The Coral Gables Woman’s Club: A History and A Legacy

By: Maya Bell

For more than a century, the Coral Gables Woman’s Club and the city of Coral Gables have been inextricably linked. In 1923, as developer George Merrick sold lots for the new city he envisioned, 49 women from the Coral Gables Congregational Church began organizing a social and philanthropic organization dedicated to community wellbeing.

By the time Coral Gables incorporated on April 29, 1925, the women’s club had affiliated with the Florida General Federation of Women’s Clubs and counted more than $300 in its treasury and 83 total members. Merrick’s wife Eunice was a founding director.

In 1927, club members organized the city’s first lending library in what is now the city’s Douglas Entrance and, at George Merrick’s invitation, held their meetings at the Coral Gables Country Club. The fledgling library consisted of 300 books donated by authors who answered the call to provide copies. Other donations included 100 volumes from the private collection of renowned statesman William Jennings Bryan.

In 1929, the club created a junior department, which formally became the Coral Gables Junior Woman’s Club in 1936. By then, the junior women had inaugurated “Cabaret,” a choreographed show in which members not only performed song and dance routines but also built the sets and sewed the costumes.

The annual fundraisers, which continued for more than seven decades, were so successful that, in 1939, the juniors used the proceeds to establish a dental clinic for poor children in the office of the mayor of Coral Gables.

Except for a two-year hiatus during World War II, the club has operated the Coral Gables Children’s Dental Clinic ever since, providing millions of dollars’ worth of life-enhancing dental care to thousands of children who otherwise might never see a dentist.

Club members also raised $10,000 toward the cost of their now-iconic coral rock clubhouse at 1001 and 1009 E. Ponce de Leon Boulevard. Built on four city-owned lots from oolitic limestone mined from a local quarry, the building was the first Depression-era Works Progress Administration project in the City of Coral Gables.

Officially dedicated in February 1937, the L-shaped building featured two wings, which prominent artists adorned with murals, sculptures, and friezes. Local sculptor Robert Hume carved the four figures depicting the seasons of a woman’s life that grace the fountain in front of the north wing, as well as the sculptures of the pharaonic woman and man, symbolizing learning, that flank the main entrance portal.

Although the city held the lease to the complex until 1950, the senior women occupied the north wing when the building opened. For more than three decades, the south wing housed the city’s ever-expanding library, which the club supervised until the city took over the library’s management in 1953.

Four years later, with $9,000 in proceeds from “Cabaret,” the junior club moved the dental clinic from the mayor’s office into a suite in the south wing. When the library outgrew its quarters and relocated to its own building on Segovia Street in 1969, the juniors moved into the south hall themselves, eventually building a larger annex for the dental clinic, where it remains today.

Left: Woman’s Club President Arely Ruiz, Shown Right in the Dental Clinic.
Right: The Historic Woman’s Club Located at 1001 East Ponce de Leon Blvd.

Due to soaring costs, “Cabaret” was discontinued in 2005. But revenue from clubhouse rentals and other fundraising galas, auctions, teas, and monthly Gringo Bingo games continue to support the dental clinic, and a myriad of other causes that promote education, health, the environment, civic welfare, and the arts and sciences. The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation also supports the clinic with generous annual grants that began in 1992.

In 2007, the junior and general woman’s clubs merged, officially becoming the Coral Gables Woman’s Club. And in 2021, the club circled back to its roots, dedicating a Little Library outside the city’s original library to former member Janice Thomson, the late daughter of former club president Dorothy Thomson, who in 1985 became the city’s first female mayor.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, the clubhouse remains one of the few examples of Great Depression-era Moderne-style architecture in Florida, and the Coral Gables Woman’s Club remains the city’s most enduring civic and philanthropic organization – a legacy the club celebrated at its “Roaring ’20s” Centennial Gala on Dec. 2, 2023.

Today, the club has more members than ever, thanks in part to a surge of new joiners during COVID – when the organization partnered with Chef Chris Valdes to provide thousands of free meals. “It is challenging, in a good way, because now we have three or four generations within the club that all have different interests and priorities,” says club president Arely Ruiz. “However, we are determined to create events and programs that carry on the tradition of the club, and carry on our mission, which is to sustain the children’s dental clinic and to sustain the club so that it carries on for another 100 years. It’s a social community, a safe haven for women to meet and be part of a welcoming, family-oriented organization.”