The Verona Hotel

The Verona Hotel (1889–1926) was Avon Park’s first hotel and early civic center, built on the shore of Lake Verona near the present-day Donaldson Park tennis courts. Constructed from local virgin pine between 1887 and 1889 under town founder Oliver Marvin Crosby, the 32-room frame hotel lodged prospective settlers for nearly four decades before a fire led to its demolition in 1926.

Why Did Oliver Crosby Build the Verona Hotel?

In 1885, Connecticut investor Oliver Marvin Crosby and a partner purchased 20,000 acres in what was then DeSoto County for $50,000 from Philadelphia industrialist Hamilton Disston, who had acquired four million acres from the State of Florida. Crosby platted the frontier tract—initially called Lake Forest—to survey and sell citrus and town lots. He hired Englishman William King as resident manager while handling land sales; after King’s wife, Mary King, joined him in the settlement, the town was renamed Avon Park in tribute to the Kings’ native Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Because Lake Forest had no lodgings for prospective land buyers, Crosby began building a two-story hotel from standing pine timber on the site in 1887 and completed it in 1889. Set beside Lake Verona, its 32 rooms regularly filled to capacity—counting neighboring town founder George Sebring among its frequent guests.

How Did Early Guests Reach the Verona Hotel, and What Role Did It Play?

Before railroads reached the Ridge, the nearest railhead terminated at Fort Meade. Crosby dispatched horse-drawn wagons to Fort Meade to meet prospective buyers and bring them across the pine woods to register at the Verona Hotel. Throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, the hotel functioned as Avon Park’s social and religious hub. Early congregations held worship services in its parlors until denominations erected their own church buildings, and a wooden bandstand stood on the hotel grounds for concerts and town gatherings. As Avon Park’s business district shifted toward West Main Street, the bandstand was relocated to Main Street in 1912 and moved again in 1922 onto the newly completed double-drive Mile Long Mall, where the restored bandstand remains today.

What Happened to the Verona Hotel in 1926?

In 1926, during the height of the Florida land boom, a fire in the south wing severely damaged the wooden Verona Hotel, and the 37-year-old landmark was demolished later that year. By then, brick commercial blocks and the newly completed Jacaranda Hotel on East Main Street had succeeded the pioneer lakeside inn as Avon Park’s primary accommodations. Historic 1890s photographs of guests gathered along the Verona Hotel’s lakeside veranda are preserved in the Avon Park Historical Society archive and on display at the Depot Museum.