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Please take a moment to read the following article from the St. Pete Times and then post a comment in support of the Belleview Biltmore hotel. I know you're busy, but it only takes a minute to register with the newspaper and then post a comment. We really need everyone to speak up before the developers have their way and tear this beautiful and historic structure down. Thanks!
For some reason, the link to the newspaper article won't post properly today, so please highlight the link below and paste it into your browser.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/architect-believes-belleview-biltmore-can-be-saved/1199160
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SAVE THE BELLEVIEW BILTMORE – TOP 5 WAYS YOU CAN HELP
There are people out there who have the foresight to realize there is value in restoring the Belleview Biltmore Resort as a vital part of our American and local history. They understand that if we allow it to be destroyed, we will lose a part of ourselves that will be gone forever. If you are one of these people, please support our cause to save this grand hotel from demolition. Here are five ways you can help right now:
1) Forward this e-mail to as many people as you can, in the hope the information will reach interested investors. Print a few copies and hand them out to people who don’t use e-mail.
2) Post links to these sites on Facebook and Twitter, to help make sure the Belleview Biltmore isn’t forgotten just because it is temporarily closed: www.SpiritsOfBelleviewBiltmore.com and www.SaveTheBiltmore.com
3) Write letters/e-mails of support for the hotel to the Town of Belleair’s Commission and if you are a local resident, show up at Commission Meetings where decisions are made. For addresses and a meeting schedule, check out: http://www.townofbelleair.com/commission.html If you use snail mail, send letters to: Town Hall; Town of Belleair; 901 Ponce de Leon Blvd.; Belleair FL, 33756
4) Consider donating money/time/services to the not-for-profit Save the Biltmore organization at www.SaveTheBiltmore.com
5) Please Contact me and let me know if you have other promotional and/or investment ideas:
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If you are a person of means, interested in joining an investment group that is trying to purchase and restore the Belleview Biltmore, Contact Bob Lurie at
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or
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.
If you are interested in purchasing the Belleview Biltmore property outright, contact Bob Lurie or the spokesperson for KAWA Capital (the current owners), Matt Cummings, at:
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. The current owners want to demolish the hotel and replace it with town homes, but say they are still open to a direct purchase.
BELLEVIEW BILTMORE CURRENT STATUS = CRITICAL
The 1896 Belleview Biltmore is in perhaps more danger than ever before. She is currently owned by individuals who are motivated by profit and see more potential in tearing the hotel down than in restoring her. To mollify the protests of thousands of people who love the hotel and want to save it, they are trying to convince supporters and authorities that the only viable option is to save a portion of the original hotel as a museum and destroy the rest, to make ‘better’ use of the valuable property.
In these tough economic times, their viewpoint is tempting. After all, the Town of Belleair, like so many other towns across our nation, is suffering economically. The Town needs revenue, and currently, the Belleview Biltmore is not generating any. Additionally, the peaks and valleys real estate market is currently suffering one of its deepest valleys. Investors are hard to come by. As always, many people with money want to line their pockets with maximum returns on their investment, irrespective of other considerations.
Belleview Biltmore supporters have always been able to draw a line in the sand against short-sighted developers in order to save this precious piece of history. They understand that this is not just an old hotel that can be easily replaced. This hotel is the heart of the community. The Town of Belleair would simply not exist, had it not been for the visionary Henry Plant and his son, Morton, who built the rail road and this grand hotel - the largest occupied wooden structure in the world - on the highest coastal bluff in Florida. Almost certainly, downtown Clearwater would not occupy its current location. Belleair’s famous golf courses would not exist. The hotel has hosted generation after generation of famous people, from presidents and royalty, to mobsters, sports figures and movie stars.
Hopefully, supporters will once again rise to the challenge of protecting this irreplaceable 820,000 square foot structure, which was slated for a total renovation in 2009, but fell victim to the collapsed real estate economy, and now sits empty.
Current developer tactics include trying to convince everyone that the only valuable part of the hotel is the original structure that was built in 1896 and opened in 1897. They try to make it sound like everything else in the structure is more or less new and unimportant historically, but that is simply not true. The East Wing was added in 1919 and the South Wing in 1924. They, too, should be considered historic and protected. The Beach Cabana was built in 1947. Only the spa, which was added in 1985 and the new lobby, which was built in 1990, possess little historic value.
