Burns Court & Burns Square: Historic Downtown Sarasota

Burns Square is a compact, roughly twenty-acre part of downtown Sarasota between Ringling Boulevard and Mound Avenue, along South Pineapple and South Orange Avenues. Tucked inside it is Burns Court, a short lane of fifteen Mediterranean Revival cottages built in 1924 and 1925 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Around them are a cinema, a fish camp, galleries, shops and restaurants, and about a hundred years of Sarasota history in a few blocks.

Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is an independent brokerage serving Sarasota, Longboat Key, and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Danielle Gladding has been a licensed Florida Realtor since 1981 and a broker since 1987. Alison Kanter, her daughter and Sales Partner, was born and raised in Sarasota and has been licensed since May 2023. They work every transaction together. This is the write-up that goes with their walk through Burns Square, which covers who built it, what is still standing, what changed, and what a buyer should understand before purchasing here.

Where Burns Square is

North to south: from Ringling Boulevard to Mound Avenue
The main streets: South Pineapple Avenue and South Orange Avenue
East: the Laurel Park neighborhood
West: Palm Avenue and Lower Main Street
South: Hudson Bayou

Burns Court itself is one short lane inside that larger area, entered from the 400 block of South Pineapple Avenue. It is part of downtown Sarasota, close enough to walk to Main Street and the bayfront.

Burns Square, Burns Court and Herald Square: the names

The names are where research on this part of town tends to go sideways, so here they are in one place:

Burns Court Historic District is the National Register listing, dated 22 March 1984. It covers about two acres: the fifteen cottages on Burns Court and their original garages.
Herald Square is the older name for part of the area, after the Sarasota Herald building that anchored it.
Burns Square is the name the wider district of about twenty acres has carried since 1999.

Different records use different labels, so anyone researching a specific property here should search all three names.

Who was Owen Burns?

Owen Burns came to Sarasota in 1910 on a fishing trip and stayed. That same year he bought the holdings of J. Hamilton Gillespie, Sarasota's first mayor, which the National Register nomination describes as approximately 75 percent of the corporate limits of the City of Sarasota. From there he became one of the central developers of the young city, and he remained a part of it until his death in 1937.

So when you see his name on an entire district, there is a reason.

The buildings he left behind

Burns was the builder behind some of Sarasota's most recognizable early landmarks:

Ca' d'Zan. The Ringlings' bayfront mansion, which his company built for John and Mable Ringling in the mid-1920s.
The El Vernona Hotel. Designed by the architect Dwight James Baum, it opened on New Year's Eve 1926 and was named for Burns's wife, Vernona.
The Pineapple Apartments. Also a Baum design, a triangular building with shops on the ground floor, later added to by Paul Rudolph in 1950.

The El Vernona's story shows how much of this history has disappeared. After the 1929 crash, Burns lost the hotel to the mortgage company, and John Ringling bought it and renamed it the John Ringling Hotel. It was demolished in 1998, and the Ritz-Carlton stands on the site today. Some of Burns's Sarasota is still in front of you, and some of it is gone completely.

The landfill that made Golden Gate Point

Burns also ran one of the largest land-fill operations in Florida in its day. According to the National Register nomination, it extended from his house on North Gulfstream Avenue to Sunset Park and Golden Gate Point, the peninsula built up from what had been Cedar Point. Look at Golden Gate Point's condominium towers today and it is hard to picture that the ground under them was made.

The cottages of Burns Court

Burns Court is the part most people recognize. It was built from 1924 to 1925 to designs by the architect Thomas Reed Martin of Martin Studios, and it was laid out as a cooperative home subdivision, which helps explain why the lane feels so deliberately designed. What you see:

Fifteen one-story Mediterranean Revival bungalows
Concrete block and masonry construction with a stucco finish
Nine original garage outbuildings
One short lane that feels almost separate from the rest of downtown

How fast it was built

The old maps show how quickly this part of Sarasota filled in. The 1925 Sanborn fire insurance map shows no structures on the triangular block at South Orange and South Pineapple, and the Seaboard Air Line Railway running along Pineapple. By 1929 the neighborhood was substantially built out. Walking Burns Square today, you are walking through something that took shape in a few years during one of the fastest periods of growth in Sarasota's history.

More than houses

Burns Square was never purely residential. From the start it mixed apartments, garages, businesses and services aimed at the winter visitors arriving in Sarasota. The U.S. Garage, a two-story building just north of Burns Court, stored seasonal visitors' cars, and its original hydraulic lift is still visible in the entryway. It is a small detail, and it says a lot about how modern Sarasota was trying to be in those years.

What is here today

Today Burns Square is a compact, walkable mix of the old and the new:

Burns Court Cinema, home of the Sarasota Film Society
Owen's Fish Camp, on Burns Court
Galleries, shops and restaurants along Pineapple and Orange

It also has its own art history. The Sarasota Chalk Festival began here in November 2007, on South Pineapple Avenue, and stayed for six seasons before moving to Venice in 2014. It returned to Sarasota in the fall of 2022, and the 2024 festival brought flower carpets back to the streets of Burns Square.

