The Last Day of the Floridan Hotel, Howey-in-the-Hills

 It looked good, right up until the first kaboom.

The Floridan Hotel and Country Club in Howey-in-the-Hills was built in 1924, on the site of the former Hotel  Bougainvillea which had burned to the ground in 1920.  

The photo above shows construction underway as the Floridan Hotel takes shape.  This may have been the original work from 1924, or perhaps the expansion of the hotel's rooms from 75 to 105, two years later.  

As you can see, the hotel had a cute surrey to transport guests from their lodgings to the golf course. 

I believe the above photo shows the hotel just about when it was completed, based on the mid-1920s automobiles parked in the driveway.

This is a mid-1930's photo of the same view of the front of the hotel, as you can tell by the cars.  

The 75-room Hotel Floridan was designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, then being popularized by the architects of Central Florida.  

Stucco walls red tile roofs, and an arched portico, all set the theme.  

Owned by William J. Howey, the hotel was the ideal destination for potential investors in his Lake County citrus growing ventures.  

Golf course architect George O'Neil of Chicago was commissioned to create a golf course at Howey-in-the-Hills. His 18-hole course continues to delight golfers.  O'Neil is well known for designing or co-designing many fine courses including Pasadena, Mountain Meadows, Maxwelton Braes, South Bend Country Club, Barrington Hills Country Club, and the Greenbriar Course in West Virginia. 

The course underwent further enhancements in 1926, by Charles E. Clarke (perhaps best remember as the golf architect of the Troon Golf Course in Scotland).  That original course is still in existence, and is the highly-ranked El Campion Golf Course, part of the Mission Inn Resort.

To appeal to golfers, the resort was later advertised as the Floridan Country Club and Hotel, as in these vintage match book covers.

As such, the hotel was still in operation in the 1950s, as you see in the next photo.  By this time, the hotel was also marketed to small plane owners, who could fly in to stay at the hotel.  In this, it was similar to Chalet Suzanne in Lake Wales.  Interestingly, William J. Howey had once owned the land in Lake Wales where Bok Tower Gardens are, before relocating and concentrating his development goals in Lake County.  Of interest is the fact that sometime between the mid 1930s and the early 1950s, the third floor penthouse situated over the main entry of the hotel was removed, and the corner towers there, lowered. As yet, we do not know why this remodeling took place.  

The Floridan Hotel would later become a victim to a weird economic phenomenon that became popular in parts of Florida, where movie production companies would pay cities to blow up buildings for their movies (so much for historic preservation...!).  It was blown up in 1994 for Hulk Hogan's "Thunder in Paradise" episodes 17 & 18, "Deadly Lessons". It still looked good, right up to the end.  

So here's the question...

Who designed the hotel?  I would very much like to know.  It could have been any of the architectural firms active in Central Florida in the 1920s.  I have a hunch it was either Ryan and Roberts, or Frederick H. Trimble, who was the architect of the nearby academic buildings of the Monteverde Academy.  

I would like to hear from anyone who can tell me who the architect was.  Please send me a comment or message.