The current wave of developers say the hotel can’t survive because when the Powell family sold the Belleview Biltmore in 1990, they allowed the property to be subdivided. They claim that without clear views of the water from hotel rooms and ownership of the surrounding Belleair Country Club, the hotel can’t compete with the new and shiny beach properties. Is this true?
Restoration supporters say no. They argue the hotel retains egress to the water and could easily reestablish a ferry between the primary portion of the hotel and its beach property. Guests wishing to watch the sunset or spend time at the beach would enjoy a short boat ride or take a shuttle to the hotel’s private beach facilities. Also, the Belleair Country Club has stated it would be willing to allow hotel guests to use their private courses as long as a mutually beneficial arrangement can be worked out. So, if guests can view the beautiful Donald Ross courses from their hotel rooms and play golf there, what difference does it make that the two properties are not owned by the same entities?
Developers also claim an old hotel can’t compete with the newer beach hotel venues. Those who support hotel restoration also refute this claim, citing that many travelers prefer a historic, peaceful setting- surrounded by golf courses and giant old oak trees - to the monstrous glass and steel beach hotels. After guests enjoy a few hours on the hotel’s beach property, they can easily escape the beach noise and traffic. Convention planners want to provide conference and event attendees with privacy and the Belleview Biltmore can provide that better than any other property in the area. Yet it is located minutes from downtown Clearwater and a half an hour from two major airports. And in addition to being able to transport its visitors back in time, to walk in the footsteps of countless famous guests of the past, the Belleview Biltmore hotel can offer something none of the new hotels can. Ghosts. Several paranormal researchers have concluded the Belleview Biltmore is haunted, and this alone will attract numerous tourists to choose this property over its modern competitors.
Historic hotel sites are ‘graded’ according to their ability to provide guests with certain criteria. If a historic property is to succeed, it needs to meet at least one of these criteria. The more criteria a historic hotel can provide, the better its chance of remaining successful. The Belleview Biltmore offers the entire list of criteria used by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, including: √Is listed on Historic Registry √ Presidential Visits √ Possesses Historic Art or , Photograph Collection √Offers Historic Tours √Used as setting for Movie or TV √Ghost Sightings √Contains Historic Memorabilia √Offers Gardens and Nature Walks.
The current developers also state that the hotel is beyond repair. This claim is also challenged by those in favor of restoration. This hotel was constructed of heart of pine – a wood that is quite dense with sap and petrifies over time. That means the primary ‘bones’ of the Belleview Biltmore are solid – as if built of stone, not wood. Almost every location where walls have been opened, reveal that a solid structure lies beneath. In fact, most of the wood beams look quite new, despite being a hundred years old.
The current owners have also inflated the estimated cost of restoring the hotel as a means of discouraging individuals or groups from continuing to support the renovation of the property. Armed with no actual facts, they toss around renovation cost estimates as if they were the government buying $500 hammers. And, as those who support restoration have long suspected, a recent feasibility study determined the cost of renovation is a fraction of the costs they have been touting.
WE NEED TO FIND INVESTORS. As mentioned earlier in this newsletter, there are people out there who have the foresight to realize the value of maintaining historic buildings and understand that once something is gone, it is gone forever. There are innovative people who can profit from this property without destroying the hotel. You might know this person or group of people… or someone on your e-mail list might. The ‘right’ person for this project might use Facebook or Twitter… or have staff or relatives that do.
I am convinced that if this information falls on the right ears, the hotel will be saved, but I cannot overstate the urgency of our timeline. Therefore, I’m pleading with all those who care about the Belleview Biltmore to forward this newsletter to everyone on their e-mail lists, and ask that their friends do the same thing, so that it will be forwarded to the largest population possible.
Please post these links on your Facebook page: www.SpiritsOfBelleviewBiltmore.com and www.SaveTheBiltmore.com. If you have the ability, please post about our mission on You Tube and other media sites as well.
If investors are not found soon, it will be too late. The Town of Belleair is under too much pressure from developers with clout to hold out much longer. If our battle is eventually lost, I for one want to know I did everything I could to stop our treasure from being torn asunder. Don’t you want to be able to say the same thing? If so, please act today.
