After constructing his Pink Palace on St. Pete Seaside in Florida, Thomas Rowe nonetheless couldn’t recover from his real love, the opera singer he met as a scholar. Employees on the Don CeSar Resort declare that the 2 lovers have been reunited within the afterlife and are nonetheless lingering on the resort.
Florida’s Gulf Coast isn’t all sugar-white seashores and turquoise tides. Beneath the sunshine and salt air, its shores cradle legends older than their glitzy resorts and postcard-perfect sunsets. And if there’s one place in St. Pete Seaside the place the previous refuses to remain buried, it’s on the Don CeSar Resort — higher identified to locals as The Pink Palace.
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This towering, rosy-hued monument to Nineteen Twenties decadence holds greater than historical past inside its partitions. It holds a love story minimize quick, a founder misplaced too quickly, and the lingering spirits of those that by no means actually checked out.
A Glamorous Starting Shrouded in Heartbreak
When property mogul, Thomas Rowe opened the Don CeSar in 1928 on the seashore near St. Petersburg close to Tampa, Florida, it was the epitome of Jazz Age luxurious. Nicknamed The Pink Woman due to the colour, it shortly turned a playground for the wealthy and well-known — from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Al Capone.
However behind the glittering events and ocean views lurked a tragic love story that might endlessly hang-out the halls of this seaside palace.
Because the legend goes, Rowe fell deeply in love with Lucinda de Guzman, a Spanish opera singer he met whereas learning structure in London within the Eighteen Nineties. She starred in Maritana, an opera the place the hero was named Don César de Bazan — a reputation Rowe would later bestow upon his dream resort.
In different variations they met on the opera, or Rowe took her to see it on their first date, it varies. They’d meet outdoors the opera by a fountain, planning their life collectively.
However destiny was unkind. Lucinda’s household, who was of Spanish the Aristocracy, forbade the match, and the lovers have been cruelly separated and their plans to marry fell aside. Rowe moved again to the U.S and married another person, however continued to ship her letters, however just one ever returned: a newspaper clipping saying Lucinda’s demise, with a easy, heart-wrenching word hooked up: “My beloved Don Cesar.”
Loss of life within the Pink Palace
In 1940, simply over a decade after realizing his dream, Thomas Rowe suffered a sudden, deadly coronary heart assault in his foyer. He by no means left a will and the resort was left in disrepair by his spouse till the military purchased it to show it right into a hospital in the course of the struggle.
Some say it was heartbreak that lastly claimed him. The Don CeSar handed from his arms — however Rowe, it appears, by no means actually left.
By 1969, the resort was utterly deserted and the pink paint coated with graffiti and the one visitors staying have been ghosts. At first they needed to tear down the entire constructing, however destiny would have it in any other case. In 1973 it opened up once more as a resort after the franchise proprietor of Vacation Inn purchased it.
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At present, workers and visitors alike whisper of ghostly figures seen wandering the resort’s sun-soaked corridors. A person in an old school linen swimsuit and a Panama hat is commonly noticed strolling by way of the courtyard or pausing on the grand staircase or by the fountain that he constructed as shut he may to their fountain outdoors the opera home. Some declare he’s seen standing beside a good looking girl wearing a flowing, conventional Spanish robe, her hair darkish and eyes eternally looking out.
Eerie Encounters within the Halls
Along with Thomas Rowe lingering within the resort he constructed, it is usually believed that a number of the haunting comes from the previous sufferers as its time as a struggle hospital and convalescent heart.
Numerous tales have emerged through the years from visitors and workers who’ve had unexplained encounters on the Don CeSar. Lights flicker with out purpose. Footsteps echo in empty hallways. Doorways open and shut of their very own accord.
Multiple housekeeper has reported seeing the dapper man within the hat, solely to look at him disappear round a nook. Others say the ghostly couple seems within the backyard courtyard below the moonlight, standing hand in hand earlier than dissolving into mist.
The Don’s Everlasting Vigil
Whereas some spirits cling to anger or unfinished enterprise, Thomas Rowe’s ghost appears sure by love. It’s stated he roams the Pink Palace not in torment, however in everlasting search of the girl he misplaced.
How true was the love story within the afterlife although? No playbill with Maritana mentions a girl named Lucinda. Did it even play in London within the Eighteen Nineties? Because it was a British opera, it does make sense he did see it when he was a scholar in England although.
Though Lucinda was not on the playbill as an opera singer, the Home of Guzmán is an actual Castilian royal household.
Based on some articles, the story wasn’t even informed till its reopening and the tragic love story was a advertising technique as an alternative of one thing true. The story was apparently informed in “Ghostly Encounters: True Tales of America’s Inns and Resorts,” by Frances Kermeen, and when requested the place she had gotten the story from, she answered from her PR contact of the resort.
At present, St. Pete Seaside thrives as a laid-back, sun-drenched getaway. However as nightfall falls and the Gulf solar sinks beneath the horizon, the Pink Palace casts lengthy shadows throughout the sand. It’s in these moments that visitors swear the previous comes alive — a timeless echo of affection, loss, and endless devotion.
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References:
Florida’s Fairy-Story “Pink Palace” Hides A Chilling Secret
Seeks Ghosts: Haunted Don CeSar Resort
The Misplaced Love of Thomas Rowe – The Gabber Newspaper
In The Information | Historic Resorts of America
