Vinoy Park Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida

The Vinoy Park Hotel is a 1925 Mediterranean Revival resort on the St. Petersburg waterfront, now operated as The Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, Autograph Collection, at 501 5th Ave NE.

The operator gives that address and the phone number +1 727-894-1000 (The Vinoy, Getting Here; The Vinoy, History). The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency, describes the historic Vinoy Hotel as a pink Mediterranean revival-style building overlooking the waterfront on Tampa Bay (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation).

The records give two addresses for the same listed hotel. The 1978 nomination gives 501 Beach Drive and the city's local register 501 Beach Drive NE (NPS nomination, Vinoy Park Hotel; City of St. Petersburg, local register). An October 7, 2002 letter in the same NPS file shows Florida's State Historic Preservation Officer asking the National Park Service to change the address to 501 Fifth Avenue N.E. and to add Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club as another name, stating that the address in the National Register documentation belonged to another property (NPS nomination file). The NPS listing now shows 501 Fifth Ave. NE with that other name (National Park Service, National Register listings), and the city's own National Register list uses 501 5th Ave NE (City of St. Petersburg, National Register list).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by checking the Vinoy Park Hotel's 1978 nomination and NPS listing record, both city historic register lists, the ACHP profile, the city's 2025 financial report and the resort's history and directions pages.

The Vinoy Park Hotel was built in 1925 for Aymer Vinoy Laughner, to a design by a New York architect, during the Florida land boom.

The 1978 nomination names the architect as Henry L. Taylor of New York and the builder as George A. Miller (NPS nomination). It calls Laughner a Pennsylvania millionaire who moved to St. Petersburg in 1920 to carry out his land development plans, and describes the Vinoy Park as one of the earliest and largest of the city's resort hotels of the Florida boom (NPS nomination). It pairs the hotel with the Don CeSar on the west coast of St. Petersburg, both aimed at the wealthy tourist of the 1920s, and notes that Taylor designed several other prominent St. Petersburg buildings (NPS nomination).

A 1926 Vinoy Park promotional brochure, quoted in the nomination of the St. Petersburg hotel, counts three hundred and seventy-five guest rooms and boasts that every room was an outside room, with none facing a court (NPS nomination).

The ACHP places the hotel in the decade that brought Mediterranean Revival architecture to St. Petersburg, alongside the Jungle Country Club Hotel, the Princess Martha and the Snell Arcade, and notes that the Florida real estate boom collapsed in 1926 (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation).

The original Vinoy Park Hotel was a seven story central block with four angled wings, an observation tower, a Georgian ballroom and a 15 acre setting with its own golf course.

The Vinoy nomination describes five story guest wings on the northwest, southwest and northeast, a two story dining room wing on the southeast and a two story ballroom attached to the north side of the central block (NPS nomination). The main entrance ran through an arcade on the south facade, and an observation tower at the west end rose several stories above the roof (NPS nomination). The structure was a reinforced concrete frame with clay tile infill covered in stucco, under clay tile roofs, with baroque stucco detailing on the tower and main entrance and sgraffito murals around the top story windows (NPS nomination).

Inside the Vinoy, the lobby and mezzanine had decorative tile floors, vaulted ceilings, leather and wrought iron chandeliers and stencilled cypress beams, the dining room had Pompeiian-derived murals and a monumental leaded glass window, and the Georgian ballroom had a two story clearspan of 50 by 125 feet (NPS nomination). The grounds included a 9-hole golf course, a swimming pool and shuffleboard courts to the east and a three story employee dormitory north of 6th Avenue Northeast (NPS nomination).

The setting was part of the design. The nomination says the hotel kept its visual prominence because it sits within city-owned green space, with city parks stretching north and south along the waterfront (NPS nomination). The adjacent city park is covered in the Digital Towns St. Petersburg Vinoy Park guide.

The Vinoy Park Hotel served the military in World War II, closed in the mid 1970s and sat vacant until a restoration that the resort says began in May 1990.

Official and operator accounts differ on the details. The nomination says that during World War II the hotel was used by the U.S. Army Air Corps as barracks and by the Maritime Commission for offices, returned to hotel use after the war and closed in 1975 (NPS nomination). The resort's history page says the Vinoy ceased operating as a hotel on July 3, 1942, was leased to the U.S. Army Air Force and then the United States Maritime Service as a training center, and closed its doors in 1974 (The Vinoy, History). Neither account addresses the other's closing year.

When the state prepared the nomination, dated June 7, 1978, the Vinoy was vacant, ringed by a chain link fence with barbed wire and damaged by vandalism and water; the golf course and gardens were overgrown and the pool and shuffleboard courts damaged (NPS nomination). The form still judged that, apart from movable fixtures, the building had never been significantly altered, and said its long-term lessee planned to rehabilitate it (NPS nomination).

The resort's own account picks up from there: restoration and reconstruction began in May 1990, it reopened in 1992 as a Stouffer Hotel, and it became part of Autograph Collection by Marriott on April 5, 2023, after a renovation (The Vinoy, History). In 2016 the Vinoy Hotel was the eighth largest property taxpayer in St. Petersburg, with a taxable value of $45,919,500, according to the comparison column in the city's 2025 financial report; it is not among the 2025 top ten (City of St. Petersburg, 2025 ACFR).

The Vinoy Park Hotel is both on the National Register and a St. Petersburg local landmark, and the local designation is the one that brings city review of changes.

The National Register listing dates to September 11, 1978, under reference 78000955 (National Park Service), and the city designated the hotel as HPC #86-04 in May 1986, the first year on the city's list of local designations (City of St. Petersburg, local register). The city notes that a National Register listing places no restrictions on a private owner's alterations unless federal assistance is involved (City of St. Petersburg, Historic Preservation). Local landmark status gives a degree of protection from unnecessary demolition or unsympathetic alterations, and city preservation staff review proposed changes through Certificates of Appropriateness (City of St. Petersburg).

The Vinoy nomination itself was prepared by the Florida Division of Archives, History and Records Management in Tallahassee (NPS nomination). The nomination records the site as vacant since 1975, so the hotel was listed while it stood empty (NPS nomination).

The Vinoy is an operating resort, and the operator says guests may tour it with a docent and visit a history gallery on the Mezzanine.

The gallery shows artifacts from the hotel's early years, including original room keys, plate ware and handwritten postcards, according to the resort (The Vinoy, History). The resort's contact line is +1 727-894-1000 (The Vinoy).

The resort's directions page puts Tampa International Airport 19.5 miles away and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport 12 miles away, and says the hotel does not provide an airport shuttle; sedan service is available for an extra fee (The Vinoy, Getting Here). Drivers from I-275 take exit 23A to I-375, follow 4th Ave North to Beach Dr, turn left, and find the resort one block on the right (The Vinoy). The page lists two electric car charging stations and a parking line that reads Complimentary Valet parking, fee: 50 USD, without saying when each applies, so a call ahead settles the price (The Vinoy). Boaters can request overnight docking at the resort marina by emailing the dock master with dates and vessel size (The Vinoy).

The Digital Towns St. Petersburg landmarks hub lists the other downtown landmarks within walking distance, including the Snell Arcade and the St. Pete Pier.