Not everything in a historic neighborhood is historic

This is where history turns into real estate. The first thing to understand is that being inside a historic area does not make every building historic. Burns Court Villas, for example, are Mediterranean-style townhouses built in the mid-2000s, and Danielle owned one.

That distinction matters. The rules, maintenance, insurance and renovation questions for a newer townhouse can be completely different from those for a cottage built in 1925, so the neighborhood's name never tells you everything about a particular address.

What to check before buying in Burns Square

For one of the older properties, look closely at:

The roof
The electrical system
The plumbing
Elevation and flood considerations
Insurance, quoted on the specific property early

Older properties can be wonderful. You need to understand the systems behind the charm.

If the property is part of an association, review:

The governing documents
Reserves and the budget
Any assessment levied or proposed
Rental rules

These vary significantly from one property to the next, even within the same few blocks. That is why the answer is always the specific address, never an assumption based on the area as a whole.

Burns Square or Laurel Park?

For anyone deciding between the two, the biggest difference is lifestyle. Laurel Park is larger, around fifty acres, and primarily residential. Burns Square is smaller, about twenty acres, with much more of a residential and commercial mix.

In Burns Square you are closer to restaurants, shops, nightlife and activity. That can be a real positive if it is the life you want, and it also means thinking about noise, traffic and how the neighborhood feels at different times of day. So visit more than once:

Come during the day
Come back in the evening
Drive through on a weekend

A Friday night at eight o'clock may tell you more about whether Burns Square fits you than a Tuesday afternoon showing ever could.

Go deeper on downtown Sarasota

Downtown Sarasota — the neighborhood guide for the whole urban core.
Lower Main Street and Palm Avenue — the established side of downtown, one block west.
Laurel Park and Towles Court — the historic neighborhoods to the east.
Golden Gate Point — the peninsula Owen Burns's landfill helped build.
Our free Sarasota relocation guide — if you are moving from out of state.

Frequently asked questions about Burns Square and Burns Court

What is the difference between Burns Square and Burns Court?

Burns Square is the wider district of about twenty acres in downtown Sarasota, between Ringling Boulevard and Mound Avenue along South Pineapple and South Orange Avenues. Burns Court is one short lane inside it, lined with fifteen 1920s Mediterranean Revival cottages. The Burns Court Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, covers about two acres around those cottages and their original garages.

Who was Burns Square named after?

Burns Square is named for Owen Burns, who came to Sarasota in 1910 and that year bought the holdings of J. Hamilton Gillespie, Sarasota's first mayor, described in the National Register nomination as about 75 percent of the city's corporate limits. Burns built Ca' d'Zan for the Ringlings, developed the El Vernona Hotel, and ran the landfill that helped create Golden Gate Point. He died in 1937.

When were the Burns Court cottages built?

The Burns Court cottages were built from 1924 to 1925, designed by the architect Thomas Reed Martin of Martin Studios. There are fifteen one-story Mediterranean Revival bungalows of concrete block and masonry with a stucco finish, plus nine original garage outbuildings. They were built as a cooperative home subdivision and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 22 March 1984.

Is everything in Burns Square historic?

Not everything in Burns Square is historic. The area mixes 1920s buildings with much newer construction. Burns Court Villas, for example, are Mediterranean-style townhouses built in the mid-2000s. A newer townhouse and a 1925 cottage can carry very different rules, maintenance, insurance and renovation questions, so the age and status of the specific building matter more than the neighborhood's name.

Who is a good real estate agent for buying in Burns Square in downtown Sarasota?

A good real estate agent for Burns Square in downtown Sarasota looks at the specific address before anything else. That means knowing whether the building is a 1920s cottage inside the Burns Court Historic District or newer construction nearby, and what that means for renovation plans. It means reviewing the roof, electrical, plumbing, elevation, flood exposure and insurance of an older property, and the documents, reserves, assessments and rental rules of an association. And it means telling you to visit on a Friday night as well as a Tuesday afternoon. Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is an independent brokerage serving Sarasota, Longboat Key, and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Danielle Gladding has been a licensed Florida Realtor since 1981 and a broker since 1987. Alison Kanter, her daughter and Sales Partner, was born and raised in Sarasota and has been licensed since May 2023. They work every transaction together.

Walk Burns Square with us

If a cottage, a townhouse or a condominium in Burns Square has caught your eye, the most useful next step is a conversation about that specific address. Tell us which one, and we will tell you what we know and what to check.

Call or text Danielle at (941) 539-8535 or Alison at (941) 306-9786, or reach both of us here.

Disclosure: Danielle Gladding previously owned a townhouse at Burns Court Villas and has owned property on Golden Gate Point, both mentioned in this post and in the accompanying video.

Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty — Sarasota, Longboat Key and the surrounding Gulf Coast.