On a recent December visit to the Don Cesar Hotel and Resort, our group met with the resort’s host and certified concierge, Ronald MacDougall. As concierge, Mr. MacDougall ensures that each guest has the best experience during their stay at the Don Cesar. In his role as concierge he has assisted many of the VIPs who have visited the historic pink hotel on the Gulf of Mexico in St. Petersburg, Florida. Those guests have included Mariah Carry, Carole King, Mick Jagger and Jimmy Buffet, as well as many of the visiting presidents.
Our private tour began in the main bar and lounge, which at this time of year is beautifully decorated for the Christmas season. The stately dark wood bar, cloaks and oversized leather armchairs make this the perfect place to sit back, relax and imagine yourself in another era, the Pink Palace’s early glory days.
The story of the Hotel Don Cesar or Pink Lady, as Thomas Rowe liked to call the hotel, begins at the beginning like all good stories. It was a vision of Thomas J. Rowe to create a monument to a lost love.
This part of the story begins in London, where it is rumored that young Thomas Rowe, while attending university, attended the opera “Maritana”, where he fell in love with the female lead, Lucinda, a beautiful Spanish opera singer. They both met. night after her performance by a fountain in London.
Plans were made to elope. The night they were supposed to leave, Lucinda didn’t show up, leaving Rowe waiting by the fountain. Her parents found out about the pending marriage and forced Lucinda to return to her home in Spain. Lucinda was reported to have died at a young age, but she did send this letter to Thomas containing this passage. “Time is infinite, I wait for you next to the fountain to share our eternal love,…our destiny is time.” Well, if it didn’t happen that way, it should have.
Returning to the United States, Thomas Rowe built commercial buildings in New York. He later moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he met Mary Lucille, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Thomas married Mary and began the life of a socialite.
At the age of 47 with his health declining, Thomas Rowe decided to move to a more hospitable climate. Leaving his wife in Virginia, he settled on Florida and in particular St. Petersburg, Florida, which was experiencing a real estate boom. Arriving with $21,000.00, Rowe began buying property.
Property development was all the rage in the early 1920s and Thomas Rowe went into partnership with another land developer and Norfolk socialite, Mr. Page. He and Page formed the Boca Ciega Land Company to purchase land.
Mr. Page developed the land on the north side of Johns Pass and the family still lives in Madeira Beach.
Rowe amassed a small fortune while visiting an isolated stretch of undeveloped beach in the area known as Pass-A-Grille. Pass-A-Grille got its name from the 18th-century “grills” that dried fish on the white-sand beaches. This was a very remote and rugged landscape. Access from the mainland was by a wooden bridge. On these white sands next to the gentle waves of the Gulf of Mexico, Thomas Rowe envisioned the resort of his dreams. Against the advice of many in his circle, Thomas Rowe purchased 80 acres on these shores. Soon a residential subdivision was built and each street was named after a character from the Maritana opera.
In 1926 construction began on the resort of his dreams. Rowe hired architect Henry DuPont to design the project. One hurdle that had to be overcome was that the massive structure would be sitting on the sand. He devised a floating base and his success is reflected in the fact that the base has not moved in the last 82 years.
Another obstacle was the transport of construction material. The bridge, as mentioned above, was older and manned by an older guardian who was not always reliable and would open the bridge whenever he was in the mood. Construction material was placed on a barge and brought to the site bypassing the bridge.
A railway strike that year raised construction costs and after finishing the exterior and interior of the complex, Thomas Rowe ran out of money to furnish the hotel. A sponsor was needed to save the company. HP Churchill would provide the money, but he had a stipulation. He would appoint the manager. It was agreed and the Don Cesar had its Grand Opening in 1927, with some of the wealthiest people in America in attendance.
It was luxurious and luxurious in the Grand Lobby. Thomas Rowe had built a replica of the fountain similar to the one where he, as a student, would meet the beautiful Lucinda. The fountain would be the first thing guests would see after walking up the stairway into the lobby and was the centerpiece of the complex. Modeled after the Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach, the Don Cesar Resort was a vision, standing on the sands of Pass-A-Grille. Thomas Rowe liked to call the hotel the Pink Lady.
The main entrance to the complex was on Gulf Blvd. with two statues of lions and a sign that reads “Come all you who seek health and rest. For here they abound.” The original staircase is hidden, but is located where the ice cream parlor now stands on the first floor.
Luckily, the timing couldn’t have been worse; the economy entered what became known as the Great Depression. Fortunately for the hotel, a deal was struck with the New York Yankees baseball team to house the players during spring training, helping the resort remain solvent.
Thomas Rowe moved into one of the Don Cesar’s two penthouses. Every day Rowe sat in a chair in the lobby, talking to visitors and staff and taking stock of the guests. He asked guests who did not meet a certain standard of dress or manners and speech to leave the hotel. It was not an era of political correctness.
Then, in 1940, Thomas Rowe collapsed in the lobby. He refused to be taken to the hospital, so they moved him to adjoining rooms 101 and 102. There he remained until his death. Rowe attempted to obtain a will witnessed by the nurses attending him, but they refused. He reported that Will would have left the Pink Lady in the hands of the staff. It just so happened that Thomas Rowe’s wife, Mary, gained control of the Don Cesar. The resort fell on hard times. Then, in 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a beach vacation wasn’t so appealing. People got scared of the ocean attack and soon the guests stopped coming. The US government purchased the Don Cesar and converted the complex to use as a convalescent facility for members of the US Army Air Corp. suffering from shell shock and war injuries.
One victim of the transfer of ownership was the fountain in the main lobby. The manager of the converted building was concerned that one of the visitors might trip over the fountain and ordered it removed.
Later, the Don Cesar was used for government offices and eventually fell into disrepair and neglect. A movement was started to level and remove the complex. A counter movement led by local resident and activist June Hardy Young began to restore the Don Cesar. The subsequent move was successful and a new owner for the complex was located. William Bowman purchased the complex and in 1973 the complex was reopened. During the renovation, a replica of the original fountain was placed on the fifth floor.
Our tour included the penthouses, which were empty at the time of our visit, and the Presidential Suite where every president has stayed since the 1940s. The penthouses have spectacular views of St. Petersburg, the gulf beaches, and the Sunshine Skyway bridge. . Of course, if you decide to stay in one of these penthouses, it will cost you around $3500.00 per night.
The Don Cesar is a beautiful resort with two swimming pools, a gym and a new spa. Recently opened, the 11,000-square-foot Spa Oceana is a state-of-the-art spa. Guests can get a massage, soak in the hot tub and sauna, and then have lunch on the rooftop of the spa building overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.
If you go, ask the reservations guy if there are any special offers. On our visit we received a pre-season rate and were very happy with our stay.
The resort is co-owned and operated by the Loews Hotels chain.
