Historic Island Hotel captures the real Cedar Key

Well-worn and weathered, it's the charming center of a simpler way of life.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER, Times Staff Writer
Published June 3, 2007

	The nearly 150-year-old Island Hotel in Cedar Key was originally a general store and post office. There are bullet holes in a mural in the bar, but there are no telephones or televisions in the guest rooms.
[Handout photo]

CEDAR KEY

The closest traffic light is about half an hour away, and the population is less than what you'd find in most Tampa Bay elementary schools. - Locals wrinkle their noses at the condominiums and shops planned for their tiny downtown. When hurricanes loom, natives are more likely to tough it out than flee. - This is the spunk and charm of Cedar Key, with its resilience born of a turbulent relationship with Mother Nature and railroad magnate Henry B. Plant. - Nothing embodies that spirit like the Island Hotel, one of Cedar Key's oldest and most well-worn structures. If you want to experience the real Cedar Key, this is the place to stay.

Built in 1859 as a general store and post office, the hotel's 10-inch thick seashell tabby walls and oak beams have helped it survive floods, hurricanes and other disasters.

Yet like Cedar Key, it is vulnerable. The hotel creaks and moans with the wind and the cold. You can see its age in the wood floors that slope where the hotel has "settled" into the earth below.

The Neptune Bar downstairs even has a couple of bullet holes in the mural above the liquor bottles, remnants of a 1960s denizen who could not hold his liquor.

Yet the hotel still stands after 148 years, as charming and alluring as ever.

My husband and I stayed in room 29, one of the largest and most private. It is tucked into a corner of the second floor, down the hall from doors leading out to the wraparound balcony.

It features a four-poster king bed surrounded by mauve walls and antique furnishings. The bathroom is minuscule, but that's not surprising considering when the hotel was built.

In the mornings, we woke to the smell of owner Andy Bair's French toast and bacon wafting up from the first-floor restaurant. Friends who stayed here earlier called it the best French toast around. They were not exaggerating. And Andy's fluffy quiche isn't far behind.

None of the rooms has a television or even a telephone. That's a good thing.

Cedar Key is where you go to leave the real world and all of its stresses behind. It's where you go to have long, happy hours on the second-story porch, watching life crawl by below.

It's where you go to browse through shops filled with art and kitschy collections; where you go for great seafood and drinks down by the pier. It's where you catch a sunset cruise or rent a kayak for the afternoon.

We didn't touch our car for four days. Instead we walked everywhere - to Annie's Cafe for breakfast, to the Cedar Key Historical Museum. One afternoon we rented bikes and rode a mile or so to the Cedar Key State Museum.

Turns out, when Major John Parsons built the general store that would become the Island Hotel, Cedar Key was poised to expand as a port and trade route.

Then came the Civil War. Union troops burned down everything around the store and took it over for officers' quarters and storage.

It later reopened, and over the years operated as a restaurant, boardinghouse, even a brothel and a speakeasy.

After the war, Plant considered building his railroad to Cedar Key. But he couldn't reach any agreement with the town's landowners. So he left in a huff and laid tracks to Tampa instead.

Cedar Key declined as Tampa's port grew. Meanwhile, the lumber industry struggled because workers had harvested most of the trees. A hurricane in September 1896 wiped out the remaining cedar trees and destroyed all the mills.

Cedar Key's potential as a "metropolis" was dead. But the Island Hotel survived.

In the late 1940s, the Island Hotel became the hangout of choice for author Pearl Buck, big-band singer Vaughn Monroe, actor Richard Boone and singer-actor Frances Langford. Singer Jimmy Buffett famously played the hotel's bar in the 1980s.

Since 2004, the hotel has been owned and operated by Bair and his wife, Stanley, who are originally from Atlanta.

Hotel staff swear there are 13 ghosts wandering the place. We didn't see any, but we met plenty of interesting characters.

Our favorite was Jim Ford, an older man who traded his home near bustling Sarasota for a tiny bungalow a few blocks from the Island Hotel.

Why did you move here? What's the attraction?

"Thirty miles to a traffic light, " Ford said. "Twenty miles to a real intersection."

Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3403 or svansickler@sptimes.com.

If You Go

Cedar Key is a small island community, 135 miles north of Tampa, that juts 3 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. One of the oldest ports in the state, it is now home to artists and writers who love the untouched nature and quiet living. Tourists also come to enjoy the arts, fishing, bird watching, kayaking and nature trails.

For more information, call the Chamber of Commerce at (352) 543-5600 or go to www.cedarkey.org.

The Island Hotel is at 373 Second St., Cedar Key, toll-free 1-800-432-4640; www.islandhotel-cedarkey.com.

Rates: From $80 to $120 on weekdays and $90 to $135 on weekends and holidays. Price includes a full breakfast. Don't pass up the French toast!

Amenities: The 10 rooms do not have televisions or telephones. All have private bathrooms, some with claw-foot tubs. The upstairs balcony has rocking chairs and a double swing. The Island Hotel Restaurant downstairs is one of Cedar Key's most popular.

[Last modified May 31, 2007, 13:18:18]