University of Texas at Austin

Norman Bel Geddes and Co.
Rendering of Geddes’s design for the Boca Raton yacht club
1951
Gouache on board
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Norman Bel Geddes Database

Job 591, Boca Raton Master Plan, 1947-1954

Summary: In 1945 the hotel owner and real estate developer J. Myer Schine purchased the Boca Raton Club and Hotel and hired Bel Geddes to work on master plans for the Florida property and for his Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

For Boca Raton, Geddes designed the Yacht Club and boat yard and seven houses—three to be built within a cost of $12,000, two for $25,000, one for $30,000 and one for $35,000. The “ultra-modern” homes, completed in 1949, featured extensive use of plate glass windows and doors, outdoor terraces (Geddes envisioned most meals being eaten outdoors or in the living room so none had formal dining rooms), and “husband-and-wife” bathrooms, centered by square tubs and showers. The reported aggregate selling price of the homes was $155,000.

The firm of Pope & Blake served as architects of record.

The file includes a variety of design jobs Geddes contracted for hotel owner and real estate developer J. Myer Schine, consolidating the files for Houses (job 591), Yacht Club (job 586), and Boat Yard (job 587).


(click image for description)

Box/Location Folder Description
box 46 591.1-2 Correspondence 1948-1949, 1953-1954. Telephone conversations Oct1948-May1949.
box 46 591.3 Financial --- Agreements, correspondence, billings, cost estimates 1948-1949.
box 46 591.4 Houses --- Correspondence, design schedule, design control standards, 3 photostats of plans 1948-1949.
box 46 591.5 Houses --- Pope & Blake Architects - Correspondence Dec1948-Aug1949.
box 46 591.6 Houses --- 7 Photostats of renderings.
photo box 18 591.1 Houses --- 57 Photographs.
flat file 591.1 Houses --- 9 Photographs.
flat file 591.2 Houses --- 26 Drawings. 10 Blueprints of plans.
damaged box 18 591.1-2 Houses --- 9 Blueprints of plans.
flat file 591.3 Yacht Club --- 8 Drawings, 15 blueprints, 2 photostats.
flat file 591.4 Yacht Club --- 3 Renderings.
box 46 591.7 Yacht Club --- Photostats of 2 renderings.
photo box 18 591.1 Yacht Club --- 2 Photographs of renderings.
oversize box 10 591.1 Master Plan --- Presentation Book.
oversize box 10 591.2 Master Plan --- Presentation Book - Photostats.
flat file 591.5 Master Plan --- 4 Plat drawings, 3 photostats of zoning maps.
box 46 591.8 Data --- Publicity Clippings 1947.
flat file 591.6 Data --- Clippings 1947.
photo box 18 591.3-4 Data --- 15 Photographs of Boca Raton Club Hotel.
photo box 18 591.5 Data --- 14 Photographs Roney Plaza Hotel, Miami Beach.
negative box 31 591.1 Data --- 1 Negative Boca Raton Club.
negative box 31 591.2 Data --- 6 Color negatives of Roney Plaza.
box 46 591.8 Data --- Captions for Roney Plaza photographs.
box 46 591.9 Data --- Boca Raton Club brochures, clippings.
box 46 591.10 Data --- File folder, inscribed by NBG, "These ARE Boca Raton House / NOT as numbered and marked / NOT Ambassador bungaloes / So change the file number".

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