| Hotel Name: | Don CeSar Hotel | ||||||||||||
| Developer: | Thomas Rowe | ||||||||||||
| Number Of Restaurants: | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Number Of Rooms: | 277 | ||||||||||||
| Number Of Suites: | 40 | ||||||||||||
| Floor Area: | 40000square feet | ||||||||||||
| Footnotes: |
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The Don CeSar is a hotel located in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Developed by Thomas Rowe and opened in 1928, it gained renown as the Gulf playground for America's pampered rich at the height of the Jazz Age. The hotel was designed by Henry H. Dupont. The Don CeSar is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[1]
In 1924, Thomas Rowe purchased 80acres of land in St. Petersburg, Florida for $100,000 to begin his dream of building a "pink castle". He hired architect Henry Dupont to design the hotel and Carlton Beard as contractor. To ensure the stability of the hotel on the shifting sand and avoid the high cost of sinking so many pilings, Beard devised a floating concrete pad and pyramid footings. To this day, there is no sign of evident settling of the hotel. The architecture is a blend of Mediterranean and Moorish styles modeled after different hotels and developments that Rowe and Beard saw in Palm Beach, Coral Gables and Boca Raton. Arched openings, red clay tile roofs, balconies, stucco over hollow tile and tower like upper stories were some of the elements that they borrowed. The original design called for a $450,000 six-story hotel with 110 rooms and baths. It was expanded to 220 rooms and 220 baths, and the costs soared to $1.25 million, 300% over budget. Rowe named it Don Ce-Sar after Don César de Bazan, the hero of William Vincent Wallace's opera Maritana.
Rowe's "Pink Lady" opened on January 16, 1928, with an extravagant party attended by the elite of Tampa, Florida and St. Petersburg, Florida. The hotel quickly became a favorite romping ground for the rich and famous of the Jazz Age including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Clarence Darrow, Al Capone, Lou Gehrig, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Pink Palace continued to attract the rich and famous throughout the Great Depression in part to a deal made with New York Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert to house his team during spring training for three years.[2]
However, after the sudden death of Rowe without a will, The Don was left to his estranged wife and began to fall into disrepair until the United States entered into World War II, and the hotel was bought by the Army for $450,000. It was converted into a military hospital and reopened in December 1942. In February 1944, the Don Ce-Sar became a convalescent center for the United States Army Air Corps. In June 1945, the Don Ce-Sar was ordered closed and was vacant by September 1945. It was converted into a Veterans Administration Regional Office by the end of 1945.
In November 1967, the Veterans Administration began moving out of the Don Ce-Sar, having opened a new office in downtown St. Petersburg. By Spring 1969, the once grand hotel was vacant. The General Services Administration planned to raze the graffiti-covered hotel, but this plan was met with fierce opposition from local residents. In March 1972, the Don Ce-Sar was sold to C.L. Pyatt and William Bowman Jr., a franchise owner of Holiday Inn. The Don CeSar (now spelled without the hyphen) reopened on November 23, 1973. Multiple renovations from 1985 to 2001 have updated and added to the hotel, including a 4000square feet spa, a signature restaurant, and a second outdoor swimming pool. After the addition of the full-service beach club and spa, the official name of the hotel was changed to The Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa.
The Don CeSar was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and became a founding member of the National Trust Historic Hotels of America in 1989.