentieth century, he hired Phineas E. Paist, a Philadelphia architect who had worked as part of the design team for James Deering’s Vizcaya mansion, to create a central architectural theme and to ensure that all homes constructed in Coral Gables conformed to these standards. Paist, who would later design the “Florida home” for the 1937 World’s Fair exhibit, was joined by artist Denman Fink, Merrick’s uncle, and Frank Button, the designer of Chicago’s Lincoln Park, in creating an environment that blended colorful tropical plants, broad streets, canals and Mediterranean Revival architecture into an integrated whole. New arrivals got an early view of the architecture of Coral Gables when they entered the development through the massive Douglas Road coquina arch, built at a cost of $1 million, which spanned the road. A collaboration of Paist and Fink, it was a work of beauty, and soon other smaller subdivisions throughout the Sunshine State featured versions of the arch. Most lacked the scale and symmetry of the Gables’ arch, but it had become such a symbol of Florida’s land boom that few developers could resist the urge to copy it.
Unlike Fisher’s Miami Beach, which was created from ocean sand, Coral Gables presented Merrick and his design team with a solid, though depressingly flat, platform on which they could let their imaginations run wild. Starting from scratch, Merrick made use of the few natural features to enhance his development. Other features were created through the ingenious use of dirt dredged from the many canals, many featuring gondolas, that crisscrossed Coral Gables. An old coquina quarry provided an opportunity to create a community swimming pool (1924). Known as the Venetian Pool, it was soon featured in various advertisements as the largest and most beautiful pool in the United States.
The Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, built on the site of a limestone quarry, was touted as the most beautiful pool in the United States. It became the symbol of Merrick’s Coral Gables development. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
All public buildings in Coral Gables conformed to the overall Mediterranean Revival theme. The Coral Gables High School building shows how a determined architect could bring style and panache to the design of a public institution. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
The first lot sold in Coral Gables was purchased on November 27, 1921, even before the first roads and infrastructure were completed. Edward E. “Doc” Dammers, who had been selling land in Miami since 1910, was hired to head the sales staff. Part charlatan and 100 percent character, Dammers began selling lots in Coral Gables from the back of a wagon, frequently using giveaways of knickknacks and geegaws to attract customers. Within a few months, Merrick purchased a fleet of seventy-six buses to bring in potential customers. From as far away as Atlanta, Montgomery and even New York, Chicago and San Francisco, “prospects” were given a free ride, accommodations, food and a “royal time” in exchange for seeing Coral Gables and listening to sales pitches. (This technique is still used by real estate salespersons today as they offer raw land, condominiums and timeshares to the public.) Merrick’s innovative way of finding customers was quickly duplicated by other developers, although on a smaller scale, and Florida-bound buses were
a common sight on the nation’s new highways. Despite the fact that some of the people who took advantage of these free mini-vacations were “lookie-loos” without the means of paying for any purchase, there were enough bona fide buyers to justify the expense.
In the master plan for Coral Gables, large community areas—golf courses, tennis courts, bridle paths, hotels—were set aside. Standardized curbing, sidewalks and lampposts lined broad roadways. Between 1921 and 1925, fifteen hundred houses were built, two hundred miles of roadway were graded and paved and eighty miles of sidewalks provided ready access to every area of the development. The Coral Gables Country Club, presided over by Henry Dutton, featured an open dance pavilion, with colored lights strung from ornamental bushes, in addition to the course. A fire station, water plant, administration building and power plant completed the basic structures. After the City of Coral Gables was incorporated in 1925, Paist also designed a city hall that opened in 1928. (Much later, in 1939, he also designed the Coral Gables Police and Fire Station, which reflected the overall theme Merrick had established years before.)
There was a lot going on in Coral Gables during the first half of the decade of the 1920s. Visitors could stay at the luxurious Casa Loma Hotel, stroll through neatly manicured parks, take a gondola ride along the miles of canals, play golf at two country clubs or partake in a variety of other activities. Prospective buyers could also take in a twice-a-day lecture by three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. Never a winner, Bryan nevertheless remained a popular figure, and his persuasive rhetoric was as much public spectacle as convincing sales pitch. (Bryan, who once said, “Nobody ever made a million dollars honestly,” died in 1925. His estate was well in excess of that amount, most of it in real estate.)
The Coral Gables Country Club featured an open dance pavilion. Presided over by Henry Dutton, who was the recreation director for the development, it quickly became an exclusive venue for famous personalities and wealthy residents. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
In mid-1925, John McEntee Bowman, who headed the Miami Biltmore Group, announced the construction of a new $10 million hotel that would feature not one but two additional eighteen-hole golf courses designed by the most famous of all golf course designers, Donald J. Ross. When it opened in January 1926, the Miami-Biltmore became the destination for America’s beautiful people. Popular dance bands provided the background music for crowds of well-known personalities and countless hangers-on. Coral Gables truly was the “Miami Riviera.”
The first sections of houses in Coral Gables were built in the prevailing Mediterranean Revival style popularized by Addison Mizner in Palm Beach. Color schemes, architectural details and landscaping had to pass muster with the Board of Architects Review Panel, created by Paist (and still operating today), before any actual construction could take place. Conformity to Merrick’s overall plan was the order of the day, and Paist, Fink and Button were the men who enforced it. Proposed buildings that did not adhere to the standards of his master plan were rejected out of hand, and no compromises were made.
