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The Casa Monica Hotel (its original and now current name, was Cordova Hotel then Alcazar Annex in between) is a historic hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States. The Casa Monica Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in the United States and is a member of the Historic Hotels of America in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The hotel was opened in 1888 by Franklin W. Smith, a notable Victorian architecture enthusiast and social reformer who earned a place in Florida history for interesting Henry Flagler in investing in the state. The construction material was poured concrete, of which Franklin Smith was a leading experimenter. The original exterior finish was natural, leaving horizontal pour marks visible, and matching other grand Flagler era structures in downtown St. Augustine. Unfortunately, the exterior was altered by covering with a modern material (stucco) in the 1960s. The architectural style was Moorish Revival and Spanish Baroque Revival, in which Smith was also a pioneer promoter. His own winter home, Villa Zorayda, just a block to the west, was the first Moorish Revival building in the Ancient City. The hotel's Sun Parlor was the most notable interior room, but it was gutted after the hotel closed.
Soon after completing the hotel, Smith ran into financial difficulties and sold the hotel, including all fixtures, furnishings, linen, and all other chattel, for $325,000 to oil and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler. Upon purchasing the hotel, Henry Flagler renamed the Casa Monica the Cordova Hotel. Flagler, a founder, with John D. Rockefeller, of the Standard Oil Company, already owned two hotels in St. Augustine, the Ponce de Leon Hotel (now Flagler College) and the Hotel Alcazar (now City Hall and the Lightner Museum). From 1888 to 1902, the hotel featured parties, balls, fairs and charity events.
The famous travel agency "Ask Mr. Foster" had its headquarters in the hotel. It was started by Ward G. Foster of St. Augustine, became a national business, and was owned for a time in the 20th century by Peter Ueberroth, one time Commissioner of Baseball. The building once featured an historic marker as the birthplace of the agency, but it has been removed in recent years.
In 1902, a short bridge was constructed over Cordova Street that connected the second floors of the Cordova Hotel and the Hotel Alcazar. At the completion of the bridge, the Cordova Hotel was again renamed, this time to Alcazar Annex. In 1903, the Alcazar and Alcazar Annex were considered one hotel and advertised as "enlarged and redecorated". In 1932, the conjoined parts of the hotel were closed due to the Great Depression. In 1945, the bridge between the Annex portion and the Alcazar Hotel was removed.
In February 1962, St. Johns County Commission voted to purchase the former Casa Monica Hotel for $250,000 for use as the St. Johns County Courthouse. In 1964 the lobby of the then-vacant hotel was used to house police dogs that were used against civil rights demonstrators during the mass campaign led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Robert Hayling that led directly to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dr. King went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize a few months later. The renovation took over six years to complete. It was finally dedicated as a courthouse in May 1968, and filled that role until the 1990s, housing government offices and archives as well as courtrooms. A notable feature of the courthouse were murals by the artist Hugo Ohlms, whose distinctive work was also featured in the nearby Catholic Cathedral and at the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge (another civil rights landmark, where the arrest of Mrs. Peabody, the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, while trying to be served in a racially integrated group, made national headlines in 1964). The Ohlms murals were removed when the courthouse was remodeled into its second incarnation as a hotel. Also removed were the stained glass scales of justice that had been in the quatrefoil window over the main door.
In February 1997, Richard Kessler, who had previously been involved with the Days Inn chain, was setting up his own Kessler Collection of lodgings. He purchased the building from St. Johns County for $1.2 million and began to remodel the building to once again become a hotel. The county Tax Collector's office and Property Appraiser's office were given until 1998 to relocate, so workers had to avoid a section of the building for several months. [1] The renovation was completed in less than two years and the property opened in December 1999 under the original name of the "Casa Monica Hotel" (the name came from Saint Monica, the North African mother of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, for whom the Ancient City is named). Richard Kessler and architect Howard W. Davis decided to keep the historic Moorish Revival style of the hotel. Tina Guarano Davis painted the Moorish-style woodwork in the hotel lobby. The Casa Monica sign on the Cordova Street side of the hotel covers over an earlier sign for the St. Johns County Courthouse. State historic preservation officials told them to preserve the courthouse sign, so they covered it rather than removing it. The huge flagpole on top of the hotel is actually a lightning rod.
