Just last month the 1888 Hotel at 220 Fifth Avenue North opened its doors, with co-owner Frederick Dela Cruz welcoming guests to the chic hotel featuring 16 one and two bedroom suites. Just over 100 years ago, a man named M.B. Welch was constructing that very same hotel with hollow tile, hand-laid bricks, and horse-hair plaster. The two men crossed paths in a way last week, when M.B. Welch’s granddaughter Amy Welch Walker gifted to Dela Cruz a framed photo of the hotel under construction in 1923, much to the hotel owner’s delight.
“To have Amy reach out and offer this gift is something special” said Dela Cruz. “It’s thoughtful acts like this that make the City of St. Petersburg and its community so unique. The hard work her grandfather and so many others put in 100+ years ago continues to motivate our efforts in preserving and highlighting that legacy. I couldn’t dream of a better way to celebrate The 1888 Hotel’s new lease on life.”
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The property begins as the Hilcrest Hotel
The 1888 Hotel began life as the Hilcrest Hotel, and its story is really the history of St. Petersburg in microcosm. In 1923 the city was in the midst of a tremendous real estate and population boom. At the beginning of the decade St. Petersburg had 14,000 permanent residents; by decade’s end that number would reach 40,000, with double that number of residents in the winter season. Promotional gimmicks lured people from all over the country for a taste of the good life in St. Petersburg. There was just one problem…where were all of these people going to stay? 
At the beginning of the 1920s boom there were only about 500 hotel rooms available in St. Pete, not nearly enough to accommodate the crush of visitors clamoring to spend time in the Sunshine City. By the end of the 1920s there would be 3,000 hotel rooms available, following a flurry of construction activity. Any existing building might be turned into a place for guests (including a horse stable on 3rd Ave S. that became the Alida Hotel!) By March of 1926 the St. Petersburg Times ran an article listing 84 hotels in the city of St. Petersburg, up from 44 in 1918. Major hotels like the Soreno, the Vinoy Park, and the Princess Martha, opened in the mid 1920s, complimenting smaller, older venues like the Ponce de Leon, the Wigwam, the Floronton, and the Poinsettia.
By the 1960s most of these hotels were showing their age, as was the rest of downtown St. Pete. The city entered a major period of decline; tourists that used to stay downtown now chose beachfront accommodations, and St. Pete’s small and mid-sized hotels began converting into retirement homes, convalescent homes, and assisted living facilities, underscoring the city’s reputation as God’s Waiting Room.
A major transformation on 5th Avenue North
The Hilcrest Hotel followed a similar trajectory. Opened in 1923, and in full swing by the 1924 winter season, the hotel regularly ran springtime ads advising patrons to book their future stays now, to ensure they had a place for next winter. But as the city declined, so did the hotel, and by the 1980s it had become the Hilcrest Retirement Residence. More recently, its fate, like many historic buildings along busy Fifth Avenue North, looked bleak, and demolition seemed a distinct possibility.
Enter Frederick Dela Cruz and his partners. With a background in sustainable infrastructure, a passion for travel, and a keen eye for interior design, Frederick recognized the great bones of the hotel at 220 5th Avenue North. His instincts were confirmed when a structural engineer friend told him “this place is built like a castle.” Frederick and his partners set about renovating the building, keeping as many of the historic quirks as they could, like the bellman’s system in the lobby, the “doors to nowhere” in many of the rooms (which used to open to create an endless array of room configurations for travelers), and some of the antique piping used when the rooms were “steam heated.”
In addition to a new roof and extensive work on infrastructure like electrical and plumbing, they added modern touches like USB ports throughout the rooms, the best WIFI you could buy, and a water bottle filler in the lobby. The result is a bewitching combination of chic modern design and historic charm. Along with a new look, the hotel got a new name: The 1888, in tribute to the year that St. Petersburg was founded. 
One can assume that contractor M.B. Welch would be proud to know his handiwork is still appreciated and cared for. Dela Cruz says that the picture Welch snapped back in 1923 will soon hang front and center in the lobby of The 1888 Hotel. As he gazed upon the 100 year old photo he reflected on the hotel’s long history. “It’s stood the test of time. It really has.”
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