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The story of developers selling off the Sunshine State is as old as
the first railroad tracks laid across the peninsula. But seldom do
we hear about the men who actually built a better Florida. In
George Merrick, Son of the South Wind, South Florida historian Arva
Moore Parks recounts George Merrick's quest to distinguish himself
from the legions of developers who sought only profit. Helping to
create the land boom of the 1920s, Merrick transformed his family's
citrus grove just outside of Miami into one of the finest planned
communities: the ""master suburb"" of Coral Gables. With a team of
architects and city planners, he built homes for the growing middle
class in the Mediterranean Style using local stone, and he invested
in public infrastructure by designing and building parks and pools,
trolley lines and waterways. He pledged land for a library and the
university that would become the University of Miami. Hailed in
national publications as a visionary, Merrick was green before
green, a New Urbanist before the movement even had a name. As Coral
Gables and Merrick prospered, he reinvested in education,
affordable housing, and other progressive causes. But the Great
Depression ravaged Miami, and Merrick's idealism cost him his
fortune. He died with an estate worth less than $400. With
unprecedented access to the Merrick family and mining a treasure
trove of Merrick's personal letters, documents, speeches, and
manuscripts, Parks presents the remarkable story of George Merrick
and the development of one of the nation's most iconic planned
cities.
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