On January 16th 2013 the Don CeSar Resort celebrated 85 years as Florida’s West Coast Landmark. Built on a wilderness island by Thomas Rowe 1925 to 1927, the Don opened January 16, 1928.
The Bentleys, Rolls Royces and other opulent town cars drove up to the hotel and hundreds of men in tuxedos along with women in furs hurried into the hotel. The special menu was $7.50 a plate (almost $100 in 2012 dollars). The guests danced and partied all night. Thomas Rowe in his usual white suit smiled on everyone.
The Pink Lady continues to greet her guests in the same elegant fashion. She has had several face-lifts in her 85 years, but her wrinkles still hide the celebrations, stories, and glory of all who have chosen to spend the night with her. During her construction, the building materials were brought in on shallow barges using a primitive dump and chute method that was a slow labor of love. The builders drudged through two years of unbearable heat and mosquitoes to complete Rowe’s work, designating him both architect and Mosquito Control Director.
As construction progressed, Rowe continued to add more wings and floors so that by the time he finished he had no money left to furnish the grand hotel. Warren Webster loaned Rowe the money he needed to purchase oriental rugs and horsehair mattresses. The completed construction and furnishings cost about $1.5 million (about $20 million dollars today).
The Don enjoyed two seasons before the stock market crashed in October 1929. The Great Depression that followed brought tourism to a standstill and the Don failed like so many others. Rowe was not ready to give up on his beauty quite yet, so with the patience of his bank and the help of some department store moguls, New York Yankees and alcohol Rowe brought the Don back into the black by 1940. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and alcohol combined to make the Don the ideal 1930s hot spot!
Rowe died in 1940 and his estranged wife, Virginia Rowe, inherited the hotel. After Pearl Harbor, all branches of the service came to Florida for basic training. All the hotels except the Don were leased to house troops. In 1942 it was purchased by the Army for $450,000.
Found unsuitable for a Veterans hospital, it became an R & R facility for battle weary airmen. When the war ended in 1945, it was transformed into a Veterans Administration Building and outpatient clinic. During that era, all furnishings were removed and sold.
A group of engineers toured the building in 1968 and condemned it as “a fragile structure too worthless to be restored,” so the General Services Administration (GSA) offered it to any government agency that could use it. The decision was made to tear it down. That’s when I began writing articles to save the building. My articles attracted supporters and I formed the ‘Save the Don Committee’. We attracted William Bowman Jr., a local developer, who came up with an acceptable plan to renovate and reopen it as a grand hotel.
In 1972, the mayor gave Bowman’s check for $460,000 to the GSA for the keys. Bowman engineered a ramp across Gulf Blvd to the hotel’s Grand Entrance. He added balconies, a swimming pool and tennis courts, renovated the hotel and furnished in its original Moorish tradition.
It opened to great acclaim in 1973 and by 1975 was on the Registry of Historic Places. Financial success was elusive, however. Bowman had invested 2 million of his own money, and owed Connecticut General 6 million he couldn’t pay. Completely discouraged, he turned the keys over to the lender on his 50th birthday and walked away October 24, 1975. His biography, “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Do It” was published in 2008, the year he finally returned to the Don and was recognized for his role in saving the building and to insure its future. Today it is owned 20% by Loews and 80% by Prudential Insurance Company.
Author: June Hurley Young
Date: March 2013