The name Dick Pope Sr is not well known even among long time Florida residents, but it should be.
In January of 1936 he did something that would forever change the Florida landscape and the world, for that matter,
It all started in 1927 when the Florida real estate market fell apart. Pope needed a way to support his wife, Julie, He began staging high speed boat races around the state as publicity stunts for an outboard motor company. His death defying races were successful enough that he started his own PR firm. Soon he had wealthy clients from around the country and an office in Chicago.
Despite his success, he still knew something was missing. He and his wife decided it was time to move back to Florida. Julie showed an article she had seen in “Good Housekeeping” while they were living in New York about a wealthy banker that had opened his estate to the public and charged people admission to visit. The idea stuck with them and Pope decided he would build a beautiful garden in Florida and charge admission.
After a couple false starts work began in earnest on his project. He worked alongside laborers to create his gardens in the middle of a 16 acre marsh. The press called his project a folly and referred to Pope as the “Swami of the Swamp”. Dick was the master of design and used a camera to set op the pathways in the gardens Julie added her expertise with flowers.
On January 2, 1936 the state’s first theme park, Cypress Gardens, opened with 8000 varieties of flowers from over 90 countries. A couple years later electric boats were added to carry visitors along the park’s canals.
Over the years misfortune would change the park for better and for worse.
One of the park’s “hooks” would be the southern belles that strolled the grounds in hoop skirts and posing for photos with tourists (I have a couple photos of myself with a belle or two). That tradition started in the 1940’s when a hard frost killed some of the vines at the park’s front gate. Julie dressed up an employee in a big hoop skirt and told her (I assume it was a female) to go stand at the gate and flirt with the customers to distract them from the dead vegetation. It worked and the belles began.
Another of the park’s big draws happened by accident as well. As WWII raged in Europe Dick was called away to serve. In 1942 a group of soldiers came to the park and saw the Pope kids and friends water skiing in the lake. The teens were showing off as teens tend to do and the soldiers went back to camp and told everyone about the big ski show at the park. Next day several hundred soldiers arrived at the park wanting to see the ski show. Julie was taken aback, but being the PR genius she was she got her kids and their friends together and put on a show for the troops. The Cypress Gardens ski shows would become world famous.
The park did well until someone found a mouse in Florida. The arrival of Disney World brought an end to many of the roadside attractions across the state as the destination became bigger than the journey. The Popes saw ticket sales dwindle and the park was sold several times after their deaths until it was finally closed down in 2003.
A new buyer came on the scene and reopened the park in 2004 as the Cypress Gardens Adventure Park with rides and a water park as well as ice skating shows and concerts (my wife and I attended a few of the concerts). Florida was hit with a series of hurricanes in that same year, causing the delay of his opening as three of the ‘canes battered the fledgling park. He was under insured as he had poured so much into the park instead of insurance and was unable to recover from the losses caused by the storms. The park closed in 2008 though a few feeble attempts were made to resurrect it. The park was sold again and re-opened as Legoland in 2011. The new park has kept the heart of the old park: the gardens. Still, Florida lost a gem that can never be replaced.
I have not made the trip to Lego;and to check out the new old gardens. If anyone has an inside track and could hook me up…