Customer Reviews

Old Florida: Florida's Magnificent Homes, Gardens and Vintage Attractions

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I love this book! It is a beautiful tour of OLD FLORIDA"S lost treasures of architecture and all the facinating houses and gardens that most tourists never go to. In this age of over development and franchise attractions this beautifully photographed book showed us many wonderous places that make Florida unique. When I found this book I was amazed and looked up the authors, Sue Daley and Steve Gross. It turns out that they have done several books of this sort. They also did a book on Sante Fe and another one on the Catskills and both are as beautiful and interesting as OLD FLORIDA. They are both photographers who seem to be able to find both historic and contemporary houses to photograph that one would love to visit. This is what makes their books so good, their sophisticated eye for showing a place through it's houses and people who created them and we can't wait to see where their books will take us next.

Who knew? Browsing the bookstore shelves for a present for a dear friend recently retired to the Sunshine State I came upon this fine book, OLD FLORIDA. This book is a gem! The excellent photographs show all the great gardens and historic houses like the ones in St Agustine we love to visit and many we plan to. I will be ordering several more to give as gifts.

Once upon a time, Rizzoli was a publisher of beautiful and definitive books. How the mighty have fallen. "Old Florida" is sadly typical of Rizzoli's current product: hit-or-miss photography accompanied by text barely worthy of a tourist brochure. Recommended only if you need some eye-candy to glance at while clicking between A&E and the TravelChannel.
If you really want to learn about Florida history and architecture, consider these books instead: "Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway" and "Mizner's Florida: American Resort Architecture."

Forget theme park world that most people associate with Florida today, OLD FLORIDA chronicles the vintage, the off beat and the unusual places that recall a time not too long ago before the Sunshine state was over run by tourism.

We used to spend some time in Florida visiting a great aunt in Dunedin and this book is a reminder of what we missed along the way--and things I'd like to return to see (if the kids will let us bypass Orlando). Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' farmhouse is definitely on the list as are some of the other places chronicled in this book.

The photographers, Steve Gross and Susan Daley, who also produced and photographed OLD HOUSES, SANTA FE: HOUSES & GARDENS, and CATSKILLS COUNTRY STYLE, as well as their recent release, CREOLE HOUSES, appreciate and photograph these unusual places that should be both seen and preserved. Their work provides an armchair glimpse into another time--each place is preserved and kept in its own unique manner and fortunately brought to life, and held for posterity, in the evocative vision of these photographers. We all need to see the built environment a bit more as they do and appreciate what we still have from the past before it is beseiged by homogenous strip malls and McMansions. Gross and Daley help inspire and lead the way.