Hollywood Beach Hotel and its descent from splendor

 

Hollywood Beach Resort 2024

By Jane Feehan

Joseph W. Young planned a whole community for land he purchased north of Miami in 1920. Hollywood-by-the-Sea would include a broad boulevard to the ocean from a 10-acre landscaped circle, a train depot, schools for year-round residents and several hotels for visitors.

Ground was broken in 1920-21 for his town. The boulevard he promised was reportedly the widest in the state at 120 feet. He built 25 bungalows for “regular” residents and later a tent camp near Dixie Highway for winter visitors.

Perhaps the building with the widest impact on publicity for the town was the Hollywood Beach Hotel. Construction began at Young’s request in early 1925 for the impressive 500-room beachside structure. Its architects Rubush and Hunter had also designed Carl Fisher's Flamingo Hotel on Miami Beach.

The $3 million plus, seven-story hotel, featuring fireproof, “Spanish-type” architecture would also hold a shopping arcade of 28 stores to draw both guests and customers from the street. A large, $30,000 pipe organ from Chicago’s W. W. Kimbell Company was installed, thousands of pieces of Bavarian dinnerware were purchased, and a driveway for “motor cars” (an unusual hotel amenity at the time) was built. The structure spanned 525 feet along the ocean front.

According to news accounts at the time, 100 trucks were spotted on the project one day and workers “labored day and night” on the project in December 1925 to complete it for the opening event in January 1926. Not to be hindered by building supply shortages due to inadequate rail capacity throughout South Florida, Young set up a “private fleet of boats” to do the job, which included delivering boatloads of cement made in Norway.

Lower rates than those at other hotels were promised. “This is the rather humanitarian idea of Mr. Young, believing in its business-building effect,” reported The Miami Herald.

Opening night – a date later than originally planned—was an informal affair in early February attended by a few hundred guests. Reservations for the entire winter season were already booked by residents from “up North.” It promised to be a busy first tourist season. It was the Roaring 20s after all. The roar, however, turned into a whimper months later with the Great Hurricane of September 1926.

Many structures fell with that storm, but the Hollywood Hotel remained standing. Damage to the hotel was estimated to be about $400,000. They were insured for $1.2 million. But, within a few months, pages of local newspapers were again filled with reports on hotel visitors and social events.

Hollywood Beach Hotel
1930 State Archives of Florida

The Hollywood Hotel, “Grand Lady,” became a fixture of South Florida tourism for decades. Unfortunately, its tale is one of a slow descent from splendor. According to accounts, tourists, including notorious mobsters, stayed there until at least the early 1940s, when it became a naval training school during World War II. It transitioned back to a hotel and tourists rediscovered it during the 1950s and 60s. During the 1970s it was home to Hollywood Bible College.

From the 1980s to today, the hotel (renamed Hollywood Beach Resort) has come under an assortment of owners – some at the same time—who converted hotel rooms into timeshare units and condos on some floors while re-making the street level floor into a shopping center and food court. Ramada Inn reportedly operated parts of the Grand Lady at one time. 

Because of concurrent multiple owners, efforts to place the property on the National Register of Historic Places failed. News accounts indicate residents considered the hotel an eyesore by 2002. Electricity was turned off in parts of the building in 2003.

Today, the 368-room property, with parts demolished, seems to be in legal limbo. A law firm is listed in property records as owner of most of the Grand Lady. Construction fencing circles the hotel and parts of its lot serve as fee-based public parking. With old beachfront properties falling to developers, this sliver of South Florida hotel history may be nothing more than a memory or a page in history books. A condo, no doubt, will eventually sit on this prime property.

Stay tuned for updates …

Entrance from Hollywood Blvd., circa 1926
Florida State Archives

Sources:

The Miami Herald, Jan. 28, 1923

Fort Lauderdale News, April 8, 1925

The Miami Herald, July 26, 1925

Miami Tribune, Sept. 25, 1925

The Miami Herald, Nov. 8, 1925

Miami Tribune, Nov. 17, 1925

The Indianapolis Star, Dec. 16, 1925

The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1926

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 4, 1926

The Miami Herald, Dec. 31, 1926

Miami News, Sept. 30, 1926

The Miami Herald, Jan. 9, 2000

The Miami Herald, Jan. 9, 2000

The Miami Herald, May 24, 2002

The Miami Herald, Dec. 18, 2004

The Miami Herald, June 5, 2005

The Real Deal, May 22, 2022

Commercial Observer, May 13, 2022

The Miami Herald, Nov. 26, 2023

Tags: Hollywood Beach Hotel, Hollywood Beach Resort, Hollywood history, Joseph W. Young,