Ringling Circus Brother Built This Newly Listed Florida House in 1918 Complete With a Speakeasy

A Sarasota, Florida, home built for one of the founders of the Ringling Brothers Circus is now up for sale, asking nearly $2.5 million.

The Gulf Coast home was built in 1918 for Alfred Ringling and his family as their “entertaining house,” according to listing agent Ryan Ackerman of Coldwell Banker Realty. A grander home where the family actually resided was built next door. Alfred Ringling, however, died in 1919 before he got to enjoy the property.

Because the home was built solely for entertaining and hosting guests, its main living space, designed as a ballroom, has 20-foot ceilings, and large bedrooms were built on the ground floor of the home. There’s also one very period-specific detail.

“The home was built during the Prohibition era, so there’s an area that was a speakeasy,” said Ackerman, who brought the home to the market in mid-March.

The speakeasy room is upstairs, with a slanted ceiling and a sink. It’s currently used as an art studio, though it could serve any function that’s needed by the next owners, whether that’s a home office or an additional bedroom.

There are many other original details, including the pine floors, baseboards and windows with hand-poured antique glass that open by a pulley system. There’s also original picture rails throughout, and the home’s paneled walls were made with the siding from the Ringling family’s train cars.

“All of the owners who have owned this home since Alfred Ringling have really kept true to the home in terms of its bones,” Ackerman said.

The home last traded hands in 2022, when Michele Vandendooren, founder of eye care company Low Vision Works, bought it for $1.6 million, according to records on PropertyShark.

Vandendooren said she felt a responsibility to preserve the historic home. “I see myself as a caretaker. It’s a home that deserves to be protected and loved,” she said in an email.

She “gently” modernized the home where needed, redoing the pool area and decking as well as the entire kitchen area, which includes the laundry room and a coffee bar, Ackerman said.

Located steps from the Sarasota Bay, the 4,782-square-foot home has five bedrooms, four full bathrooms and one partial bathroom . There’s a detached two-car garage, and the pool area also has a hot tub and a fire pit.

Alfred Ringling was the middle of seven brothers, though only five were involved with the circus, founded as the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows in 1884.

In 1919, the Ringling brothers acquired P.T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey’s circus to become the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which closed in 2017. The circus relaunched in 2023 without animal acts.

While the first iteration of the Ringling Brothers Circus was founded in Wisconsin, brothers John and Charles moved it to Sarasota. In the 1920s, John Ringling had an extravagant mansion built as his family’s winter retreat, known as Cà d’Zan.

It’s now a historical site that’s open to the public and is part of the Ringling Cultural Center, which also includes an art museum and a circus museum and is located just 2 miles south of Alfred Ringling’s home.