BELLEVIEW BILTMORE GHOST HUNTS
My amazing husband, John, and I are in the midst of exploring the possibility of conducting ghost hunts and ghost tours at the Belleview Biltmore, as a means of raising funds for its preservation. We are in the process of pulling together a business plan and if we can work things out with the current owners and the fire marshal, we hope to start conducting tours in January of 2012. This business would operate as a not-for-profit, which would allow all net revenue from the hunts/tours to be directed back to benefit the Belleview Biltmore, to be used for roof and other emergency repairs, and to help pay off the fines owed to the Town.
If the ghost hunts/tours are successful, they would also serve to demonstrate an additional revenue stream for the property and perhaps attract investors who are interested in historic properties that have had multiple reports of paranormal activity. If we are able to get the project green-lighted, we will post specific hunt/tour information on my website, and on the website of the Belleview Biltmore preservationists: www.SpiritsOfBelleviewBiltmore.com and www.SaveTheBiltmore.com, respectively.
MY NOVEL, PEARLS AND THE SPIRITS OF BELLEVIEW
Finally! I expect to finish the rewrite of Pearls and the Spirits of Belleview within the week. That means I will be sending it back to the literary agents who had expressed interest in representing me, provided I completed said rewrite. Depending on whether or not they can ‘fast track’ my novel, I may change course and pursue the route of self-publication. In any case, Pearls and the Spirits of Belleview should be available for purchase in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.
For those of you who may be new to my website, Pearls is the first novel in my Spirits of Belleview series. The concept of the series is similar to that of the novel/movie ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’, only with a paranormal twist. Each novel in the series tells the story of two women who are both staying at the Belleview Hotel, but decades apart in time. I weave historic facts throughout each story to create fascinating characters and exciting, sexy plots.
In the first novel, Pearls, software developer Honor Macklin believes she’s equal partners with her philandering ex-husband in their Chicago-based business. But while in Florida to handle her mother’s estate, she discovers her ex may have cheated her in more ways than one. Meanwhile, spirits at the Belleview Biltmore Resort invade her dreams with memories of a Victorian woman with big problems of her own. When the two times collide, Honor and her new lover, Josh, along with his clairvoyant 4-yr-old son, must figure out what the two worlds have in common and how Honor can use the similarities to alter her destiny.
Additional novels planned for this series include stories set in the Prohibition Era, World War II, and early Florida Pioneer Days.
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Belleview Biltmore - Preventing Water Damage |
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THE BELLEVIEW BILTMORE CREW - PREVENTING WATER DAMAGE
 What would you do if the grand hotel where you had been employed for 20+ years as chief carpenter was closed, and the new owners wouldn’t pay to fix the severely damaged roof? Well, if you were as committed as Ron Schultz, you would get creative and build troughs to re-route the rainwater back outside… and you would get used to emptying a lot of buckets.
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Read more... [Belleview Biltmore - Preventing Water Damage]
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4-5-11 Town Commission Mtg. |
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IMPORTANT TOWN OF BELLEAIR COMMISSION MEETING
APRIL 5, 2011, STARTING AT 5:00 P.M., Town Hall, Belleair, FL
Topics on the Agenda include a proposal to widen Belleview Boulevard at the Ft. Harrison intersection that will add an additional traffic lane, which could impact our Town's character and charm and increase traffic through our Town.
Also on the Agenda is a presentation regarding the Belleview Biltmore Hotel by Senior Care Group President, Kevin McGuinness. I urge you to attend to discover how this drastic change would irreversibly change the Belleview Biltmore Resort and the Town of Belleair forever.
You will have an opportunity to make comments at the meeting. If you are unable to attend, please consider voicing your opinion in an e-mail to the Town of Belleair Commissioners at:
* Gary H. Katica, Mayor * Stephen R. Fowler, Deputy Mayor * Tom Shelly, Commissioner * Michael Wilkinson, Commissioner
* Kevin Piccarreto, Commissioner
Contact Information:
Town of Belleair Commission; 901 Ponce de Leon Blvd; Belleair, FL 33756
Phone: (727) 588-3769 ext. 214 or ext. 216 Fax: (727) 588-3778
Email:
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For more information, check out a related article in the Belleair Bee newspaper:
http://www.TBNWeekly.com/Pubs/Belleair_Bee/Content_Articles/033011_bee-01.txt
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