Guest Writer - The Timeshare Beat
December 7, 1999
The 111-year-old Casa Monica Hotel is set to reopen this week in St. Augustine. Once known as The Hotel Cordova,
Orlando hotelier Richard Kessler has had the137-room property closed for two years while it underwent a $17 million
restoration.
In addition to the renovated rooms, the hotel offers a 164-seat restaurant and 5,000-square-feet of meeting space.
Prior to Kessler's purchase of the property in 1997, the building housed the St. Johns County Courthouse and other
county offices.
Kessler also recently opened the 115-room Celebration Hotel at Walt Disney Co.'s Celebration, which is designed
to resemble Celebration's pre-1940s, small-town design.
In addition, he is building The Grand Bohemian, a 250-room, 14-story hotel which will be built on the northeast
corner of South Street and Orange Avenue.