Pink Palace on the Beach of St. Pete: 
The DonCeSar Beach Resort, St. Petersburg Beach, Florida

FrommerLuxuryTravel Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer

On the fifth floor of the Don CeSar Beach Resort where the walls are  painted strawberry-ice cream-pink, the King Charles Room is reserved for gala balls and Sunday brunches. But in the late 1920s and through the 30s, it was the Grand Ballroom, open every night for dining and dancing. Clarence Darrow, Lou Gehrig, even Al Capone were frequent guests. So were F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Elegantly dressed in formal attire, they would sail through the evenings, drinking champagne, dancing to songs like “The Way You Look Tonight,” and every so often, stepping out on the terrace to watch the moon rise over the Gulf of Mexico.

Except in the Lobby Bar, a high-ceilinged, wide and deep space off the entrance hall where the ambience is, as Ron put it, "something out of the Great Gatsby Era." Walls are painted the color of eggshells, ceiling fans spin lazily over a long mahogany bar, intimate conversation areas alongside a wall of windows are marked by potted palms and furnished with wicker settees, and doorways at the rear open to a maze of courts and gated, gardened walkways that descend to the pool complex and the pure white sands of St. Petersburg Beach beyond. In the center of a marble floor polished to a mirror-like sheen, stands a concert grand-sized piano. And on a starlit Florida evening, when the top is raised and a tuxedoed pianist is at the keyboard, it would come as no surprise to find Scott and Zelda dancing "Cheek to Cheek."

We were walking towards the beach now dotted with bright blue cabanas. People had already staked out space on blue recliners along the two swimming pools, taking in the morning sun or seeking the shade under broad white umbrellas. Ron turned and looked back at the hotel fronted by a row of palms. "Rowe lived in the hotel," he said. "He died in his room in 1940. World War II began, and the Army bought the building and used it as a hospital for airmen; the penthouse became an operating theater. Once the war was over, the hotel became the property of the Veterans Administration. They stripped all the beautiful features and painted everything green.  After they moved out in 1969, the 'Pink Palace' stood vacant and abandoned. It was a ruined site, covered with graffiti, a candidate for demolition."

Although Spa Oceana opened in March 2008, from the outside, it looks like it was always there. Within, however, all is sleek, even minimalist, cool and contemporary with sixteen treatment rooms that face the dunes or beachfront and eternally blue waters of the Gulf -- a guarantee of instant serenity. There is a glamorous rooftop terrace with cabanas, lounging space, and endless vistas, comfortable lounges, locker and shower spaces, baths, steam rooms, even special rooms for couples engaging in dual massages, and a team of enthusiastic professionals practiced in providing the great range of massages, beauty treatments, body wraps, and styling services that have made Spa Oceana a highlight of the resort as well as a draw for local residents.

Pedicure Salon, Spa Oceana

Roof Terrace of Spa Oceana at dusk

"The spa is a big attraction for people in a wedding party. They're down at the hotel for the weekend, as a rule, and part of the package often includes an afternoon of treatments, " said Cindy Lew. Tall and slender with long dark hair and a winning smile, Cindy, who had recently come on as director of marketing, had joined us for lunch at the aptly named Sea Porch Café where sitting in oversized wicker chairs upholstered in bold floral chintz and surrounded by large windows looking out to the pool area, we kept forgetting we were actually in an indoor space on the ground level of the hotel.

The confusion is part of the charm. "Last Valentine's Day we had seven weddings going on simultaneously," Cindy told us. "But it's such a big hotel, there are so many different places for ceremonies and receptions,  indoors and outdoors, one leading to another, you can have one event going on in one place and never know other events are going on someplace else. There are three full time wedding planners -- all notarized so they can perform the ceremonies themselves. And nearly all of the 400 wedding ceremonies held here each year are at sunset."

Cindy Lew, Director of Marketing

The aptly named Sea Porch Café

The indoor-outdoor melding intensifies in the Maritana Grille, a well-known destination restaurant where the clientele is local as much as transient, Here the world is a study in blue. Walls are painted a shade of aqua marine, ceiling-high pillars are paneled with blue mirrors, and one gets the sense of being on a submarine level of an ocean liner. A sizeable aquarium cuts through the length of a long wall revealing a concourse on the other side. Diners become visible to strollers and vice versa, but they pay each other no mind being too entranced by jewel-like, salt-water tropical fish swimming around coral and plants of the deep while a three-foot-long eel, the color of fresh grass, slithers lazily across a rocky bottom.

All of which merge into a setting that befits a sophisticated, high-end dining room devoted to the culinary gifts of the sea all of which, save lobster, come from the waters around Florida. For us, dinner began appropriately with a delicate pan-seared sea scallop served over an Asian-style slaw of cabbage, shitake mushrooms and carrots in a sauce of sweet and soy reduction. We moved on to dry land for starters: a refreshing English pea soup with crudities made of fingerling potatoes and a cheese terrine where two medallions of herbed goat cheese, wrapped in a potato and heated, were  placed on a bed of micro-greens drizzled with a truffled vinaigrette. But for the main event, we returned to the Maritana theme with Maine lobster that came with three different pasta shells in a mixture of basil, herbs, leeks, micro greens and tomatoes -- an interesting and flavorful combo, and the signature (and excellent) dish of the Don's signature dining room: horseradish-crusted salmon served over lobster butter.

"It's been on the menu for fifteen years," our server said. "Whenever they've tried to take it off, customers demand its return." Our last night at the Don found us up on the fifth floor with Ron once again. The sun had set but the sky was still light, and standing out on the terrace of the King Charles Room, he pointed out the lay of the land. "The region is protected," he said. "No high rise building is possible so there's always the open view of the beach."

We looked up to the north, down to the south. Streets in the distance were lined with small houses or condos, all part of the original 80 acres that Rowe had purchased more than 80 years ago. "Each street still bears the name he gave it, all for characters in the opera." Outside the King Charles Room, Ron gestured towards a sizeable fountain centered in the foyer. Somehow we hadn't noticed it before. "Here's one last ghost story before you leave," he said. "When Thomas Rowe was a young man and studying in London, he met and fell in love with a young woman named Lucinda. Her parents objected to him so the couple would secretly meet at a fountain. Then one day Lucinda failed to appear. Her parents had found out about their liason and spirited her away.        "From what I've been told, this fountain is an exact replica of the one in London. In life, the couple never met again. But every so often, someone will claim they've been seen together beside the fountain in the Don CeSar." Moving towards the elevator, we turned back for a last look. For a moment it seemed . . .  "I think everyone should experience this place," Ron added as the elevator door opened and we stepped inside. "We should value things that we have, hold on to them."

Don CeSar Beach Resort
A Loews Hotel
3400 Gulf Boulevard
St. Pete Beach, FL 33706

Phone: 727-360-1881
Web: http://wwwloewshotels.com

Photographs by Harvey Frommer