THE UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA

Tampa, Florida

The opulent Moorish Revival Tampa Bay Hotel opened in 1891, as Florida railroad baron Henry Plant's response to Henry Flagler's brilliant Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine. Designed by architect J.A. Wood, the hotel was the most modern of its day, with electric lighting, private baths, telephones and elevators. It has thirteen silver minarets, each topped with a crescent moon representing a month on the Islamic lunar calendar. Horseshoe arches of wood with carved curlicues and elaborate filigree work grace the ground level porches. Keyhole windows abounded in this fanciful structure, modeled in part after the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. It took two years to build, cost over two million dollars, and another half-million to furnish. It took 452 freight car loads of brick for the construction. The interior was decorated with 80 freight-car loads of period furnishing, picked out in Europe by Plant and his wife. After Plant died in 1899, the hotel was sold it to the city of Tampa for a mere $125,000. It operated for 30 more years as a hotel, closed in 1930, and then re-opened three year later as Tampa Bay Junior College.

While my wife and I participated in the 2016 Millennium Dance Championships in Tampa (one of the biggest Ballroom competitions in the country), I had a day off, so ventured out for a city walk. As I came upon the University, I knew it was a sketch needing to happen. Being in the middle of summer, hot and humid, I talked my way into a law office across the street from the school, and parked in a comfortable conference room for this view. There aren=t many views that really capture the fullness of the architecture, but this one did.