suite101.com - Casa Marina Hotel - February 2009 by DEVAN STUART
Casa Marina Hotel
Jacksonville Beach’s Grand Lady Hosted the Famous and Infamous
© Devan Stuart
For more than eight decades, America's notable and notorious have slept at the grand Casa Marina Hotel in Jacksonville Beach.
Names like Al Capone, John D. Rockefeller, President Harry S. Truman and screen greats Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin have graced the register of the Casa Marina, which opened to great fanfare in 1925. The area’s newest hotel celebrated the area’s new name. Jacksonville Beach originally was called Ruby, named for the daughter of founder W. E. Scull, a railroad surveyor with the Jacksonville and Atlantic Railway Company. In 1885, it was renamed Pablo Beach after the San Pablo River. And thirty years later, it would become Jacksonville Beach.
By then, Florida was in the height of its first land boom and Jacksonville Beach was a top spot for wealthy tourists, thanks to a train terminal that opened in 1919 and a beachfront boardwalk that boasted dozens of dance casinos, dining establishments and amusement rides. Built with the latest of technologies of the time, the Casa Marina featured the area’s first fireproof building composed of stucco, concrete, tile and an automatic sprinkler system.
The grand lady of Jacksonville Beach hotels faithfully served her country during the World War II years, when the U.S. government appropriated the Casa Monica for military housing. Over the following years, the building would experience a number of transformations as private residences, a tearoom, clothing store and restaurant. Along the way, owners would add a verandah and third-story penthouse to the original structure.
Nearly a century later, the Casa Marina has been returned to her original purpose. The bed-and-breakfast, recognized in 2005 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the Historic Hotels of America, features 23 bedrooms and parlor suites, plus a salon-inspired restaurant and penthouse lounge with an oceanfront balcony. Room designs range from an old English countryside feel to a hip, vibrant Art Deco look. The restaurant serves up “New Beach Cuisine” prepared with the best of local seafood, produce and specialty ingredients. And the Penthouse Lounge with a beach view balcony offers a tantalizing array of tasty tapas and specialty martinis.
“We’re an 80-year-old boutique hotel riddled with stories and memories,” says General Manager Mark Vandeloo. He went on to tell the story of a couple who married at the Casa Marina just before World War II. They separated shortly thereafter and went on to marry others and have families. Decades later, the couple reconnected online. By now, their spouses had passed on. Sparks were rekindled and the couple recently remarried – again at the Casa Marina.
“We are history,” Vandeloo says.
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