Florida Cypress Gardens

Cypress Gardens was Florida's original theme park where movie stars, water-ski champions, and Southern belles created magic. To someone weathering a New England winter, Dick Pope's Cypress Gardens looked exotic. The images coming out of his promotional powerhouse appeared in magazines, newspapers, newsreels, and movies depicting everything from bathing beauties aquaplaning through walls of fire to Southern belles relaxing beneath huge tropical plants, from Don Ameche proposing to Betty Grable under moss-hung cypress trees to Esther Williams performing a water ballet in a Florida-shaped pool. It was all happening in sleepy Winter Haven, where one real estate maverick turned tourism tycoon was out to sell "100,000 [visitors] 25 cents worth of Florida." This book reveals the empire Pope built from a remote swampland to its heyday as a famous water-sports destination and playground for such stars as Joan Crawford, Johnny Carson, and Carol Burnett, as well as royalty from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to King Hussein of Jordan. It also discusses the park's decline following the construction of Walt Disney World, changes in management, the evolving interests and vacationing habits of the nation, as well as its outlook for the future as a part of LEGOLAND Florida.