The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Hotel Jacaranda

7-23 East Main Street, on a lot half a block long. The largest building in Avon Park and the most complete surviving expression of what the land boom expected of the town.

The Hotel Jacaranda on a linen postcard

Postcard view of the Mediterranean Revival-style Hotel Jacaranda, designed by William J. Heim and opened in 1926. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image PC07393. Public domain.[fl-memory-jacaranda]

Hotel Jacaranda circa 1926

Circa 1926 color postcard showing the Hotel Jacaranda during the land boom era in Avon Park. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image PC0375. Public domain.[fm-pc0375]

The Hotel Jacaranda, circa 1935

The Hotel Jacaranda, Avon Park, photographed by Robert E. Dahlgren about 1935. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image FR0935. Public domain.[fm-fr0935]

Building it

The foundations were laid in late 1923, in the preliminary stage of the Florida land boom, and the hotel was completed in time for the spring tourist season of 1926.[nrhp-90000486]

The architect was William J. Heim, and the Jacaranda was his largest commission in every sense — the National Register nomination calls it “the crowning achievement of William J. Heim.”[nrhp-90000486]

It was financed from outside Florida, by two men:

  • John Raab, an associate of the Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham;
  • Harry Winter, a developer from Chicago.[nrhp-90000486]

The building

Three stories on an irregular plan: a central block with polygonal wings running out from each corner, towers defining the four corners, and a first-story arcade set back from the sidewalk fronting Main Street and Lake Avenue, under which a number of small businesses traded. The roof is flat, with a central curvilinear parapet and corner pilasters capped by Moorish arches rising above the roofline. The exterior is decorative polychromatic brickwork with rectangular cut-block inlays, framed above by the roofline and below by a string course.[nrhp-90000486] Vintage postcards from the mid-20th century prominently advertised “120 Fireproof Rooms on the Orange Blossom Trail” and an elevation of “250 feet above sea level,” while popular accounts describe it as taking its name from a hundred-and-fifty-year-old jacaranda tree removed to make room for it.[floridiana-jacaranda][fl-memory-jacaranda]

Bad timing

“Unfortunately, the Jacaranda was finished just as Avon Park began to feel the effects of the collapse of the land boom. Raab and Winter lost heavily during the economic depression and were forced to give up their interests in the Jacaranda.”[nrhp-90000486]

It opened for the 1926 season; the railways’ freight embargo of autumn 1925 had already begun to break the boom, and the Miami hurricane of September 1926 finished it. The hotel “never realized the profits its developers expected.”[nrhp-90000486]

It did, however, keep working. It was known for entertainment, food and hospitality, drew visitors from across central Florida, and housed the city’s offices for a period before the City Hall was built in 1928-29.

Hotel Jacaranda 1935

A 1935 photoprint of the Hotel Jacaranda by Robert E. Dahlgren. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image FR0936. Public domain.[fm-fr0936]

Mid-Century Stewardship and the King Family (1930s–1954)

During the Depression, local rancher and sawmill operator Mel Smith acquired the Jacaranda, with C. E. Crabtree serving as manager and advertising the hotel as a winter resort.[maxwell-1976]

In 1946, the hotel was purchased by the R. R. King family of Highlands, North Carolina, owners of King’s Inn in the Blue Ridge Mountains.[maxwell-1976] The family operated the Jacaranda as a winter counterpart to their summer resort in North Carolina, establishing a seasonal circuit for guests and hotel staff.[maxwell-1976] The Jacaranda was co-managed by Robert King Jr. (1919–2013) and his sister Betty King Trowbridge (1914–1999) for eight seasons from 1946 to 1954.[maxwell-1976] During this period, the hotel was a bustling center of winter civic life, dining, and tourist entertainment, hosting visiting Major League baseball players and civic clubs.[maxwell-1976]

The census of April 1950 treated the hotel as a place of its own. The Bureau gave “King’s Jacaranda Hotel (Avon Park city)” its own enumeration district, and enumerator Donald C. Moore returned it as one dwelling unit with twenty-seven persons on the population sheets and five more transcribed from individual census reports, thirty-two in all.[census-1950-jacaranda] At the head of the list is the desk clerk, William T. Trowbridge, twenty-eight, born in South Carolina, who had worked 112 hours in the week, with his wife, who owned the hotel’s gift shop, and their two small daughters; among the lodgers are Robert R. King, seventy-six, born in South Carolina, whose occupation is “owns hotel” and who had put in ninety hours that week, and his wife Ellie H. King, sixty-eight. The rest of the house was a mixture of staff and guests: two more desk clerks, a bell boy, four schoolteachers of the Avon Park schools and the high school librarian boarding at the hotel, and elderly winter visitors born in Virginia, Wyoming, Connecticut, Texas, Kentucky and Indiana.[census-1950-jacaranda]

Hotel Jacaranda circa 1950

Circa 1950 color postcard showing the exterior of the Hotel Jacaranda. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image PC0374. Public domain.[fm-pc0374]