The Miami-Biltmore became the “in” destination of America’s celebrities. Two Donald J. Ross–designed golf courses provided a championship venue for the noted golfers of the day. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
In August 1925, Merrick changed the overall plan for Coral Gables somewhat when he signed a deal for one thousand new homes to be built by the American Building Corporation of Cincinnati. This $75 million purchase was the largest order for new homes recorded up to that time. Utilizing a team of twelve architects, he designated fourteen new areas of the development to feature homes from specific international regions of the world—Persia, South Africa, China, France and Italy. Many of these “Village” homes carried a projected price tag of $100,000 or more. About one hundred of these “regional” homes were built before the hurricane of 1926. While built according to the highest architectural standards mandated by the Architects Review Panel, today they provide a beautiful but discordant element to Coral Gables. Author T.H. Weigall, who worked in Merrick’s Publicity Department in 1925, described the results thusly:
The Moorish watch-towers and the red roofs of Coral Gables were inclined to be more than a little overwhelming; and although in that city alone there were nearly a dozen areas confined to different architectural styles, they were so large in themselves that the effect of variation from any one standpoint was generally lost.
The same month Merrick agreed to the deal with the American Building Corporation, he paid $2.5 million for the 160-acre Le Jeune citrus grove, divided it into housing lots and then put them up for sale. In just twenty-four hours, Merrick’s salesmen recorded contracts worth $5,555,850. Under the direction of “Doc” Dammers, chief salesman and mayor of the newly incorporated city of Coral Gables, a sales force of three thousand sold contracts for almost $98,000,000 for the year—most with small down payments of 25 percent and a promissory note for the balance to be paid in three annual installments. William Jennings Bryan gave the sales force inspirational talks to stimulate it to make even more sales. There were more than twenty thousand vacant lots in the development by the middle of 1926, and during the summer of that year, Merrick sent a mailer to all owners urging them to begin construction on their homes.
In the October 1925 volume of American Motorist, an advertisement for Coral Gables bearing the name George E. Merrick touted the value of land in the “Miami Riviera” as a good investment. “Coral Gables property,” it proclaimed, “has been steadily rising in value. Some of it has shown a 100 per cent increase every year.” It also promised that purchasers could look forward to the completion “within a few years” of the
In 1925, Merrick designated fourteen areas of Coral Gables that would feature homes from different international regions. Although some people argued that the inclusion of such homes disrupted the architectural purity of Coral Gables, his decision stood. Only about one hundred of the homes were built before the bust hit in late 1926. This picture shows homes for the “Chinese Village” section of Coral Gables. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
$15,000,000 University of Miami, the $500,000 Mahi temple of the Mystic Shrine, a $1,000,000 University High School, a $150,000 Railway Station, a Military Academy and Stadium, a Theatre, the College for Young Women of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, a magnificent Conservatory of Music, and other remarkable projects.
Grand plans for sure, but 1925 marked the height of the Florida boom, and no one even considered such plans to be out of the realm of probability.
There were heavy costs associated with the development of Coral Gables. Estimates by various historians of the total investment dollars Merrick put into the project between 1921 and 1926 range between $100 million and $150 million. Estimates of how much money he made range between $50 million and $100 million. In 1935, Time magazine, reporting on a Securities Exchange Commission investigation of the operations of Merrick’s Coral Gables Corporation, estimated its weekly payroll obligation at $200,000 a week. Advertising and publicity costs were $4 million per year.
One of George Merrick’s most enduring legacies is the University of Miami, which he established to add an important cultural aspect to his development. It opened in 1926, just in time for the hurricane of that year. The nickname the students of the university chose was “the Hurricanes.” Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
Despite the burden of continuing to finance expansion and development, George Merrick, like all promoters and developers in Florida in 1925 and early 1926, felt there was no end in sight for the land boom. There was only one way to go, they thought, and that was up!
CHAPTER 8
David P. Davis
THE ISLAND MAKER
Not alone the thrill of tropical moonlight stealing through the leaves of swaying palm trees and dancing about like diamonds on the bosom of the bay, but a veritable Venice at one’s home-door for those who live on Davis Islands…Here are ceaselessly moving
waters, ever lapping the foundation of Davis Islands domiciles. Here, too, are the picturesque gondolas and other sorts of craft moored to fantastically colored poles—right at one’s door-step—ready for the moonlight sail to the accompaniment of music which steals across the bay.
—D.P. Davis Properties, Inc., sales brochure, 1924
On October 24, 1925, David P. “Doc” Davis placed an advertisement in the Tampa Tribune and other media outlets that all the lots in his Davis Islands development had been sold for $18,138,000. An additional $8,250,000, so the ad read, would be returned to would-be purchasers because there was nothing left to sell. Barely a year since the first three hundred lots had been offered for sale in 1924, Davis was on top of the world. His initial investment of approximately $5,000,000 produced a paper profit of almost 400 percent. Everything had gone right in the past, so what in the world could go wrong in the future?
Unlike many of the promoters of the land boom, David Paul Davis was a homegrown product of the Sunshine State. The son of an itinerant engineman on Florida riverboats, he was born in Green Cove Springs—although several biographers have mistakenly asserted that he was born in Tampa—and lived in a number of different Florida towns; Tampa was only one of them. He attended public schools in Tampa, but he never graduated. As a young man, he worked in a variety of different jobs, none of which paid much money. In 1905, at age twenty, he left Florida for Panama to work on the canal that was under construction there. In 1915, he returned to the Sunshine State and took up residency in Jacksonville. There he met and married Marjorie H. Merritt. With the outbreak of World War I, he operated a ferry between Jacksonville and Camp Johnston, which the military constructed across the St. Johns River from the city. He also secured the franchise to operate a canteen on the post. By the time the Armistice ended the war in 1918, Davis had amassed a small fortune from his canteen operations. He decided to take his family (and his money) to Miami, where Carl Fisher was making noises with his Miami Beach operations and where smaller promoters were hawking residential lots with less prestigious addresses.