Qualla: The Don CeSar https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Don CeSar https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar The Don CeSar: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Opakapaka, Public domain. Thomas Rowe never got over Lucinda. The young Englishman had fallen for an opera singer in London, but her parents forbade the match, and the couple parted forever. Decades later, living in Florida, Rowe channeled that unresolved passion into architecture. In 1924, he purchased land on the barrier island between St. Petersburg and Pass-a-Grille and announced he would build a pink castle on the sand. The result, which opened in January 1928, was The Don CeSar -- a flamboyant confection of Mediterranean arches, Moorish towers, and candy-pink stucco that became the Gulf Coast's most glamorous resort during the final roaring years of the Jazz Age. Named after the swashbuckling hero of the opera Maritana by William Vincent Wallace, the hotel was Rowe's monument to a love he could never have.

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Image: Opakapaka | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Don CeSar: A Castle Built on Heartbreak https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Elisa.rolle, CC BY-SA 4.0. Rowe hired architect Henry Dupont and contractor Carlton Beard, and together they studied the grand hotels of Palm Beach, Coral Gables, and Boca Raton before settling on a design that borrowed freely from all of them: arched openings, red clay tile roofs, ornamental balconies, an...

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Image: Elisa.rolle | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-a-castle-built-on-heartbreak.mp3 0:06 2 full The Don CeSar: Playground of the Pampered Rich https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Through the late 1920s and into the 1930s, The Don CeSar became the winter escape of choice for the wealthy and famous. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited, as did a parade of presidents that would eventually include every commander-in-chief from Gerald Ford onward, with the sole excep...

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-playground-of-the-pampered-rich.mp3 0:06 3 full The Don CeSar: From Ballroom to Hospital Ward https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. World War II gave the building a second life, though not the one Rowe had imagined. The U.S. Army purchased The Don CeSar in 1942 for $450,000 -- the same price Rowe had originally budgeted for the entire construction -- and converted it into a military hospital. Elegant guest ro...

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-from-ballroom-to-hospital-ward.mp3 0:06 4 full The Don CeSar: The Pink Palace Returns https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Averywlms, CC BY-SA 4.0. Abandoned for the second time, The Don CeSar faced demolition. But the building's sheer spectacle -- that unmistakable mass of pink standing against the blue Gulf -- had made it a part of the community's identity. Preservation efforts eventually succeeded, and the hotel was resto...

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Image: Averywlms | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-the-pink-palace-returns.mp3 0:06 5 full The Don CeSar: Ghosts and Legends https://qualla.com/the-don-cesar/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Staff and guests have long reported the ghost of Thomas Rowe wandering the hallways of the hotel he built for a woman he could never marry. The story fits the building's temperament -- theatrical, romantic, a little excessive. The Don CeSar has always been more than a place to sl...

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/v/j/the-don-cesar-wp/dhvj-the-don-cesar-ghosts-and-legends.mp3 0:06 6 full