Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida.
Digital sketch created by the author.
Casa Monica opened in 1888 as one of three grand hotels which turned St. Augustine into a winter resort. The hotel was built by Franklin Smith, but quickly sold to Henry Flagler who owned the other two hotels. He renamed it the Hotel Cordova.
In 1932 the Hotel Cordova closed. Shops remained in the building at street level, but it was mostly empty until the county bought it in 1962 and remodeled it to serve as the courthouse. By the 1990s the county had outgrown this courthouse and a new facility was built north of town. In 1997 the hotel was sold to The Kessler Collection which restored the building and its original name. The Casa Monica hotel reopened just in time to usher in a new century.
It is a beautiful jewel offering visitors an opportunity to taste a bit of the grandeur that was St. Augustine’s gilded age.