Today the Casa Monica Hotel operates as part of the Kessler Collection headquartered in Orlando, Florida.
St. Augustine is a city in the Southeastern United States, on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously-inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.
Flagler College is a private liberal arts college in St. Augustine, Florida. It was founded in 1968 and offers 33 undergraduate majors and one master's program. It also has a campus in Tallahassee.
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway, much of which he built through convict leasing. He is known as the father of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.
The Spanish Colonial Revival Style is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México.
Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings, was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture firms. Located in New York City, the firm practiced from 1885 until 1929, although Carrère died in an automobile accident in 1911.
The Lightner Museum is a museum of antiques, mostly American Gilded Age pieces, housed within the historic Hotel Alcazar building in downtown St. Augustine. This 1887 Spanish Renaissance Revival style building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Thomas Hastings was an American architect, a partner in the firm of Carrère and Hastings.
The Ponce de Leon Hotel, also known as The Ponce, was an exclusive luxury hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler and completed in 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Renaissance style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm Carrère & Hastings, which would go on to gain world renown.
The Lincolnville Historic District is an area of the city of St. Augustine, Florida established by freedmen following the American Civil War and located on the southwest peninsula of the "nation's oldest city." It was designated as an historic district in 1991 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Originally recorded with 548 contributing buildings, the district is bounded by Cedar, Riberia, Cerro and Washington streets and DeSoto Place.
Villa Zorayda is a house at 83 King Street in St. Augustine, Florida. Built in 1883 by the eccentric Boston millionaire Franklin W. Smith as his winter home, it was inspired by the 12th-century Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. Smith named it "Villa Zorayda", after one of the princesses in Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra. The building and part of Franklin Smith's art and antique collection were sold to Abraham Mussallem, a rug and antiquities merchant originally from Syria, in 1913. On September 23, 1993, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Villa Zorayda Museum is still owned by the Mussallem family and contains the original art and antique collection assembled by Franklin Smith and Abraham Mussallem.
The St Augustine Town Plan Historic District is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District encompassing the colonial heart of the city. It substantially encompasses the street plan of the city as contained within the bounds of walls built between the 16th and early 19th centuries. The district is bounded by Cordova, Orange, and St. Francis Streets, and Matanzas Bay. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, although its boundaries were not formally defined until 1986.
Grace United Methodist Church is a historic church donated to the people of St. Augustine, Florida, by American industrialist Henry Morrison Flagler. It is located at 8 Carrera Street. Built within a one-year span, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on November 29, 1979, for its architectural significance and as an example of community planning.
The Horace Walker House, also known as Castillo Sebastian is a historic home in St. Augustine, Florida built around 1888. It is located at 33 Old Mission Avenue, near the north city gate. On January 30, 1998, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Markland, also known as the Andrew Anderson House, is a historic mansion in St. Augustine, Florida. It was built in the Greek Revival style of Classical Revival architecture.
Franklin Webster Smith (1826–1911) was an American idealistic reformer who made his fortune as a Boston hardware merchant. He was an early abolitionist, defendant in a civilian court-martial in 1864, author, and architectural enthusiast who proposed transforming Washington, D.C. into a "capital of beauty and cultural knowledge".
The Memorial Presbyterian Church is a historic church constructed in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1889 by American industrialist Henry Morrison Flagler. It is located at 32 Sevilla Street. It was dedicated to the memory of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict, who died following complications from childbirth at sea in March 1889.
Andrew Anderson II was an American physician, philanthropist, mayor and benefactor of St. Augustine, Florida. Anderson commissioned multiple works of art to adorn a variety of public spaces in the City of St. Augustine, including the two Medici lion statues placed at the approach to the famed Bridge of Lions.
Wilbur B. Talley was an architect in Florida. He worked in Jacksonville until the death of his wife Nellie and daughter Sarah, who were riding in a car hit by a train on December 21, 1919. After the accident, he moved to Lakeland, Florida where he continued working as an architect.
Fred A Henderich was a leading architect of the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He was a native of New York and graduated from Columbia University. Henderich came to Saint Augustine in 1905 to work for Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Hotel Company and lived and worked in the city for over twenty years.
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