Hotel Champ Carr - known today as the Riverside Hotel - opens in 1936

 

New River at Champ Carr Hotel, now Riverside Hotel
Florida State Archives

Riverside Hotel

620 E. Las Olas Blvd.

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

954-467-0671

www.riversidehotel.com

By Jane Feehan

The Riverside Hotel, currently the only hotel on Las Olas Boulevard, attracts locals who appreciate its history as well as tourists who seek the cultural, entertainment and business center of Fort Lauderdale.

The Riverside opened as Hotel Champ Carr Dec. 17, 1936. Preston and John Wells, wealthy Chicagoans, met Champ Carr when he worked on a fishing boat they chartered, the story goes. They liked him so much that when they decided to build the hotel, they named it after Champ Carr, who they tapped as its first manager. The hotel was designed by Fort Lauderdale’s leading architect, Francis Abreu, and constructed by contractor George Young. The "Monterey-style," three-story, 80-room hotel drew business types and tourists in its early days, including a member of the DuPont family and Ronald Reagan. Carr left in 1947 and the name was changed to the Riverside Hotel.

Hotel Champ Carr, 1936
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Today, the hotel has expanded to 214 rooms. It maintains that old Florida feeling with Spanish tiled floors in the lobby, dark wood molding and doors, and a mix of blue, dark green and orange hues throughout many of its hallways and attractive guest rooms.

Preston’s Lobby Lounge once hosted a happy hour with a piano player Monday through Friday (check for offerings during these COVID days). A short walk across the lobby sits the sophisticated Wild Sea restaurant. Another eatery, Indigo, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week (check first, check dining room names; they also change). 

The hotel recently opened its waterside Boathouse (https://www.boathouseriverside.com). For some, food is secondary here; tradition, atmosphere, and people watching from its sidewalk dining area and now the dock, is what Riverside is all about.

Today

Meeting rooms are available to accommodate business functions, and special events, including weddings. Service: very good.
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For Francis Abreu, see, https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/08/fort-lauderdales-first-architect.html

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 16, 1936
McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.




Tags: Fort Lauderdale dining, breakfast in Fort Lauderdale, pre-theater dining in Fort Lauderdale, hotels in Fort Lauderdale, Las Olas Boulevard hotel and dining, restaurants in Fort Lauderdale. Indigo, Fort Lauderdale