The Pagoda

by Norman, Rose
5 out of 5 Customer Rating
ISBN: 9781944981631
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Overview

A bold and important history of lesbian-feminism on the Florida coast.

In 1977, two lesbian couples living in St. Augustine, Florida, found a row of small beach houses for sale next to a house they wanted to turn into a feminist theatre. They bought the cottages, leased and later bought the theatre building, and over the next two decades expanded and developed the property as a cultural center, women's retreat center, and residential community. The Pagoda, as it came to be called, offered nude swimming in a private pool, fire circles on the beach, variety shows with bellydancing, poetry readings, comedy sketches, and regular concerts by feminist musicians in a private theatre. Pagoda women produced feminist plays about Cinderella's after-story and sketch comedy by Positively Revolting Hags. They hosted celebrations of the Goddess, Tarot readings, and psychic workshops.

At its height, The Pagoda was a Goddess church running a cultural center and guesthouse surrounded by twelve tiny, custom-built, knotty pine cottages and a duplex, all owned by lesbians. The cultural center and guesthouse lasted twenty-two years as an active operation run by the incorporated, tax-exempt Pagoda-temple of Love in the closing decades of the twentieth century, and another sixteen years after that shepherded by Fairy Godmothers, Inc., four women with a different vision for the space. This is the story of how all that happened.

In THE PAGODA: A LESBIAN COMMUNITY BY THE SEA, Rose Norman expertly synthesizes interviews and extensive archival research to tell the story of the women who made that community a place for lesbian culture to bloom and grow.

  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Author: Norman, Rose
  • ISBN: 9781944981631
  • Condition: Used
  • Number Of Pages: 368
  • Publication Year: 2024
Language: English

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