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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...
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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...
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The Lady in the Portrait

Film aficionados will readily recall a masterful early example of Film Noir, 1944’s classic “Laura”. A suspenseful dark romance, it opens with a street-smart detective, Mark McPherson (played by Dana Andrews) finding himself fixated by a portrait of a wealthy, beautiful young lady, Laura Hunt, who has mysteriously disappeared (superbly essayed by Gene Tierney), and foul play is suspected. Although they have never met, McPherson finds himself enamored of the lady in the portrait, falling hard for the missing Laura. After numerous twists and turns, peppered with attempted murder, Laura’s cad of a fiancée, a venomous poison-pen news columnist and a cast of characters (each with their own agenda), all ends well. McPherson and the very-much-alive Laura fall in love and all is right in the world. Fade to black. A similar, teasingly enigmatic portrait of a beautiful lady, by renowned artist Denman Fink, hangs in the Coral Gables Museum. Done in 1943, it captures the imagination of those...
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