St Armands Circle

Exploring the Gulf coast can be so much fun and this week I wandered down towards Sarasota and spent a few hours walking around St. Armands Circle. A great place to spend an afternoon poking around. St. Armands Circle is an exclusive island located just off the coast of Sarasota, Florida that features over 130 shops, boutiques, art galleries and restaurants surrounding a large European-style roundabout with a park in the middle. Charles St. Amand, a French pioneer, purchased a Florida mangrove island located just west of the fishing village of Sarasota in 1893. The three tracts of land totaled about 131 acres. St. Amand settled in this area where he fished in the surrounding waters and raised produce. Land deeds later misspelled his name as “Armand” and the name eventually stuck. The island is today called St. Armands Key. In 1917, the leading circus magnate in the country, John Ringling bought all of St. Armands Key, Bird Key and Lido Key. Ringling dreamed of a shopping plaza designed around a roundabout similar to those found in European cities. Luxury homes and resorts were planned for the area around Ringling’s visionary “Circle.”