The Princess Hotel Story - Destroyed in 1975

It was Sunday, February 9, 1975 and the rubble from the hotel that had burned down the night before still smoldered.  Already the police had jailed a young suspect for setting the building that had stood for 50-years on the corner of Taylor and Marion Avenue ablaze.

The Princess Hotel, which in 1975 was nothing but a storage facility for its owner, started life in 1925 as the Charlotte Bay Hotel. At that time and for years later it was a favorite place for tourists, business men, conventioneers, and even a sports team – the Baltimore Orioles stayed when they did spring training in Punta Gorda. The hotel was touted for its location on the Tamiami Trail and Dixie Highway, elegant furnishings, bath in every room, and water from its own artesian well. In the 1930s the owner of the Princess Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey purchased the hotel and began advertising it as a winter getaway alternative.

The Princess saw her last years as a hotel under a man named Paul Riddle who bought it in 1955. It had no restaurant, just rooms. A few shops were located on the ground floor. Local organizations held some of their meetings there, and there were some large parties thrown within its walls as well in the 1950s and 60s. Mr. Riddle then sold the building twice, once to a man who wanted to renovate only to have to foreclose on him shortly after the purchase, and then to a man who wanted to turn it into a senior-living facility. When that didn’t work, Riddle got it back again and ended up using it for storage.

The site of the Princess Hotel, which is now the home of the Sunloft Building with FM Don’s Restaurant on the corner, was the location of one of Punta Gorda’s first hotel’s, the Dade built in 1887, which was later named the New Southland, then the Seminole Hotel. Teddy Roosevelt stayed at this hotel when he visited in 1917. Then when plans were made to replace the old Seminole with the Charlotte Bay aka Princess in 1925, that structure was moved one block west to Marion and Sullivan, only to lose its life in a fire as well soon after the move.

Theresa Murtha