REAL-ESTATE

FLORIDA BUILDINGS I LOVE: No. 33: Van Wezel Hall, 1969, Sarasota

Harold Bubil, Real Estate Editor Emeritus
Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall will host more than 50 different productions during the 2023-24 season.

Editor’s note: While Harold Bubil takes some time off, we’ll reprise some of his popular columns. This column originally ran on July 22, 2017.

That is the most commonly heard complaint regarding the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. I will not dwell on it here, but in many visits to the hall over the years, I don’t recall muttering to myself, “If only this place had a center aisle.”

Instead, I, and many of its 265,000 visitors a year, have marveled at the beauty of this nearly 50-year-old building. I remember its opening during my senior year of high school, when my mother took me to an event there. I don’t remember the performance. I do remember that the building’s completion was seen as a landmark in Sarasota’s history. In fact, contemporary Sarasota really began with the construction of this building.

If any single structure represents Sarasota’s cultural stature and architectural heritage, it is the Van Wezel, construction of which was funded by a bond issue in addition to a gift from Lewis and Eugenia Van Wezel.

From the beginning, its color and shape (both based on seashells) prompted locals to dub it “the Purple Cow” and “the Purple People-Seater.” Its prominence on the bay shore made its architecture hard to miss for motorists on the John Ringling Bridge, although the addition of sail-shaped shades on the hall’s western terrace in 2013 did nothing to enhance that view, and, in fact, partially blocked it.

With more than 100 shows a year, it has hosted the biggest names in entertainment and the arts, from the Beach Boys to Vladimir Ashkenazy to the Chicago Symphony.

And, thousands of high school students have received their diplomas there.

However, the 1,741-seat Van Wezel’s future has been the cause of discussion as the Bayfront 20:20 group envisions a master plan for 42 acres of city-owned land on the bay north of downtown. Some people believe the building has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced. Others recognize its landmark status, the efforts made by the city and hall management to renovate and update the structure in the past two decades, and believe it should be an important part of a revitalized bayfront.

The designer, William Wesley Peters (1912-1991) had a notable pedigree. He was Frank Lloyd Wright’s protégé, helping him design the famous Fallingwater residence in rural Pennsylvania and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In addition to being a talented designer and loyal member of Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship after becoming Wright’s first apprentice, in 1932, he also married Wright’s adopted daughter, Svetlana. She was the daughter of Wright’s third wife, Olgivanna Hinzenberg, and Russian architect Vladimir Hinzeberg. Good career move at the very least.

It was Olgivanna who selected the Van Wezel’s color, which duplicates the color of a shell she found near the Sea of Japan. That shell is on display in the hall’s lobby.

“Florida Buildings I Love” is Harold Bubil’s homage to the Sunshine State’s built environment.