John Ringling, the circus magnate, built his winter estate on Sarasota Bay in the 1920s and filled a purpose-built museum with an extraordinary collection of European Baroque paintings — Rubens, Velázquez, Cranach. The estate also includes Ca' d'Zan, his Venetian Gothic mansion, and the Circus Museum, which is exactly as strange and wonderful as it sounds. Budget at least three hours. The grounds alone, with their rose garden and Italian statuary, are worth a wander.
The Ringling
Circus magnate's Baroque art collection and Venetian Gothic mansion