At this Tallahassee hotel, the public isn’t invited. DeSantis advisers are.

TALLAHASSEE — In the shadow of Florida’s Capitol, a supposedly closed boutique hotel has become an exclusive retreat for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ closest allies and top advisers — with a major supporter of the governor acting as gatekeeper.

Ostensibly closed for renovations, the Governor’s Inn is where DeSantis’ presidential campaign paid rent for campaign staff and where his top deputies sometimes mingle on a balcony overlooking Adams Street. It’s where the governor’s former chief of staff and campaign manager held his first 2026 fundraiser after DeSantis made him Florida’s attorney general.

There is no way for the general public to book a room or event online. Walk-ins aren’t welcome, according to signs taped to the glass doors at the front entrance. To get in, it helps to know the owner: Craig Mateer, a top sponsor of the governor’s second inauguration who made his private planes available to DeSantis during his presidential campaign.

The dynamics at play inside the Governor’s Inn, as described by more than a dozen people who have been inside for events, overnight stays or drinks, have ethics experts wondering about what is going on inside a venue with no public information about the price of rooms, drinks or events, and no clear criteria about how to get in.

“It’s a black box,” said Bob Jarvis, an ethics professor at Nova Southeastern University’s law school. “There is no way to know what’s going on. There’s no way to know what expectations there are of the owner. There is no way to know whether those expectations have been fulfilled on a quid pro quo basis.”

The governor’s own ethics policy prohibits staff from accepting gifts, such as the use of private property or access to purchases that are not available to others, to avoid the “appearance of impropriety.”

Mateer, whose ownership of the hotel has created an unusual level of access in a capital city built on power and influence, controls what the firm hired to renovate the Inn describes as “the perfect backdrop for entertainment or striking deals.” But in a May 7 interview, he downplayed the venue’s exclusivity.

“We are not that cool,” said Mateer, who lives in Orlando. “We have some parties there, it depends.”

DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin did not answer questions about the governor’s top staffers using the hotel and second-floor bar, or whether they pay for their drinks while there. He accused reporters of “stalking people on their lunch breaks and in their personal lives, which even government staffers are allowed to have.”

Inside the Governor’s Inn

The comings and goings at the hotel and bar have become a topic of conversation among Tallahassee’s governing class, in no small part due to its opaqueness.

The hotel’s makeover was completed in 2023, according to the architecture firm that won awards for its design. But Mateer, who bought the hotel in 2020 for $2.9 million, insists it remains closed because it is still under construction.

“We‘re not really ready to open,” he said, citing safety concerns related to a gutted restaurant attached to the hotel and plumbing issues. “We‘ve kind of limped along.”

A person who answered a call from a reporter at the hotel on May 5 repeated that claim, even though there are no open permits for construction on the property with the city of Tallahassee. The only way to stay at the hotel is if the owner approves it, the person said.

It’s not clear how much Mateer spent on renovations to the historic building, a horse-drawn carriage and wagon shop that was first converted to a hotel in 1983. Information available through city permits and local newspaper articles suggest it was a multimillion-dollar project involving a redesign of the facade and the construction of a new balcony to go with a modernized second-floor bar. The venue has an active hotel and liquor license.

Hungerford Design, the renovating firm hired and owned by Mateer’s late childhood friend, describes the hotel’s second-floor “Appaloosa” bar on its website as a venue that offers top-shelf bourbons and private whiskey and cigar lockers. The wood and steel-lined interior extends to a balcony overlooking Adams Street. A visit “just might have you mingling with the Tallahassee elites,” the design firm boasts on its website.

Rooms are “furnished with their original antique poster beds and armoires, unique to each room, refinished in historic playful colors blending the old with the new,” according to the firm. “Antique brick and wainscoting complete the vintage setting.” Bathrooms are adorned with “premium Kallista fixtures” and “Italian Sicis mosaic tile” in the showers.

Inside the lobby, a large portrait of DeSantis is prominently displayed next to framed pictures of former Florida governors. In keeping with the theme of the hotel, its 29 rooms are named after Florida governors.

Mateer has been hosting guests at the hotel since at least October of 2023, when a contingent from Dublin visited Tallahassee. In January of last year, DeSantis’ wheezing presidential campaign reported a payment of $2,300 for rent. In December, the Republican Party of Florida reported paying $45,311 to the Inn to cover expenses related to the Florida electors who traveled to Tallahassee to cast the state’s 29 votes in the presidential election.

According to a source familiar with the comings and goings at the Inn, it’s where DeSantis and the first lady watched results roll in from the November election.

Mateer, whom DeSantis appointed to the state university system‘s Board of Governors, has also allowed New College of Florida and Florida International University to host events at the hotel. The universities’ respective presidents, Richard Corcoran and Jeannette Nuñez, are former DeSantis administration officials and have stayed at the Inn, according to the universities.

Nuñez’s room cost $113 a night, according to FIU, which said its reception at the hotel cost $13,266, including food and beverage, and was paid for by the university’s foundation. New College did not immediately respond when asked how much the school paid for its events or Corcoran’s hotel stays.

The fact that the hotel is open to some is no secret in Tallahassee. On the afternoon of May 6, reporters witnessed DeSantis’ chief of staff, Jason Weida, and the governor’s director of legislative affairs, Peter Cuderman, meeting for about an hour on the outdoor balcony before heading back to the governor’s office in the state Capitol.

