By this time, a veranda and 3rd-story penthouse had been added to the original structure. The ‘grand lady’ finally took a well-deserved rest and closed until 1991. A succession of owners followed who were passionate about restoring and remodeling the Casa Marina into private residences and an assortment of businesses…a tearoom, clothing store, 37-room apartment building and restaurant. government appropriated the Casa Marina for military housing. Jacksonville Beach was the most alluring tourist town in NE Florida: its boardwalk, dance casinos, dining, amusement rides and wide beaches were known throughout America.ĭuring the War Years of World War II, the U.S. The Casa Marina was two stories tall and had 60 rooms. The movie industry boomed in Jacksonville long before Hollywood and the ‘greats’ like Chaplin and Pickford made appearances. claims that these celebrities including, Jean Harlow and Al Capone, were guests at the hotel in its early years. The Jacksonville train terminal opened in 1919 and everybody who was anybody came southward to Florida: from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, John D. Its construction and Spanish-Mediterranean design brought a ‘first’ to the beach…a fireproof building composed of stucco, concrete, tile and an automatic sprinkler system. That same day the town was renamed Jacksonville Beach, while 200 guests dined and danced in the grand ‘salon’. The Grand Opening of the Casa Marina on Saturday, Jwas the height of Florida’s first land boom.

By then the town was renamed Pablo Beach, after the San Pablo River (now part of the Intracoastal Waterway), a name it kept for nearly 30 years, before settling in as Jacksonville Beach in 1925. By 1885, the railroad and depot were completed and ‘Ruby’ was transformed into a tent city as crowds of beachgoers arrived with tents in which to live. Scull, a railroad surveyor with the Jacksonville and Atlantic Railway Company, for his daughter.

Jacksonville Beach was originally known as the town of “Ruby” (circa 1884) named by W.E. There have been many forgotten moments in the vast drama of the 1920’s, but the mystery of the Casa Marina is that she must have seen it all. The Casa Marina Hotel is a radiantly refined grand ‘lady’ and still turning heads! Ever since it opened its doors onto the Jacksonville beaches in 1925, when every postcard of the era announced ‘world’s finest beach’, the Casa Marina has remained an alluring landmark of Florida history.

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