I couldn’t resist this superb Mid-century modern dealership 2085 Gulf To Bay Blvd. in Clearwater, FL. Great building, and an equally great sign. Makes today’s dealerships look so cookie-cutter boring. And they sold English Fords too.
Vintage Dealer Postcard: Carlisle-Porter Motor Co. – Continental, Lincoln, Mercury, Edsel
– Posted on September 9, 2021
And there was a dealer who spent big bucks to go thru lean times in the late 1950’s. Wonder how long he kept the franchise?
Also the beginnings of a Ford Motor Company tradition: Giving the captive import brand to the Mercury dealer who didn’t have a clue how to sell them.
I’m sure it was a temporary blip. I grew up in Florida in the 90s and man did snowbirds love their Town Cars and Grand Marquises.
From 1959, judging by the Lincoln sedan up front.
I’m guessing this spiffy sign didn’t last long as Continental sub-branding ended after 1959, and Edsel vanished shortly therafter.
“English Ford” would fit but then they’d give the top line to the cheapest car (“New Anglia, same price as VW but with Breezeway-look (fixed) rear window and immediate delivery!”), soon to be bracketed by “Comet” replacing Edsel since it was a standalone marque for the first couple years.
Hmm. “Continental, Lincoln, Mercury, Edsel, Ford”. Not unlike “Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet”. And then there was “Imperial, Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Valiant”. I see a pattern here.
Wonderful architecture. The building, the sign, and the landscaping harmonize. Too bad the cars didn’t have the same harmony.
CC effect: Just 5 seconds before seeing this, I was typing a comment about English Fords elsewhere.
What a great pic! It just screams Florida. I would be cool to have this same pic taken at night when it’s all lit up.
or Palm Springs, CA
Here is link to some additional information regarding the structure:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/midcentarc/8188254841
awesome link
Sure is, and the entrance to dangerously inviting rabbit hole.
My eyesight can’t quite tell, but does the plan show a POOL in the very middle of this building?
It’s still a Lincoln dealer location.
I also looked up the location out of curiosity and there is not a trace of the old building, looks like a very generic modern dealership. I would like to know how long the former showroom survived.
I also noticed that right next door is a Skyline Chili, one of my very favorite fast food restaurants. It’s a Cincinnati institution and I wasn’t aware it had spread beyond the SW Ohio region.
Pete Rose grew up in western Cincinnati & loves Skyline chili.
Nice ~ I love the architecture .
The link has good images too .
-Nate
Very neat!
I happen to be writing an article now on Edsel dealers, so naturally my eye was drawn to the sign in front of the building. This building opened June 1958 – about the time that dealers started dropping or scaling back their Edsel franchises, so I bet this was one of the last Edsel signs ever made. I see in Jon’s link above that a later sign advertised Lincoln, Mercury and Comet.
The building itself was designed by John Randal McDonald, whose work had many similar themes to Frank Lloyd Wright’s, and McDonald had a particular interest in Japanese aesthetics, hence the pagoda-style roof. The entire showroom building was finished in natural wood and stone — no painted surfaces on the interior or exterior (a separate service building was probably constructed differently).
The dealership evidently cost about $150,000 to construct, which I think was about 2-3 times the typical car-dealership cost at the time.
Thanks, Paul. This is is a real treat for the eyes, especially (to me) for the FoMoCo stuff. It’s fun that it can be dated to a fairly narrow range of months, all because of the vehicles.
(Jon: thanks for the Weyerhauser construction ad!)
A quick search of some of my go-to sources didn’t turn up any advertisements, etc.—-just this useful history of the firm: http://www.big-benz.com/The%20History%20of%20the%20Carlisle%20Family%20in%20Automotive%20Retailing.html
Oddball CC effect: I just learned that architect John Randal McDonald did other buildings in/around Clearwater, but also a slew in SE Wisconsin, many of them a few minutes away from me this very moment:
https://www.facebook.com/jrmcdarchitect/
That seems odd, despite the snowbird prevalence in Clearwater. Was he a Taliesin apprentice with Wright in Spring Green or just similar themes and influences?
Frank Lloyd Wright goes commercial?
A beautiful, light, airy pavilion showplace. The signage is very distinctive. This dealership would look so fantastic when the 1961 Continentals arrived a couple years later. The 1960 Lincoln and Mercury designs fit the building.
Nice!
Wouldn’t it be super to go back in time to this dealership and look at all the beautiful new cars and the architecture?
Surely the owner was an architecture enthusiast. This kind of beauty is what you get when you hire an architect and put your money where you mouth is. I totally see the FLW Taliesin West influences on the signs, planters and geometric roofline. Thanks to Google I also found the floor plan. You could practically pull it off some of FLW drawings. A real gem.
What a snazzy dealership! Thanks.
Carlisle did go on selling Mercury and Lincolns – along with Rolls Royces, too – in a showroom in St. Petersburg, just a few miles south of this dealership. As many have noted, the Tampa Bay area (St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater, then south to Bradenton and Sarasota) and the Naples/Fort Myers area were the destination of many affluent midwestern retirees, and those folks loved their Lincolns. Or Cadillacs, or Chryslers, or any other large American luxury car of the day. It would make sense that a Lincoln dealer would be doing very well, and that said dealer would choose an architect of note from the mid-west to design their store. Add in that the entire mid-century design ethos really did well in Florida climate, and it all makes a lot of sense. The Sarasota School of architecture seems to fit this style, and again, was a popular choice for the time and area. I recall a lot of businesses choosing this style as I was growing up in the area in the 1960s, so this was not a fluke, just a really good example.
I have seen this postcard before and have been fascinated by this place. From the looks of the Weyerhauser ad, the entire showroom was an open-air affair? I wonder how long this building remained before being replaced. It is striking in that unique mid-century way, but even in that location an enclosed air conditioned showroom may have been more effective at actually selling cars.
Here’s the dark cloud moving in. lol
I know folks are crazy for mid-century modern, space age, whatever.
However, it was some of the worst thought-out crap ever built.
Homes and commercial, both in the same league.
Dumb water-drinking roof and foundation designs. Often zero regard for energy efficiency or being in step with surrounding area, nature, etc.
Thinking about it a bit… on par with some of the cars.
I can think of a bunch of ’20s ’30s buildings that are still workaday chugging on, or have been neatly revamped. The “Sputnik” stuff, other than an occasional mild version, or one that now has survived to curio status, seems like they’re mostly all gone.
Very seductive. To the best of my memory, we had NO car dealerships that looked like this in New Brunswick in 1959.
Reminds me of the magic of occasional driving trips to/through the States in the 1950s, noses pressed to the windows of our ‘Canadian Statesman’. 🙂
Two thoughts about this – the sign and FLW.
1. In the early ’70s the brands on the dealership sign could have been: Lincoln / Mercury / Pantera / Capri. A decade plus later it could have shown: Lincoln / Mercury / Capri / Merkur. In the ’90s it could have read Lincoln / Mercury / Capri / Tracer (maybe a stretch). Capri was always an easy but good car for a regular L/M customer to get for his daughter in college. I have personal experience with this phenomenon.
2. FLW was a car nut and traded the design for the Park Avenue Mercedes dealership in NYC for two Mercedes cars – one of which I believe was a 300SL. Dealership building was a spectacular design and now it is gone. I wonder about the cars he got.