The Hollander Hotel in downtown St. Petersburg is one of the top spots for a staycation, vacation, and pool party in the Sunshine City. The local venue hosts DJs on Sundays, sunrise yoga on Saturdays, and dining deals at its celebrated taproom during the week. In addition to being one of our favorite pet-friendly hotels, The Hollander itself is a bit of a hidden art gallery.

It’s cultural prowess suits its current location across the street from the massive Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement downtown.

Three sculptures by the brilliant Donald Jell-a-nell-a are now on view at our hotel. The artist is famous for creating larger than life sculptures across the country; The Dalí Museum even commissioned the artist to create Salvador Dali’s mustache in the form of a 17 foot long steel sculpture.

The three pieces are The Horse, The Hyena, and The Orb. Here’s some background on each piece currently residing at the downtown St. Pete hotel.

Hyena
Welded steel, found objects.
One of his favorite animals, the artist describes the creation of the Hyena as, “a labor of love.” It is made out of almost 200lbs. of repurposed steel, transmission parts and motorcycle sprockets.

Horse
Steel, auto body parts.
A free flowing gestural sculpture made primarily of fenders and crumpled auto body sheet metal. The artist describes it as a three dimensional sketch in steel.

Plenum Orb
Stainless steel objects.
The Plenum Orb is created from familiar stainless steel items re-assembled in a most unfamiliar way. In the reflective sphere you can see mixing bowls, pitchers, tea pots, hub caps, pots and pans, water bottles, dog bowls, coffee urns and vessels of every description welded together into one contiguous ball. It’s as if some cosmic magnet has pulled these familiar objects together to form a perfect sphere.

To create the Orb, the artist first had to build a symmetrical 4 foot diameter concave plaster mold. The individual stainless objects were then placed one-by-one into this upside down hemisphere and welded into position. 

Seen as a mass of shapes formed into a single sculptural entity, the orb acts as a time capsule that rekindles memories locked up in abandoned objects.

The Hollander Hotel is located at 421 4th Avenue North in St. Petersburg. You can learn about booking your stay, poolside cabana rentals, and their upcoming events on The Hollander website.

What to read next:

New izakaya concept opening this weekend in Pinellas Park 

Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement announces opening date

Nearly 2 miles of Central Avenue will be closed to traffic on Halloween for a special St. Pete event

Neapolitan Pizza concept opening in Midtown Tampa this October

Mood Bake Bar, a new concept from Ciccio Restaurant Group, opening in Tampa

Waterfront gem, Rusty Pelican, opens for brunch