Capone haunt could return to glory as a luxury resort
During winters in the mid-1920s, wealthy and famous Northerners headed to Sanford’s Forrest Lake Hotel to escape the frigid temperatures back home and avoid the large crowds in Miami Beach.
The three-story hotel with its Spanish-style architecture, airy veranda and large windows offering palm-lined views of Lake Monroe was the perfect place for “quiet and restful relaxation,” according to a 1926 promotional brochure when the hotel opened.
But the luxurious resort later known as the Mayfair Hotel, which attracted celebrities including mobster Al Capone and actress Tallulah Bankhead, closed in the mid-1960s. Until recently, it’s been occupied by owner New Tribes Mission as offices and residences for its staff and missionaries.
Now, the empty 75,000-square-foot building and surrounding land is up for sale for $2.5 million. And Sanfordbased Key Performance Hospitality Management is moving forward with plans to buy it and return it to its former splendor as a high-living hotel. Company officials hope it will attract business travelers, tour-
ists looking for a lakeside resort and groups planning to hold large events.
“It’s an absolutely beautiful building on a beautiful piece of property,” said Louis Robbins, president and chief executive officer of Key Performance Hospitality Management. “It’s got an absolutely phenomenal view of the lake. There’s a major airport nearby. Sanford is revitalizing its downtown. We feel that we have everything we could want.”
Staff for New Tribes Mission — now known as Ethnos 360 — moved out of the old hotel in February and into new offices at 312 W. First St. in downtown Sanford.
“We no longer needed all that residential space,” said Dan Kreider, chief operations officer for Ethnos 360. “We think a hotel [at the site] will be great for Sanford.”
However, before the old Mayfair Hotel can be brought back to its former glory days, the interior will require several million dollars worth of renovations, including gutting most of the rooms, installing central heat and air conditioning, beautifying the landscape and adding a new pool, Robbins said. Key Performance doesn’t plan to change the building’s exterior.
When the renovations are completed in mid-2019, the new hotel will have about 120 rooms, a restaurant, a spa and a banquet room large enough to draw weddings and other social events, Robbins said.
“We hope to have it as a [AAA] four-diamond hotel when we’re finished,” he said.
AAA hotel ratings run from one to five diamonds, increasing in luxury, service and accommodations. Examples of four-diamond hotels in Central Florida include the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Orlando, Villas of Grand Cypress Golf Resort and the Walt Disney World Swan Resort.
Key Performance Hospitality Management also owns and manages the Holiday Inn Resort in Daytona Beach and the Hampton Inn & Suites Orlando East near UCF.
Sanford’s planning and zoning board in August is scheduled to consider Key Performance’s request for a conditional use permit to operate a hotel on the property. The 6.5 acres includes the old hotel and an adjacent three-story building currently used as apartments.
According to the Seminole Property Appraiser’s Office, the entire three-parcel property is appraised at $4.7 million. It’s exempt from property taxes because Ethnos 360 is a nonprofit organization.
It was built in 1925 at the peak of a Florida real-estate boom at a cost of $5 million by banker Forrest Lake, a former Sanford mayor, and other investors. However, the hotel went bankrupt and closed in 1929 following the stock market crash and when winter visitors suddenly stopped coming to Sanford.
It reopened in 1935 as the Mayfair Hotel and the fancy resort included a chandeliered ballroom, a large staircase and a cage elevator operated by a bellhop that still works today.
Two years later, flower grower W.E. Kirchhoff Jr. purchased the property and offered discounted rates to guests.
In 1948, the New York Giants baseball organization took over the hotel and launched a major renovation project, including adding a swimming pool overlooking Lake Monroe. It was one of the first public swimming pools in the area.
“Because there were no other swimming pools in the area, we would go down there as Boy Scouts for a swim,” said W. Garnett White, 84, who has lived almost his entire life in Sanford. “It was an interesting place for us.”
The Giants used a portion of the hotel for its players when its class AAA league played at a nearby stadium. Famous Giants who spent the night included pitcher Carl Hubbell, outfielder Mel Ott and manager Leo Durocher.
In 1961, a hotelier from New Hampshire purchased the hotel from the Giants. But its days as a hotel were numbered. It later became an academy for teenage boys before New Tribes bought it in 1977.
Sanford native Paulette White, 81, a member of the Sanford Historical Society board of directors, remembered celebrating her junior and senior proms in the hotel’s old banquet room.
“Oh, it was very pretty and very nice,” she said. “The lobby was very plush. It was beautiful.”
White was pleased to hear the building may soon return as a luxury hotel.
“I think it’s such a beautiful building,” she said. “But I think it’s going to take a lot of work to get it back to what it once was.”