Much of Florida’s shoreline is lined with mansions, especially in Sarasota. Large homes of 8,000 square feet or larger have replaced, or taken their place alongside, smaller houses of 4,000 or 5,000 square feet — a testament to the explosion of wealth here.
Any trend has to start somewhere, and in Sarasota, the mansion-building began with Thomas Martin Worcester, a retired Cincinnati wire goods manufacturer, and his wife, Davidella (Davie) “Dido” Lindsay Worcester. They are the first developers of Bird Key, an island off downtown Sarasota that has many large homes now. Then, it had but one — and the Worcesters built it.