International studio (81.1925)

mceRnAcioriAL

t'"A7 333 r

BALBOA PLAZA, CORAL CABLES

man and then the achievement, or first paint the scholars and saints lack practical perspective,

background and next the portrait. It is as hard Many of the sanest and most helpful movements

to separate George E. Merrick from Coral Gables which have blessed humanity have been conceived

as Coral Gables from by men whom the

George E. Merrick.
Yet without question
Mr. Merrick would
prefer that we accept
our Hamlet with
Hamlet left out.

It is not my pur-
pose to dwell on Mr.
Merrick's boyhood in
a New England par-
sonage, nor the bliz-
zard of 1895, with an
attending epidemic of
pneumonia, w h i c h
seems to have been a
turning point in the
family history, nor the
departure to southern
Florida when Miami
was a trading post, nor
the initial purchase of
land with all that it
meant to the future of
the clergyman and his
family.

One of the great
fallacies is that poets,

world considered vis-
ionaries. With a fore-
sight far beyond that
of his associates this
New England minister
whose life had been
spent in the restricted
channels of a Cape
Cod parish became
one of Florida's great
pioneers. Acre by acre
he acquired land in a
neglected section west
of Miami which later
was to form the nu-
cleus of Coral Gables.
Between the passing
of pine forests and
semi-tropical jungles>
and the coming of the
real castles of Spain
was a middle period
when grapefruit and
orange groves, the

A MOORISH DOORWAY
IN CORAL GABLES

one hundred eight

MAY I925