South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Former hotel earns national historic status
St. Augustine Beach Hotel was site of 1960s ‘wade-ins’
The former St. Augustine Beach Hotel has been added to the National Register of Historic Places for its importance in the national civil rights movement of the 1960s.
The hotel, now home to an arts and dance studio, is located at 370 State Road A1A.
The St. Johns Cultural Council has worked for more than 20 years to restore and preserve the historic structure, which fronts directly on the section of St. Augustine Beach shoreline where the notorious wade-in protests took place from June 17 through July 1, 1964, the day before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.
The June 25 wade-in grabbed nationwide attention, with photos of segregationists attacking protesters who dared to enter the water of the “whites only” beach and police breaking up the riot making the front page of many news outlets.
Over the last two years, the St. Johns Cultural Council has especially drilled down on efforts to achieve recognition by the U.S. National Park Service for the property’s national civil rights significance and local historical, architectural importance.
The organization received word Jan. 11 that those efforts were successful.
“It’s very exciting,” Christina Parrish Stone, executive director of the St. Johns Cultural Council said in a phone interview with The Record Monday. “It’s just a great way for us to raise awareness. ... This status also gives us a better chance to get grants to continue our renovation of the building.”
The nomination consists of four resources: the St. Augustine Beach Hotel, the boardwalk, the seawall and the beachfront.
According to the application submitted by the St. Johns Cultural Council: “The building was constructed between 19391940 as part of a federal Works Progress Administration project that showcased greater St. Augustine’s Spanish heritage and the use of native coquina stone.
“The building has undergone a number of changes since its construction, including a spatial rearrangement of the first floor and the removal of interior walls on the second floor. Despite these changes, the building retains its integrity for listing in the National Register.”
Parrish Stone said in its heyday the hotel not only housed guests, but served as an entertainment venue for both tourists and locals and included a dance hall and bowling alley.
According to Parrish Stone, the St. Johns Cultural Council was formed in part as a way to help save the structure from demolition and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and private donations to stabilize the building and rehab the first floor.
In 1985, the City of St. Augustine Beach acquired the property, using it for a time as its City Hall. The bowling lanes became the commission meeting room.
Said St. Augustine Beach City Manager Max Royale, “A lot of people here have a strong sentimental attachment to the building.”
For the last two decades, the property has been leased by the St. Johns Cultural Council which subleased the ground floor now housing the dance and art studios. Its lease with the city runs through 2026, according to Royale.
“The city believes that because the building now has that historic designation, the grant possibilities will be there to renovate the second floor,” Royale said.
There are additional plans to somehow incorporate the space into a greater vision for the adjacent beach pier.
A community forum is scheduled to discuss the issue at 5 p.m. March 23 at the St. Augustine Beach municipal building at 2200 State Road A1A.
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