Business: Sorry Paradise

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At the height of the Florida boom in the middle 1920—3 Miami frontage was worth more than any other land on the face of the globe. Justification of the prices at which this land was changing hands daily would have required fully-rented buildings 200 stories high. Nearby in the midst of this financial bedlam blossomed an incredible development—Coral Gables, a city of planned perfection that was to be no less than a "paradise on earth." Last week in Washington in its investigation of protective committees, the Securities & Exchange Commission wrote a few new chapters of paradisiacal history.

Like many another boom project, Coral Gables was an almost lifelong dream of a native Floridian. About the Century's turn a penniless, Nonconformist preacher left Cape Cod for the sake of his wife's health, setting out for Florida with his family and chattels in a horse & wagon. Near Miami he staked out a 160-acre grapefruit grove, named it Coral Gables, prospered enough to send his son George north to college. Son George Merrick wrote verse, won a short story contest, abruptly abandoned his literary career when his father died in 1912. Returning to Florida, he became obsessed with the idea of building the perfect city on the site of the grapefruit grove. For ten years he slaved as a real estate dealer, accumulating capital. By the time the boom began he had 4,000 acres with a few roads and other improvements just started. Overnight he found himself one of the richest men in Florida.

With a corps of the best engineers, architects, city planners he could hire, George Merrick built boulevards, parks, canals, fountains, lakes, swimming pools, golf courses, country clubs, hotels, homes, public buildings. Payrolls of Coral Gables Corp. were $200,000 per week and the advertising and publicity departments were each spending $2,000,000 per year. Any visitor with the remotest claim to fame was wined, dined and dunned with the Coral Gables gospel. Even William Jennings Bryan was persuaded to lecture on Coral Gables' bright sun and blue waters. And in one twelve-month period Coral Gables Corp. sold no less than $98,000,000 worth of property. Much of it was never paid for.

Then only 37, George Merrick was no ordinary promoter. He owned Coral Gables Corp. and dominated the municipality of Coral Gables. "I considered it my town," he said simply last week at the SEC hearings. "I founded it and it was dear to my heart."