The Pink Lady: The Vinoy Hotel

That sprawling pink palace on the waterfront is the Vinoy, and it is the grandest survivor of Florida's nineteen twenties boom. It was built by an oil and lubricant tycoon named Aymer Vinoy Laughner, who according to legend bet a friend he could put up a first-class resort hotel in a single year. Construction began in early nineteen twenty-five, and the Mediterranean Revival landmark, designed by architect Henry Taylor, opened its doors on New Year's Eve of that same year, just ten months later.

In its heyday it hosted presidents, baseball stars, and the wealthy tourists who wintered in the Sunshine City. But hard times followed. During the Second World War the military took it over to house and train troops, and after the war the great boom-era hotels fell out of fashion.

The Vinoy closed in nineteen seventy-four and sat empty and decaying for about sixteen years, a rotting ghost on the prime waterfront. Then, beginning in nineteen ninety, a restoration costing tens of millions of dollars brought it back from the dead, and it reopened in nineteen ninety-two. Today, restored to its full rose-colored glory, it anchors the downtown skyline as a reminder that not every faded grande dame meets the wrecking ball.