Most of the buildings in this series are beloved for their architecture.

But for me, this one, Southside School, is more than just a pretty, Mediterranean Revival building that was designed by one of the Tampa Bay region’s most versatile architects of the first half of the 20th century.

It is where I spent six happy years in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I made a lot of memories and lifelong friends: Gary Koch (later a pro golfer and NBC golf commentator), Mike Hartenstine (real estate lawyer), Don Saba (real estate appraiser), Paul Rubenfeld (TV and movie actor) and Doug Corbett (major-league baseball player) among them. We ran screaming through the open-air hallways after the Friday bell that announced vacation and summer breaks, lived for softball games at recess and learned how to compute batting averages, studied violin under Mrs. Julia Rohr in the bandbox, and begged for extra bread and gravy at lunchtime. Hartenstine was a skilled negotiator even then.

More Florida Buildings I Love

No. 11: Jacaranda Hotel, 1926, Avon Park

No. 83: IST Building at Florida Poly, 2014, Polk County

In Mrs. Loislee Parker’s third-grade class, we tracked Hurricane Donna across the Atlantic in 1960. That inspired several of us boys to form a weather club. Mrs. Parker, an unforgettable teacher, convinced WTVT meteorologist Roy Leep to visit our school, an event that was covered by the Herald-Tribune. Leep was a hero to me (and I had a crush on Mrs. Parker).

All of these memories were made in a gorgeous building that is seared in my memory. The highly textured stucco walls, the transom windows that the teachers opened with long poles, the woodwork, the arches, the courtyard. Ceiling fans kept us as cool as possible. I even remember the ceiling tiles and the light fixtures.

“We shape our buildings,” said Winston Churchill. “Thereafter they shape us.” Indeed.

When I attended Southside School, high-topped white basketball shoes, from Thom McAn in South Gate Shopping Center, were the preferred footwear for boys. I may have been wearing them on Nov. 22, 1963, when my sixth-grade class, taught by Mrs. Ruth Reiter, learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

This was a prosperous time, as Sarasota enjoyed a rapid increase in population following World War II. But our world changed that day. Grade school was nearly over. The real world was setting in.

The school had opened in January 1926 in response to another time of rapid growth, the 1925 Florida Land Boom that soon turned to bust. Most of those first 170 students who walked through the ornate entrance on Webber Street had moved on to high school by 1933, when the school was forced to close in the depths of the Great Depression. It reopened only to those who could afford to pay tuition, and, to give the struggling families a break, students who had no shoes were allowed to attend class in bare feet.

As the economy recovered and Sarasota grew, the campus expanded with more buildings. For decades, it has been considered one of the county’s best elementary schools and is a cornerstone of the robust West of the Trail real estate market. Young professional families are drawn to the area by the school, the Southside Village shopping and dining area and the medical complex that includes Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

The school’s architect, Elliott, retired in 1950 and died in 1967 at 81 after proving that he was a master of multiple architectural styles. In Sarasota, he also designed Bay Haven Elementary (a twin to Southside), Osprey School, Sarasota High School (the 1927 Collegiate Gothic brick building) and the American First National Bank building (now the Orange Blossom condominium tower).

He also designed a number of Tampa landmarks, including the 1914 Prairie-style Leiman House in Hyde Park (Florida Buildings I Love, No. 4), the 1915 City Hall and the Cuban Club. In Arcadia, he is credited with the DeSoto County Courthouse.

“Florida Buildings I Love” is Harold Bubil’s homage to the Sunshine State’s built environment. This story originally ran on March 1, 2017. 

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Harold Bubil’s Buildings I Love, No. 12: Southside School, 1926, Sarasota