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For Her, The Floridan Never Closed

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By DANIEL RUTH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 24, 2008

It didn't take much of an imagination as Lisa Shasteen walked through the dust, hanging wires and paint cans in the old Floridan Hotel to sense the strains of a Tommy Dorsey tune, the clinking of cocktail glasses, the alluring aroma of cigarette smoke wafting across the air.

It is February 1945. And right over there in the cool of a Tampa evening sitting at a table in the Sapphire Room, also known as the Surefire Room, are a young newlywed couple on their honeymoon.

He is a 21-year-old first lieutenant in the Army Air Corps who returned home from World War II after 50 missions. She is a 22-year-old from Akron, Ohio, who sold cosmetics at Burdines in Palm Beach. He lied about his age, telling her he was much older. She forgave him. She was in love.

During a tour a few days ago, Shasteen talked about the Floridan's new owner, real estate magnate Antonios Markopoulos, who bought the aging hotel for $6 million. She won't confirm that the renovation costs could reach $18 million to return the once venerable queen to its former glory. She won't deny it, either.

Funny, Very Funny

A crew member of his B-24 ran into Ruth Motz at a bar in Palm Beach. Wouldn't it be funny if she met Lt. John Ruth? Why, if they got married, she'd become Ruth Ruth. Wouldn't that be - funny?

When it opened in 1926, the Floridan Hotel was a crown jewel of Tampa commerce and civic life. By the time it closed in 1987, a victim of a fire, the old lady had become a rat-infested flophouse, It sat in disrepair at the corner of Cass Street and Florida Avenue after that, until Markopolous came along.

She would joke that she said "I do" and started throwing up. Almost nine months to the day after their stay at the Floridan, a son, David, arrived.

Returning to Palm Beach, she had confided to her Aunt Mimi that she didn't feel well and was barfing on a regular basis. "Do you think I'm pregnant?" she asked her aunt, a nurse.

"John wouldn't do that to you," Mimi huffed. But he had. Well, it was called the Surefire Room.

Prunes And Cottage Cheese

The new Floridan will have 195 rooms, 15 suites and three penthouses. After all these years, she doesn't remember the love nest room number.

Aside from the obvious, how else did the couple spend their time at the Floridan?

If it was possible to sense a blush over the phone, this was the moment. "We weren't that way," she said.

"We weren't sex-crazed," she added, noting they actually spent most of their time in Tampa simply trying to get to know each other, which apparently worked out famously. "At the time we got married we had known each other for less then three months."

They loved the food at the Floridan's Cystal Dining Room. He thought it was hysterical the menu included - prunes and cottage cheese. "He always called me his little prunes and cottage cheese." Such a romantic scamp.

Markopolous hopes to reopen the Floridan in time for the Super Bowl in January.

But for my mother, who now has been widowed at long as she was married, the Floridan Hotel has never closed. For her, it will always be February 1945 with the man she has loved for 63 years.

"Your past is never too far away," Ruth Ruth mused.

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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