"Rio Vista on the Halifax" Riviera Hotel - 1923
At the end of Plaza Grande is the fabulous old Riviera Hotel now converted into the Riviera Assisted Living and Retirement Home. What a treasure this grand old building is. And its setting is fantastic, with a very broad mall leading through the middle of the Rio Vista neighborhood. Plaza Grande Avenue is the dividing line between Ormond Beach and Holly Hill Florida. The stucco of The Riviera Club Hotel is the same cheerful, creamery butter yellow as the historic buildings at Rollins College in Winter Park.
The Riviera
boasted a three-hundred-foot boat dock, piano lounge, restaurant, golf course,
polo and hunt clubs, gondola rides in the canals.
Archery, shuffleboard,
lawn bowling, croquet, horseback riding, skeet shooting were all pastimes
available to guests at the Riviera Hotel in its heyday.
The row of rocking
chairs is inviting, even though a famous scene in the film "Some Like It Hot"
comes to mind. If you suddenly find yourself humming "Down Among the Sheltering
Palms", please blame Billy Wilder, not me.
While I was taking this
photo, a man in his fifties accompanied by a man in his eighties left the
Riviera and walked to their car. As they did, I heard the younger man say to the
older one, "If you lived here, Dad, it would be like living at a resort
hotel." Exactly
so.
2 comments:
fascinating place! Now I'm a neighbor. History House of Holly Hill AirBandB Thx!
I grew up in this hotel. My mum was an accountant for the owner, at that time, Mr. Henry Hardestry His son and I spent many fun times in the pool, kitchen and all over the hotel. My mother and I lived up in the “tower”, what wonderful views looking across the Halifax river, you could just see the ocean. The memories I have of living in this beautiful, elegant, historical hotel will live with me always. Now I am 85 years young!
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