“La Florentia” Nicknamed: “Birthday Cake Castle” Location: Lake Worth, Florida Photo Credits: Alice Lowe for www.ArtandDesignMatters.com Interesting tidbits: The home got its name due to its many “cake-like” features, such as pillars shaped as candles, concrete wall surfaces that “swirl” like icing and a birthday cake stained glass window above the main entrance. There are tiles above an exterior door that reads “Birthday Cake Castle”. Built by local banker Earl Reed for his wife, Florence, in 1925, and named it “La Florentia”. The home was designed by Addison Mizner draftsman G. Sherman Childs and was built in 1925 along the Lake Worth, Florida waterfront, where 5th Avenue South meets the Intracoastal, just south of Bryant Park. Childs also designed the Lake Worth City Hall, the original Lake Worth Casino, and several notable homes. He was Lake Worth’s most significant art deco architect. The home didn’t earn its nickname, Birthday Cake Castle, until 1954, when WWII correspondent, Upton Close, bought the house as a birthday gift for his wife, Margaret Fretter Nye. She wrote books on a typewriter in the octagonal turret. It was the first property included on the Lake Worth Register of Historic Places. In 2015, the Mediterranean style home served as the venue for the 39th American Red Cross Designers’ Show House—welcoming 20 designers to transform its interiors. References: Palm Beach Post, Sun Sentinel, Book: Art Deco of the Palm Beaches, Book: Our Century Featuring the Palm Beach Post 100: The People Who Changed the Way We Live, Blog: Lovely Lake Worth, and Metapedia #VisitLakeWorth #VisitFlorida #BirthdayCakeHouse #LaFlorentia #MeditteraneanArchitecture #ArchitectureHistory #FloridaArchitecture #LakeWorthArchitecture #BirthdayCakeCastle #BirthdayCakeHouse #admFloridaArtCrawl #admSupportsTheArts #ArtandDesignMatters #LakeWorthFlorida #artanddesign #CultureTrip #CultureTravel #CultureTraveler #WaterfrontProperty #FloridaCastle #FloridaMansion #HitoricalProperty #LakeWorthRegisterOfHistoricalPlaces #RegisterOfHistoricalPlaces #HistoricalProperty #HistoryOfLakeWorth #LakeWorthHistory (at Birthday Cake Castle)