Vinoy Park Hotel

Vinoy Park Hotel
Location St. Petersburg, Florida
Coordinates 27°46′41.24″N 82°37′48.34″W / 27.7781222°N 82.6300944°WCoordinates: 27°46′41.24″N 82°37′48.34″W / 27.7781222°N 82.6300944°W
Built 1925[1]
Architect

Henry L. Taylor[1][2][3][4]

Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[5]
Architectural style Mediterranean Revival[1][2][3][4]
Governing body Private
NRHP Reference # 78000955
Added to NRHP September 11, 1978
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vinoy Park Hotel.

The Vinoy Park Hotel (also known as the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club) is an historic Mediterranean Revival style hotel on Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg, Florida on the bay front area of downtown. The hotel is located at 501 Fifth Avenue Northeast overlooking the Vinoy Yacht Basin.

On September 11, 1978, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter placed it on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.[6]

History

The Vinoy was built in 1925 by Aymer Vinoy Laughner. Construction began on February 5 and took 10 months to complete. The hotel was a seasonal hotel open from around December to March. Rates were $20.00 a night, the highest in the area at that time. Celebrities ranging from Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and James Stewart are known to have stayed there.

During World War II the hotel was taken over by the U.S. Army and used for a training school. After the war, the hotel was sold to Charles Alberding for $700,000. The hotel continued to prosper for the next couple of decades but fell out of favor and into decline and disrepair by the end of the 1960s.

In 1974 the Vinoy closed its doors and most of its contents were sold at auction. The hotel sat vacant until the early 1990s when it was bought by a partnership between Renaissance Hotels and Resorts and the Vinoy Development Corporation. A $93-million renovation was undertaken, and in two years the Vinoy was reopened.

In 2005, the Vinoy earned AAA Four-Diamond status.[7]

Over the years, there have been reports of ghost sitings and other supernatural events at the hotel. Some of the reports were by visiting major league baseball players and staff, who stayed at the Vinoy when in town to play the Tampa Bay Rays[8]

One of the reports came from a strength coordinator for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He described seeing a translucent apparition of a man near a desk in his room. Others have noted seeing a man dressed in formal attire walking the halls only to disappear without a trace.[9]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Urban Design & Historic Preservation Division: Local Historic Landmarks - The Vinoy Park Hotel". City of St. Petersburg.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Renaissance Vinoy Resort". Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Pinellas County listings". Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club - St. Petersburg, Florida". Historic Hotels of America.
  5. ↑ "Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club a Historic Hotels of America member". Historic Hotels of America. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  6. ↑ "AIA Florida Top 100 Buildings". Aiaflatop100.org. Retrieved 2013-12-04.
  7. ↑ "Renaissance Tampa Hotel earns AAA four diamond honor - Tampa Bay Business Journal". Bizjournals.com. 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2013-12-04.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Ghosts of Vinoy Park Hotel HauntedRooms.com

External links