St. Petersburg’s Vinoy hotel was almost torn down. Now it’s turning 100.

ST. PETERSBURG — A seashell-pink star of vintage postcards and Instagram feeds alike, the Vinoy Renaissance Resort and Golf Club is a Tampa Bay icon.

Long a hotspot for dances, weddings and luxe getaways, the Mediterranean Revival-style hotel is steeped in history, from the original ceramic tile floors to the hand-painted cypress rafters.

And now it’s celebrating a big milestone: In December, the Vinoy turns 100.

Locals and visitors might know that the Vinoy was one of the first luxury hotels on the Gulf Coast, a playground for actors, athletes and presidents. They may have seen it on shows like “Ghost Hunters” or “Love on the Spectrum.”

They may not know that the Vinoy sat vacant for close to two decades, or that some St. Pete residents once begged for it to be demolished.

“It was a huge fight, with lots of litigation back and forth,” said Manny Leto, executive director of Preserve the ‘Burg. “It wasn’t a given that that hotel was going to be safe.”

The hotel’s revival didn’t just save a piece of St. Pete’s legacy. It ushered in a new era for downtown and shaped the future of local historic preservation.

In honor of the Vinoy’s 100th birthday, we’re taking a look back in time. Pack up your suitcase and check in for a history tour.

The scene 100 years ago

The Vinoy’s origin story dates back to one late night in 1923.

Pennsylvania oilman Aymer Vinoy Laughner was hosting a party at his Beach Drive NE home, just across the street from where the hotel stands today. Professional golfer Walter Hagen was whacking golf balls off the surface of Laughner’s watch, trying not to smash the crystal face. According to Tampa Bay Times archives, a partygoer named Gene Elliott turned toward the bay and spoke the prophecy.

“We’re going to build a hotel there,” said Elliot, who two years prior had come up with the funds to build the Gandy Bridge. “And we’re going to name it the Vinoy because that’s such a pretty name.”

Laughner shelled out $170,000 to purchase the land, which was once an orange grove. Construction of the hotel kicked off in February 1925 and lasted roughly 10 months. It took over 200 workers, toiling daily, to bring the Vinoy to life.

It wouldn’t just be a hotel, as one 1925 ad in the then-St. Petersburg Times explained. The project also included “an apartment building, a roof garden, a yacht club and yacht harbor, a Roman plunge and bathing pool, the Vinoy shops, a coconut grove tea garden, a two-acre playground for children and a garage accommodating 200 automobiles.”

The Vinoy Park Hotel officially opened at 6:55 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1925, with guests welcomed by “doormen donning long, powder-blue coats.” The New Year’s Eve celebration featured a performance by Paul Whiteman’s orchestra — “the 1925 equivalent to the Beatles,” said Jeff Neben, who gives history tours at the Vinoy.

The party was advertised in the society sections of the local papers, which later gushed about the view of moonlit waters from the gold and white ballroom. The palace was open seasonally from late November to early May, Neben said. Rooms cost $20 a night and included full meal service.

The Vinoy’s tower — then the tallest point in St. Petersburg — beamed out a light to indicate when the hotel was open. At one point, it also housed a water tank.

“Some of the kids that were associated with the family, they would find them swimming in the water tank,” Neben said. “So they took that down.”

Guests like Babe Ruth marveled at the handmade plaster frescos, inspired by Morocco, and dramatic arches in the ballroom, inspired by Georgian architecture. They squeezed their steamer trunks into the tiny but fashionable rooms, settling in for “weeks, or even months,” the Times wrote. The level of service would make guests at The White Lotus jealous.

“They dressed formally for dinner,” wrote the Times in 1992. “It was an American plan resort, so the guests took all their meals at the hotel, seated at the same table at the same time, with the same waitresses at each meal.”

But the Vinoy wasn’t designed to welcome everyone. Just as the city’s famed green benches were reserved for white residents, the Vinoy, too, followed segregation practices of the time.

“Few people cared that the hotel turned away Blacks and Jews, or that its minority employees had to eat and dress in rooms labeled ‘colored helps cafeteria’ and ‘colored men’s (or women’s) locker rooms,’” the Times wrote in 1992.

The hotel wasn’t just exclusive. It was also expensive.

“The construction workers who built it, most of its employees, and many of the city’s residents could never afford to eat or stay there,” the article continued. “The Vinoy was never about reality; it was always about an unshakable belief in the exotic and romantic.”

The war that changed everything

The U.S. government took over hotels like the Vinoy for army efforts during World War II. Because of its vast kitchen space, Neben said, the Vinoy became a training zone for cooks and bakers. Over in St. Pete Beach, fellow pink palace The Don CeSar was transformed into an army hospital.

These new guests weren’t always kind to the Vinoy.

“Lying in double-decker bunks in the guest rooms, they kicked holes in the plaster,” The Times wrote in 1992. The heavy boots of about 100,000 soldiers marched through the hotel’s lobby for years, Neben said.

Laughner had spent $3.5 million to build his hotel. But by the time the war ended, his project was in need of major repairs.

Laughner had grown “older and tired of it,” the Times wrote. In 1945, he sold the Vinoy for just $700,000 to Charles H. Alberding, a Chicago businessman who owned a chain of hotels.

