Original design produced by Paul Rudolph, known as Sarasota School of Architecture pioneer
With a unanimous vote on July 7, the Sarasota County Commission approved the historic designation of the Sanderling Cabana Club clubhouse on south Siesta Key, “officially adding it to the Sarasota County Register of Historic Places,” as a county staff memo put it.
The Sanderling Club, which owns the clubhouse, had submitted an application for the designation, the staff memo explained. The property is located at 7450 Sanderling Road on the barrier island.
The Sanderling Club based its request on the clubhouse’s “association with the broader patterns of post-World War II development and tourism on Siesta Key … and … its association with the Sarasota School of Architecture,” the memo further noted.
The memo added that the Sanderling Club application also suggested, in terms of historic integrity, that the clubhouse “retains all seven of the seven attributes of integrity” outlined in the County Code.
On Jan. 27, the memo continued, the Sarasota County Historic Preservation Board reviewed the application during its regular meeting that day. Initially, the memo pointed out, county staff had recommended denial of the request, on the basis of concerns related to the building’s historic integrity. “Staff found that the building retained only two attributes of historic integrity,” the report explained, whereas at least three are necessary for historic designation.
The memo noted that that view was based on the fact that “a series of renovations dating from the 1980s … altered key elements of the original 1960 design.”
After hearing from both staff and representatives of the Sanderling Club, the memo said, the Historic Preservation Board members “determined that the building possesses five attributes of historic integrity, and subsequently voted unanimously to recommend the application favorably to the [County Commission].”
Those five attributes, the memo added, are location, design, setting, association and feeling. Further, the memo said, the Historic Preservation Board members agreed that the property met two historic designation criteria, as follows, with emphasis:
- County Code Section 66-114(b)(1) — “Be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our local, state or national history (Community Development and Planning, namely post-WWII recreational and residential development of Siesta Key).”
- County Code Section 66-114(b)(3) — “Embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values, or that represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction (The Sarasota School of Architecture).”
Details of the building’s past
The application that the Sanderling Club submitted to county staff said that the architects of the clubhouse were John Crowell, James Holliday and Michael Holliday. The original contractor, the application added, was Irvin J. Bulifant.
Lorrie Muldowney, president of Creative Preservation and the former manager of the Sarasota County History Center, assisted the Sanderling Club with the application, documents show. Her report on the property, dated Dec. 23, 2025, said, “The Sanderling Cabana Club is a two-story structure located along the Gulf of Mexico on Siesta Key … [It] was featured in a master plan for the site created by Paul Rudolph in 1956. The Cabana Club was designed to complement an existing restroom building, five cabana structures and a lookout tower constructed on the site in 1952 and 1953.”
Rudolph — who served as dean of the Yale University Department of Architecture form 1958 to 1965, as Wikipedia reports — is one of the pioneers of the Sarasota School of Architecture, which is known worldwide, the Sarasota Art Museum of the Ringling College of Art + Design explains.
Originally, Muldowney noted, plans called for “a larger recreational complex” that was to include tennis courts and a pool. “The pool was never built,” she wrote.
A National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Sanderling Beach Club explained, “The construction of the original clubhouse followed Rudoph’s master plan in both setting and scale [with] the building repeating the established building rhythm.” However, that nomination noted, architect Crowell’s plan “deviated from the design with the addition of a floating partition between the first and second floors that obscured the clean lines of the structure and added ornamentation not originally included.”
Muldowney further pointed out, “Planning for the renovation of the clubhouse began in 1983.” The goal, she wrote, was “to rehabilitate the structure in accordance with the plan that Rudolph had established in 1956,” including the removal of the floating partition “and the creation of an enclosed atrium on the south end of the structure by removing a section of the ceiling between the first and second floors.”
Rudolph had envisioned such an atrium in his 1953 plans, she added.
“The renovation was necessitated by the deteriorated condition of the structure and according to the National Register Nomination … brought it closer to the original design intent” of Rudolph,” she pointed out.
“Today,” she wrote, “the Sanderling Cabana Club, attached restrooms and tennis courts are the only surviving structures from the former Sanderling Club Beach Club complex and Paul Rudolph’s Master Plan for the site.”
The July 7 public hearing on the historic designation of the structure was a Presentation Upon Request, meaning that no remarks would be made about the proposal unless a commissioner sought them. No one on the board did, and no one had signed up to speak during the hearing, Chair Ron Cutsinger announced.
Commissioner Teresa Mast made the motion to approve the designation, and Commissioner Mark Smith, a long-time Siesta Key architect, seconded it.