Elegance on the Halifax: The Story of the Ormond Hotel Book

Once a dazzling queen among the world's grand hotels in the great Gilded Age, then a gradually fading beauty, maintaining herself in genteel poverty as she attempted to dodge the poorhouse and the wrecking ball. The Ormond Hotel was a historic Florida landmark. For over a hundred years the hotel was the skyline in Ormond (Ormond became Ormond Beach in 1950). It entertained the great and the near-great in every walk of life, saw the city of Ormond grow, and spanned cast changes in the society it served. From a historical viewpoint, the Ormond Hotel was unquestionably one of the most important buildings to be constructed in Florida since it became a state. It was one of the focal points of the great pioneering effort that helped open up the East Coast of Florida, and the launching place of the auto racing sport.

It was only twenty-two years after the close of the civil war that he original Ormond Hotel was completed. The hotel first opened its doors on January, 1888. Two years later, Henry Flagler, developer of the East Coast of Florida, bought the hotel and made it into one of the best known hotels in the world, a playground for the rich and famous of the time. Flagler brought his railroad to the front door of the hotel for the benefit of the wealthy guests.

In 1903 the first official automobile race was held on the beach at Ormond. The Ormond Hotel became a center for the emerging auto racing sport. For the next three decades, the hotel was the winter quarters for racing cars and their famous owners and drivers. The city of Ormond became known as the "Birthplace of Speed".

The Ormond Hotel ruled supreme for nearly forty years, however after the death of John D. Rockefeller, the hotel's most famous guest, in 1937, the period of elite patronage at the hotel began to steadily decline. After having several owners over the next fifty years, the deteriorating hotel was closed for safety reasons. In 1992 a construction company started demolishing the hotel. A few weeks later, the 104-year old historic landmark was gone forever. This book becomes a record for us - and all who come after us - of John Anderson, Joseph D. Price, Henry M. Flagler, and john D. Rockefeller and the massive wood structure that once overlooked the Halifax River - the Ormond Hotel.