The Vinoy reopened that same year.

Wealthy snowbirds and celebs like Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio continued to pop by throughout the 1950s and ’60s. But as the years passed, Alberding was resistant to improvements, Neben said.

He opened the hotel during all seasons, even Florida’s brutal summers, yet refused to put in a new technology called air conditioning. Guests nationwide gravitated to comfort over formality. The Vinoy did not adapt.

“By 1974, if you dared to actually stay in this place, it would cost you $7 a night,” Neben said.

That year the hotel shut down. Some hoped that the Vinoy would only remain closed for a year while $5 million worth of renovations were completed. But it remained boarded up for 18 years. In 1978, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Meanwhile, the hotel’s furnishings were sold.

During the 1970s and ‘80s, St. Petersburg’s downtown suffered from a nationwide trend where residents left urban cores for the suburbs.

“The city had basically put high-density zoning on the Vinoy property to try and jumpstart some type of development,” said Peter Belmont, a founding member of Preserve the ‘Burg. “So there’s kind of a parade of weird proposals to redevelop the property.”

Investors and developers would dream up plans for the building, or at least the land, and purchase the Vinoy. Then challenges like funding problems and clashes with the city would push them away. The pitches included condominiums, tennis courts and convention centers. One pledged to reopen the hotel as “Le Vinoy, a resort with the allure of the French Riviera.”

The structure remained closed. But it wasn’t always empty.

The St. Petersburg Police Department used the space to train its SWAT team, Neben said. Local youths took over the grand ballroom for volleyball games.

The hotel turned “into a bedroom for the city’s homeless,” the Times wrote in 2018. “They built bonfires on the lobby floor.”

One Times article in 1984 called the building a “massive, decaying eyesore.” The paper asked readers to weigh in.

“Is there anything worse for the environment than that ratty and decaying old hotel?” one wrote.

“The Vinoy is a cancer that needs to be erased,” said another.

Others protested demolition, citing the “beauty and prestige” of the Breakers in Palm Beach as something the neighborhood could aspire to have again.

“Restore the Vinoy,” one reader wrote. “To hell with more condos.”

It wasn’t just the hotel’s legacy that hung in the balance. Many believed that what happened to the property would have a ripple effect on the surrounding area.

“As the Vinoy was vacant, it stood as a symbol that nothing was happening in downtown,” a member of a local development group told the Times in 1992. “You couldn’t convince people that anything was happening until the Vinoy was taken care of.”

How the Vinoy was finally saved

In 1984, after years of failed plans and lawsuits, private developer B.B. Andersen purchased a 99-year lease on the hotel with the intention to revive it. He joined forces with New York developer Frederick Guest. The pair came up with a plan and worked out a compromise between city officials and waterfront preservationists.

All that was left to do was hear from citizens: St. Pete residents would vote on three referendums, and if two passed, the hotel could be revived.

A group of roughly 150 volunteers called Bring Back the Vinoy Inc. launched a campaign to sway the public. They passed out 20,000 fliers and spread the message during TV appearances and radio advertisements. And they plastered their slogan on a huge banner across the hotel:

“Vinoy and parks — Vote Yes! Yes! Yes!”

The group hosted an open house at the Vinoy just a few days before the referendum. Close to 10,000 visitors poured into the building. Many came to relive wedding or first date memories. Others brought sketchbooks and cameras to document the space, just in case.

In the end, the voters approved a referendum that allowed a waterfront land swap, protection for parks along the waterfront and a 99-year waterfront lease. In 1989, voters approved another referendum to give developers a marina lease.

Andersen and Guest parted ways, but the latter forged forward with plans to save the hotel. He told news outlets that just about every bank in America had heard of past proposals for the hotel and refused to finance such a project. So he went abroad to secure a loan from a French bank.

In January 1992, the historic Soreno Hotel, just a little ways away on Beach Drive NE, was blown up. Its demolition was documented and included in the movie “Lethal Weapon 3.”

But the Vinoy was spared a similar fate. Years of debates, lawsuits and citizen-led campaigns had led to a $93 million renovation. It reopened on July 31, 1992, as the Stouffer Vinoy Resort.

“We couldn’t get the doors wide enough to let people in,” a staff member told the Times.

A future for the hotel

The name and ownership of the Vinoy has changed over the years. Today, it is part of Marriott’s Autograph collection, a global group of independently-owned luxury hotels.

The hotel, once an exclusive hotspot for the wealthy, is now a popular destination for bloggers and travel TikTokers. But its influence goes further than viral videos.

“Saving the Vinoy resulted directly in the preservation codes and ordinances that we have currently,” Leto said. “These historic places can be a catalyst for redevelopment of an entire downtown. That’s why we’re out there saying, ‘OK, let’s think carefully about how many of these buildings you want to tear down and get rid of.’ ”

For now, the hotel isn’t just safe, but thriving. Just months ago, the Vinoy opened Elliott Aster, a fine dining restaurant led by a Michelin-starred chef.

Black-and-white photos of St. Petersburg’s past line the walls of the restaurant. Above them, 100-year-old frescoes have been meticulously restored, ready to look down upon patrons for another century.

Information from the Tampa Bay Times archive was used in this article.