Boca Grande Hotel

The Boca Grande Hotel was built in 1929 just south of downtown Boca Grande by Joseph Spadero, a water and sewer contractor from New York City. It was rumored his reason for building it was because he and his wife were turned away at the Gasparilla Inn. The hotel was a three-story, two-hundred room brick colossus, which was the largest building ever built on the is- land, even to this day. It operated seasonally until 1961 when it was bought by Bayard Sharp, owner of the Gasparilla Inn. In 1975, Mr. Sharp decided not to renovate the decrepit structure, and demolition was planned. It was so well built that it took six months to bring down the building by means of fire and the wrecking ball (as it had been built — ironically — to withstand fire and hurricanes).