The influential and adventurous Chicago socialite Mrs. Potter Palmer (Bertha) struck out for Florida in 1910, eventually buying thousands of acres of land across the state. In 1914, after setting up residence in Sarasota, she established Riverhills, a hunting preserve on 19,000 acres in the area now known as Temple Terrace. Local historians believe it was Palmer's vision to create one of America's first planned golf course communities, where every Mediterranean Revival villa sold would include its own grove. Intended to provide a hobby and part-time income for the wealthy Northerners lured to the Sunshine State, 5,000 acres were planted with the exotic hybrid Temple orange--making up the largest citrus grove in the world at the time. The new city was named after the orange and for the sloping terrain of the land along the Hillsborough River.
Title: Temple Terrace shines in new book
Author: Staff Writer
Publisher: The Tampa Tribune
Date: 9/13/2010
The story, say its authors, is worthy of a screenplay.
They're perfectly satisfied, however, to settle on a book deal that spells out the city's rich early history in print and photos.
"Temple Terrace," a 128-page paperback by Lana Burroughs, Tim Lancaster and Grant Rimbey, will be published by Arcadia Publishing as part of its Images of America Series.
Rimbey is a Temple Terrace architect with a passion for Mediterranean Revival-style architecture and his city. Burroughs and Lancaster are a husband-and-wife duo who own and have restored a Mediterranean Revival-style home built in Temple Terrace in 1926. All three are members of the Temple Terrace Preservation Society.
The project, a year in the making, took hundreds of hours, according to Lancaster. It included trips to the Sarasota History Center, the John Germany Library in Tampa, the University of South Florida Special Collections Library and Florida College in Temple Terrace. It also involved researching countless online archives.
"I think it (the book) will give Temple Terrace some credibility and hopefully will lead to its recognition as a city in its own right and not just as a suburb of Tampa," Lancaster said.
Scheduled for release in November, the book is now available for pre-order at www.Amazon.com for $21.99.
In addition to Amazon.com, the book also will be available at www.templeterracepreservation.com and most likely will appear in area bookstores.