In 1954, the King family sold the hotel to the Royal Coats family, who in turn sold it in 1962 to Thornton Kennedy of Atlanta.[maxwell-1976][floridiana-jacaranda] By 3 September 1969, title was held by E. F. Callaway and his wife Katherine S. Callaway, who operated it as a retirement hotel until selling it in June 1980 to Preston B. Weeks and Martha Ruth Weeks under a $500,000 purchase-money mortgage (OR Book 654, Page 504).[maxwell-1976][hcor-904-16][hcor-1115-880] Following the dissolution of the Weeks marriage in 1983, Ruth Weeks Allen conveyed her interest to Preston B. Weeks on 4 September 1986 (OR Book 904, Pages 16–18) for a stated consideration of $466,200.[hcor-904-16]

College Foundation Stewardship (1988–Present)

In 1988, the South Florida Community College Foundation, Inc. (now South Florida State College Foundation, Inc.) entered into an acquisition agreement for the Hotel Jacaranda and placed the building in service as a student dormitory and a hotel and restaurant training center for the college’s hospitality and culinary arts programs.[sfsc-history][floridiana-jacaranda] Although the February 1990 National Register nomination for the Avon Park Historic District (listed 22 March 1990) mistakenly reported that the hotel had been “recently purchased by Highlands County,” county property and deed records show that Highlands County never held title to the building.[nrhp-90000486][hcor-1114-1378][hcpao-jacaranda] Formal fee-simple closing took place on 29 June 1990, when Preston B. Weeks executed a statutory warranty deed (OR Book 1114, Pages 1378–1379) conveying the four hotel tracts in Block 48 to South Florida Community College Foundation, Inc. for $600,000.00, followed by a 1991 structural restoration and a 21 March 1994 gift warranty deed (OR Book 1252, Page 311) from Sun Bank/Mid-Florida, N.A. (formerly Avon Citrus Bank) donating the adjoining West 120 feet of Lots 10 and 11 in Block 48.[hcor-1114-1378][hcor-1252-311][hcpao-jacaranda] It is a contributing building in the Avon Park Historic District, listed on the National Register on 22 March 1990, and retains much of its original architectural integrity.[nrhp-90000486]

The Hotel Jacaranda from the air, 1937

A bird’s-eye postcard view of the whole hotel, its rooftop sign reading THE JACARANDA, with jacaranda trees in flower around the grounds, 1937. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, image PC07746. Public domain.[fm-pc07746]

The State Archives of Florida holds further photographs of the hotel.[fl-memory-jacaranda]

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. United States Bureau of the Census, 1950 Census of Population and Housing, Florida, Highlands County, Enumeration District 28-4, King's Jacaranda Hotel (Avon Park city), portfolio label and sheets 1–2 (images 43290879-Florida-199118-0001 to 0003) (1950) · official
  2. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (1990)
  3. Floridiana Magazine, Hotel Jacaranda: The Gracious Lady of Avon Park (2026)
  4. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Jacaranda Hotel at 19 E. Main St. in Avon Park, Florida (2026)
  5. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Jacaranda Hotel - Avon Park, Florida, photographed by Robert E. Dahlgren, circa 1935 (1935)
  6. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Aerial view of the Jacaranda Hotel in Avon Park, 1937 (1937)
  7. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Hotel Jacaranda - Avon Park, Florida (circa 1950 color postcard) (1950)
  8. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Hotel Jacaranda - Avon Park, Florida (circa 1926 color postcard) (1926)
  9. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Hotel Jacaranda in Avon Park, Florida, 1935 (1935)
  10. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976) · book
  11. Highlands County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Warranty Deed from Ruth Weeks Allen to Preston B. Weeks, 4 September 1986, recorded 5 September 1986, Highlands County Official Records Book 904, Pages 16–18 (Instrument #593200) (1986) · official
  12. Highlands County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Warranty Deed from Preston B. Weeks to South Florida Community College Foundation, Inc., 29 June 1990, Highlands County Official Records Book 1114, Pages 1378–1379 (Instrument #0711070) (1990) · official
  13. Highlands County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Satisfaction of Mortgage from E. F. Callaway and Katherine S. Callaway to Martha Ruth Weeks and Preston Weeks, dated 2 July 1990, recorded 10 July 1990, Highlands County Official Records Book 1115, Pages 880–881 (Instrument #0711784) (1990) · official
  14. Highlands County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Warranty Deed from Sun Bank/Mid-Florida, N.A. (f/k/a Avon Citrus Bank) to The South Florida Community College Foundation, Inc., dated 21 March 1994, recorded 29 March 1994, Highlands County Official Records Book 1252, Page 311 (Instrument #0832838) (1994) · official
  15. Highlands County Property Appraiser, Highlands County Property Appraiser Parcel Record A-22-33-28-010-0480-0100 (19 E. Main Street, Avon Park, FL 33825, Jacaranda Hotel) (2026) · official
  16. South Florida State College, South Florida State College: 1965–2025 (Institutional History) (2025) · official

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