Evening Post. His habit of putting an attractive
figure in the foreground of the car ads started a
trend in advertising worldwide.
Larry continued to further his artistic prowess
in Chicago with Francis Chapin and Edmund
Geisbert at the Art Institute of Chicago, and with
Gyorgy Kepes at the Institute of Design, and also
taught at the Art Institute of Chicago. He became
a full partner at Stevens, Sundblom and Stults and
in the 1930s he helped to create the Evans and
Stults Advertising Agency with offices in Chicago
and New York. He later had his own firm, Larry
Stults and Associates.
It was an issue with his lungs that brought Larry,
his wife Jan and their children – Debbie, Taylor and
Peter - to Southwest Florida. They stayed with
family friends, Lo and Gord Whitney, who had
resort property on Longboat Key. One day they
chartered a boat to go fishing and ended up on
Cabbage Key by way of Boca Grande. The island
was for sale at the time, put on the market by the
Rinehart family. It was Larry’s idea to open an inn,
and that is exactly what they did in 1944 when
they purchased Cabbage Key.
The asking price was originally $135,000, but
because of the war, real estate values had
plummeted. When Larry and Jan first saw the
island they decided to go home to Chicago and
think about it. They decided to make an offer to
the realtor, which barely made it by mail before a
second offer came.
“Back in the day the mail was delivered in the
morning and afternoon, and by the time my
grandparents were headed back to Chicago they
decided to put in an offer,” said Larry Wilcox
Stults, the couple’s grandchild. “That afternoon a
check from another party came in for the full
asking price, but my grandparents’ check came in
the morning. It was made for about $25,000, and
was accepted.”
There was the main house, built in the