Thursday, January 10, 2013
Cape Coral Gardens '65
Fully painted, fantastic artwork highlights this Cape Coral Gardens travel brochure dated 1965, as we continue on our wintertime cross country vacation tourist trek to warmer climates! Cape Coral Gardens, which opened to the public in 1964, was many attractions in one: thrilling action and serene beauty, dramatic fountains, sleepy lagoons, 40,000+ rose bushes, dancing fountains, reflecting pools, tranquil lakes, romantic waterfalls, Polynesian gardens, frisky porpoise shows, and loads of exotic birds and flowers. A spectacular showcase by day-- an enchanted wonderland by night! Unfortunately, they closed their doors for good in 1971 --you can read lots more about this great "lost" attraction HERE and HERE.
wow - that looks really nice! i love the second tikiesque pic - but they're all really cool. the bridge pic with the waterfall and the flamingos is really cool! and the hanging garden pic too!
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They are all plenty nice, but my clear fave is the hexagonal rose garden (number eight). That's a bitch angle to draw, after all.
ReplyDeleteI am always a little skeptical of brochures that rely on awesome, delicious artwork instead of just using actual photographic proof of the places they are advertising. I mean, I'm happy to have the artwork, of course; but it's certainly no guarantee against this place being another depressing roadside dump nearly indistinguishable from its own cracked parking lot.
It looks like a neat place, I almost seem to remember my grandmother talking about it... I'd love to hear from anyone who went here back in the day.
ReplyDeleteNice watercolors.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of difficult looking through them while in a cold little basement apt in NY during the winter.
That's why I'm posting them in winter, to make life LESS difficult during this frigid season. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a teenager in the 90's my friends and I would hang out in the ruins of this place at night. Everyone thought it was haunted. The rumor was that it was an old zoo that had burned down. People had set up a paintball arena there to play during the day. I remember hanging out with my friends on what remained of the Porpoise amphitheater's concrete grandstands. I never really knew what an important place it was until I did some research as an adult. It's all just condos now. I miss it, even if it was just ruins when I got to go there.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a teenager in the 90's my friends and I would hang out in the ruins of this place at night. Everyone thought it was haunted. The rumor was that it was an old zoo that had burned down. People had set up a paintball arena there to play during the day. I remember hanging out with my friends on what remained of the Porpoise amphitheater's concrete grandstands. I never really knew what an important place it was until I did some research as an adult. It's all just condos now. I miss it, even if it was just ruins when I got to go there.
ReplyDeleteMy folks and I went there several times and I have my dad's old slides. Really cool! Also went there years later when it was ruins and a friend has some pix of that.
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