Museum's Books

SCULPTRESS FORGOTTEN

One of the many iconic images of Coral Gables, America's 'City Beautiful', are the heads of two firefighters sculpted in stone above the old city fire station. It was known that the heads were carved by a young sculptress named Joan Keller, but who she was and what happened to her, has always remained a mystery.When the old fire station was eventually converted into the Coral Gables Museum, the Museum Director, John Allen and his assistant, Orestes Gonzalez were determined to solve the mystery. This book chronicles their discovery of the sad but fascinating life of this beautiful, forgotten young sculptress.In many ways it also traces the history of America in the twentieth century.

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A SPANISH ROYAL IN THE GABLES

In 1985 an elderly lady of nearly 80, living with her sister in a modest home at 722 Cadima Ave. in Coral Gables, received an unexpected invitation. The invitation, which came from King Juan Carlos of Spain, invited her to a royal funeral at the El Escorial Monastery. The ceremony was for the entombment of His Royal Highness Alfonso of Borbon, Prince of the Asturias, the heir to the Spanish throne, and later styled the Count of Covadonga. What made the royal invitation unusual was that Edelmira Sampedro-Robato, the lady in question, was not only that that she had once been wed to Alfonso, or that in 1933 the prince had renounced his rights to the abolished Spanish throne in 1933 to marry her, that the couple had divorced in 1937 after a tempestuous marriage of four years, but that Alfonso had, by 1985, been dead for nearly 40 years. If those reasons were not enough for her surprise, Alfonso, shortly before his untimely death had remarried, and divorced. Edelmira respectfully dec...

THE DREAM SCREEN AT THE THEATER BEAUTIFUL The History of Coral Gable’s First Movie Theater; The Dream Theater

There are few things in life that are more distressing than opening your eyes to realize that the wonderful dream you were having only a few moments ago was, well, nothing more than a dream. Thus is the story of the Coral Gables Dream Theater, the massive open-air movie theater that graced the corner of Ponce de Leon Blvd and Giralda Ave from 1926 to c.1928. In May of 1926 it was announced by J. Gordon Hussey, a developer who had built his fair share of Coral Gables homes, that plans had been finalized and construction was commencing on Miami’s newest movie theater. Hussey dubbed it “The Dream Theater” and announced that the building would be two stories high and would contain 29 shops and offices, yielding a capacity of 1,500. In keeping with the architectural themes found within Coral Gables, John and Coulton Skinner were hired as architects and fashioned the building to replicate a famous bull ring in Seville, Spain. The excitement surrounding the announcement of this theate...

TROLLEY-HO! The History of Coral Gable’s Electric Trolley System

Coral Gables was officially incorporated on April 29th, 1925. To say there was electricity in the air would be no understatement. In fact, the statement could be taken quite literal. Not only did Gables residents find themselves citizens of a newly-founded city, they also found themselves standing beneath the electrically charged wires which would power the street cars which defined mass transportation in the area throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. The electric trolley shaped and transformed the urban landscape and enhanced the way people traveled from place to place. Although the electric trolley system finally got it’s feet off the ground in Miami in the 1920’s, the venture was a product of trial and error dating back to the early 1900’s. In 1906, ten years after the City of Miami was founded, the first incarnation of an electric trolley system appeared. Despite the fact that the city’s population had grown significantly since its founding in 1896, the recently instituted city d...

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