Resort hotel · Mount Dora, Florida · Built 1883; enlarged 1903; annexes 1908, 1914, 1926, 1929
Lakeside Inn
A Florida winter hotel on the shore of Lake Dora that grew from a ten-room frame inn of 1883 into a quadrangle of verandaed and stuccoed buildings, opened in its final form by Calvin Coolidge in 1930.
History
The hotel began in the year Mount Dora got its post office, 1883, as a small two-story frame inn on land that William and Annie Stone of Chicago had homesteaded in 1875. Accounts of who built it conflict. The nomination credits Annie Stone, remarried to the town promoter John P. Donnelly, and partners; Wikipedia names Col. John M. Alexander, Col. John A. McDonald and his daughter Annie McDonald Stone, and calls it the Alexander House. The Sanford and Lake Eustis Railroad arrived in 1886 with a depot just across the tracks, and a winter Chautauqua nearby brought steady visitors. Emma Boone, a Boston hotelwoman, managed and then owned the Lake House; after marrying George D. Thayer in 1903 she oversaw a stock company that tripled the building and renamed it the Lakeside Inn. A Gatehouse annex followed in 1908 and Sunset Cottage in 1914.
In the mid-1920s Charles Edgerton of Philadelphia, the Paterson, New Jersey, theater architect Frederick W. Wentworth and the Boston hotelman Archie Hurlburt bought the inn and, with about a hundred local stockholders, spent some $250,000 on expansion despite the collapse of the Florida boom: the Gables annex in 1926, a remodeled main building, landscaping, an Olympic-size pool and the Terrace annex in 1929. On January 15, 1930, former President Calvin Coolidge unlocked the Terrace's front door before a crowd of about 10,000, and he and Grace Coolidge stayed the rest of the winter. Reorganized in 1933, the inn was managed by Richard Edgerton until it closed in 1980; new owners bought it in 1984 and rehabilitated the complex.
“An estimated 10,000 people jammed the city to attend the ceremonies, which included the dedication of the new swimming pool by a team of "expert aquatic stars".”
Architecture
The main building is a two-story wood-frame hotel with a three-story central block added in 1903, a long veranda and a rear ell; the 1928–30 remodeling stripped its Victorian gazebo and brackets, enlarged the first-floor windows and opened a full-length lobby under a coffered ceiling while keeping the 1903 fireplace and stair. Facing each other across a lawn quadrangle in front of it are Wentworth's Gables (1926) and Terrace (1929), long stucco-over-frame buildings in a simplified Jacobethan manner, with steep diamond-shingled roofs, cross gables and parapeted bays with picture windows looking toward the lake. The frame Gatehouse of 1908 has drop siding below and shingles above. Rusticated stone walls and gateposts mark the Woodland Avenue entrance.
What to look for
- Quadrangle of the Gables and Terrace annexes
- Olympic-size pool facing Lake Dora
- Long veranda on the 1903 main building
- Rusticated stone gateposts on Woodland Avenue
- Coffered lobby ceiling from the 1928–30 remodeling
Setting
The inn rises on a gentle slope from the eastern shore of Lake Dora at 100 North Alexander Street, beside the railroad line and just across the tracks from downtown Mount Dora. The quadrangle opens west toward the lake, with the pool at its far end preserving the water view, and lush plantings give the grounds an old-Florida look.
Timeline
- 1883Lake House opens as a small frame inn
- 1886Railroad reaches Mount Dora
- 1903Inn tripled in size and renamed Lakeside Inn
- 1926Gables annex completed
- 1930Calvin Coolidge opens the Terrace annex on January 15
- 1980Hotel closes
- 1984New owners buy and rehabilitate the complex
Where sources differ
- The builders and original name differ between the nomination (the Donnellys and partners; the Lake House) and Wikipedia (Alexander, McDonald and Annie McDonald Stone; the Alexander House). The nomination itself calls the accounts conflicting.
- Wikipedia calls the inn Florida's oldest continuously operating hotel; the nomination records that it closed in 1980.
- Wikipedia dates the hotel's purchase by the Hurlburt group to after 1924 and spells his name Hulbert; the nomination gives Harlburt.
