The Tampa Bay Hotel

Its finals week for our daughter and so she invited us to ride along and visit her campus at the University of Tampa, (she is pursuing a masters of nurse practitioner, ), There she took us on a quick tour and we wandered around the campus admiring the beautiful buildings and tranquil setting. It reminded me of the years I spent in school and seeing her stress out reminded me again of how glad I was that that stage of my life is over.

As she headed off to her pretest study session, we decided to take the tour of the Tampa Bay Hotel. The hotel was built by Henry Plant, (a steamship line and railroad baron), who designed and built one of the most unique buildings we have seen in our travels.

Building a huge gothic style hotel, it was 1891, he topped the hotel with minarets. Each minaret was finished by crowning it with a crescent moon finial. Upon arriving at the hotel, Teddy Roosevelt with his rough riders, is said to have exclaimed, ‘What the heck is that’, (I cleaned it up)?

Inside, the hotel was furnished by Henry Plant during a trip to Europe and is a classic example of the conspicuous consumption of the nineteenth century super rich. The hotel was only full during the Spanish American War, when it was used as an officer’s quarters. Afterwards it fell empty and went into disrepair before being saved by the City of Tampa and purchased for a price of one hundred thousand dollars, (it cost three million to build).

Much of the building is actually being used by the University of Tampa, with the northern end having been turned into a museum. The Museum was holding a Christmas Stroll and so paying the special price, (discounted to eleven dollars each yikes), we strolled along from exhibit to exhibit. Having been handed a brochure with little information we returned to the entrance to discover that for an additional two dollars we could rent a wand that would tell us about each numbered stop.

The wand helped to explain the purpose of each room but we were still disappointed at the lack of information on much of the exotic furniture and artwork. A lot of the furnishings had disappeared when the hotel fell into disuse, but many of the pieces there looked to be from Spain, (Toledo?), and England, (there was a room filled with Wedgeworth ceramics which was properly labeled and explained).

As we strolled from room to room we admired the craftsmanship and the exquisite details of each museum piece. That to us was the real value in our visit. It was a unique place and we were glad we had taken the time to take the Christmas stroll. Clear skies.