Ringling Circus Museum Archives

My third post in the series is the Ringling House or Ca’d’Zan. In other post I have written about the Ringling Art Museum and the Grounds around the Ringling House and Museums. But the house of John and Mable Ringling is the center piece of the Ringling’s and is open for tours. Because the price of the house tours is as different as the tours, you may wish to give it some thought before deciding which tours to take.

If you are getting a museum tour you can add on a self guided tour of the house for ten dollars. For twenty dollars plus museum admission you can take the Mable Tour, which is a forty minute guided tour of the first and second floor. Another option is John’s Tour. This forty-five minute tour takes you to the game room, fourth floor and the tower. The price for John’s tour is thirty dollars. Finally the last option is the John and Mable tour which combines the two. The price of this tour is forty dollars.

Walking past either the Art Museum or the Circus Museum, we soon came to the Ca’d’Zan, the Ringling house.

John and Mable loved Italy and had the house built to reflect Venice. Ca’d’Zan the name of the house is House of John in the dialect of Venice.

The house was started in 1924 and was finished just before Christmas 1926 at the price of one and half million dollars.

After the tour we decided to walk to the back of the house. There we could sit and enjoy the view of the Gulf.

We loved our visits to the Ringling Museums and Ca’d’Zan and we will visit it again when we return to Sarasota.

We love the Siesta Key area and one of the things we love most is the Ringling’s in Sarasota. Because of the amount of things to see I will break it down to three post.

The first post will be the grounds surrounding the Ringling home and the art museum. The second will be the art museum and the third will be the house.

When you arrive at the Ringling you enter in a common area and choose what you wish to see.

The museum admission is about twenty five dollars for adults and includes the art museum and the circus museum. For an additional ten dollars you can include the first floor of the Ca’d’Zan or Ringling house. For twenty dollars more then the museum price you can get the first and second floor of the Ca’d’Zan. John’s tour is thirty dollars and does not include the museums. But it takes you to the fourth floor and the tower. John and Mables tour is fourth dollars and covers the entire house but does not include the museums. A great deal is Monday’s, on Monday you get free admission to the art museum.

We felt that you could spend a day just in the art museum so we took advantage of the free Mondays.

After planning your visit and buying tickets you can walk straight to the circus museum and then continue on the Ringling House (Ca’d’Zan). If instead you turn left you can go to the art museum.