Casa Monica Resort & Spa

Franklin W. Smith, a Boston hardware merchant with an enthusiasm for Moorish architecture, had already built himself the Villa Zorayda across the street when he opened the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, in January 1888. He built it as he had built the villa, from poured concrete mixed with the local coquina shell, and gave it towers, arches and crenellations borrowed from the Alhambra. The Casa Monica Resort & Spa, as the hotel is called under the Kessler Collection, still stands behind that façade on Cordova Street.

History

Smith ran out of money within months. In April 1888 he sold the hotel to Henry Flagler, the Standard Oil partner who was then building St. Augustine into a winter resort with the Ponce de Leon and Alcazar hotels across the road. Flagler renamed it the Cordova and operated it as the third of his St. Augustine houses. The Depression closed it in 1932. St. Johns County bought the building in 1962 and used it as its courthouse for more than three decades, with courtrooms in the former dining rooms. Richard Kessler bought the building in 1997, spent two years on restoration and reopened it as the Casa Monica in December 1999, restoring Smith's original name. King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain stayed in April 2001 during a visit to Florida's oldest city.

Architecture and design

The building is Moorish Revival, a rarity in American hotel architecture, with corner towers, horseshoe arches and a battlemented roofline. Kessler's interiors lean into the Spanish theme with wrought iron, dark wood, tiles and velvet, and the public rooms carry works from the Grand Bohemian Gallery, the Kessler Collection's art business, which has a gallery off the lobby.

Rooms and suites

The towers hold the hotel's signature suites, arranged over several floors with spiral stairs and windows on three sides. Standard rooms vary in shape because the building was planned for the 1880s and divided again for the courthouse; the restoration kept the irregularity.

Dining

The hotel's restaurant on the ground floor, facing Cordova Street, serves steaks and Florida seafood, and the lobby bar fills in the evenings with guests and residents of the historic district. Breakfast is served in the same room.

Wellness

The Poseidon Spa occupies rooms within the hotel, with treatment rooms and a fitness centre. The hotel's position in the centre of the old town means most guests spend their days walking rather than resting.

Weddings and events

The hotel hosts weddings and meetings in its ballroom and private rooms, with the Plaza de la Constitución and the Cathedral Basilica across the street for ceremonies and photographs. Rehearsal dinners and receptions use the restaurant and the lobby spaces under the Moorish arches.

Location

The Casa Monica stands at 95 Cordova Street in the historic district of St. Augustine, facing the Lightner Museum in Flagler's former Alcazar Hotel and a block from Flagler College in his former Ponce de Leon. The Castillo de San Marcos and the bayfront are ten minutes on foot. Jacksonville International Airport is about an hour by car, and it is the one luxury hotel in St. Augustine from which every historic sight can be reached without a car. Cordova Street is lined with the live oaks and Spanish-style buildings of Flagler's era, and the horse-drawn carriages that tour the old town pass the door all day.