In January, The Floridian reported that state Rep. Meg Weinberger, R-Palm Beach Gardens, and her husband were told to pack their bags and find a new hotel. The reason, according to witnesses: she sided with GOP legislative leaders instead of the governor on a hotly debated immigration bill.

Weinberger declined to comment. Mateer declined to comment on Weinberger’s ejection.

Those who have been inside say the hotel has been beautifully remade.

Barry Richard, a high-profile Tallahassee attorney whose wife is a Democrat in the Florida House, said he was able to get his son a room in Mateer’s hotel for his wedding night after calling a general manager who had given him a tour. He booked it through his law firm.

“I’ll tell you what, he spent a lot of money on his hobby,” Richard said. “Some people buy gigantic yachts. He just built a beautiful hotel.”

Follow the money

Much of Mateer’s fortune is attributed to an airport baggage-handling company he sold for $275 million in 2018. Two years later, he started to give big political cash to DeSantis and the state GOP, campaign finance records show.

Since 2020, Mateer and his immediate family have given $1.9 million to DeSantis’ gubernatorial and presidential campaign efforts and to his inauguration.

Companies affiliated with Mateer were also paid nearly $1 million for travel expenses as DeSantis criss-crossed the country while running for president, federal campaign finance records show.

DeSantis has in turn installed Mateer on state boards. He serves on the Board of Governors and was previously appointed to boards that oversee Florida State University, the Orlando airport and Walt Disney World’s special district.

In an interview, Mateer said the result of his donating is “they put you on these boards.”

“Then I do what I think, and sometimes they like it, and sometimes they don‘t,” he said. “I don‘t really belong on these boards.”

He made light of his relationship with DeSantis, who he said “does what he thinks is right and pushes forward.” He said politics needs “more people giving that don‘t want anything.”

“I’m not some big political guy,” he said. “You won‘t see me with any state contract. You won‘t see me with advantages. I don‘t need them. I don‘t want them.”

A review of the most recent three years of lobbying records found that none of the dozens of active companies that appear to be affiliated with Mateer and his family have had registered state lobbyists.

The Mateer family has continued to support the term-limited governor after he dropped out of the presidential race.

In March, Mateer’s son, William James, gave $500,000 to a political committee that DeSantis plans to use to support his successor. Mateer’s son also contributed $275,000 to Attorney General James Uthmeier’s political committee, making him the attorney general’s top donor so far, campaign records show.

Uthmeier, who was seen at the hotel multiple times when he was DeSantis’ chief of staff, picked Mateer’s Inn to host a March fundraiser with influential political operatives enlisted to help him raise money.

Among those in attendance, according to the flyer: Jeff Aaron, who has become the go-to attorney for some of the DeSantis administration‘s most high-profile assignments, including representing the embattled Hope Florida Foundation charity; Aaron‘s wife, Chelsea, the governor’s appointments director; Weida, DeSantis’ chief of staff; and Carlos Duart, the CEO of Miami engineering and emergency management firm CDR Maguire, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from the DeSantis administration.

Duart, an FIU trustee whose wife serves on the first lady’s Hope Florida Foundation board, was seen by reporters going in and out of the Inn on May 6. He gave $500,000 to DeSantis’ political committee, Florida Freedom Fund, in March and $25,000 to Uthmeier’s political committee.

Duart did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Campaign finance records show tens of thousands of dollars flowed to Uthmeier’s political committee after the fundraiser at the Inn but no record of the establishment being rented out for the event.

Campaign spokesperson Makenzi Mahler said expenses related to the campaign launch are reflected in a $4,000 payment to the law firm DownsAaron. The firm is co-led by Aaron, the registered agent for Uthmeier’s political committee, and Mayanne Downs, who has done private legal work for Mateer. Aaron told the Times/Herald in an email that the firm “helped coordinate” the fundraiser.

Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Uthmeier’s office, did not answer questions about why the attorney general was hanging out at the Governor’s Inn, whether he conducted official business there or accepted free food or drinks. He told a reporter to “get a life.”

“As the Governor’s former Chief Ethics Officer, James maintains the highest level of ethics and indeed has been asked by many state employees to provide ethics trainings,” Redfern said in a statement. “This is just another hit piece from a fake reporter.”

Two decades ago, Florida officials reformed ethics rules and laws to prevent special interests from influencing state business through freebies such as meals, beverages and trips.

Those rules require state officers who receive gifts worth $100 or more, including the use of private property, to disclose it to the state’s Commission on Ethics. The Commission said on May 13 that it has received no gift disclosures from Uthmeier, Weida or other top administration officials who have been at the Inn.

Since the disclosure requirement was put in place, state officers have reported gifts ranging from cigar boxes to bottles of wine and swords, records show. DeSantis has never filed a gift disclosure as governor, according to the Florida Commission on Ethics. But he has been accused of failing to report trips on private jets. DeSantis also received a $28,000 golf simulator at the Governor’s Mansion from one of his donors, which state ethics officials found was a gift to the state, not the governor.

Mateer dismissed the idea that opening his hotel to the governor’s staff presented a potential ethics problem.

“What value is it?” he said. “I’m still under construction.”