Lodging
Besides a suitable ball field, St. Petersburg lacked one other item for hosting a major league team for spring training: lodging. St. Pete’s winter tourism already taxed the existing lodging options, and none would provide a reduced rate to house a full team and give up full price bookings. Real estate was very reasonable and many of the wealthy bought second homes here, but winter lodging was still at a premium. In fact, by the late 1910s, St. Pete would designate “tent cities” for tourists!
The solution? Build another hotel. A hotel was built on 5th Ave. N. to exclusively lodge the team during spring training. Branch Rickey claimed at the time that it was ¾ of a mile from the park. He would have his players walk there in the morning, then employ the streetcar line to shuttle them back to the hotel for lunch, back to the park after and return to the hotel at 5:00 pm. Reports from 1915 when the Phillies arrived for spring indicates the park was now two miles from the field. Manager Pat Moran would have them walk to the field, have lunch delivered to the park and then walk back at the end of the day. The truth almost certainly lies between those two numbers.
The hotel was constructed on what is the north side of the 700 block of 5th Ave. N. It was originally referred to as the Hedges Hotel after the Browns owner. That name didn’t take hold, just as Sunshine Park did not take hold at Coffee Pot. 5th Ave. Hotel is the usual reference to this new lodging. Hedges explained that although the hotel would be team-only during the spring, the hotel, unlike many in town, would stay open year ‘round to prevent bat infestation. That turned out perhaps to not be the major issue.
The building was designed with three floors plus a basement. All three floors had a porch wrapped around on three sides. While one description said 50 rooms, another said three on the first floor and 13 on each the 2nd and 3rd floors. The basement had rooms for the colored servants. It was said to be staffed with “select” cooks and no-tip waiters.
The first floor, in addition to the desk, lobby and bedrooms, contained the dining room. The 3rd floor was equipped with a chalkboard in a lecture room where “Professor “Rickey could teach. There was no bar in the hotel. If you wanted to take a bath or a shower, you need either to jump into the bay or shower at the ballpark.
The Browns organization expressed dissatisfaction with the property although not the food. The Phillies players, even in 1915, were dissatisfied with just about everything to do with the hotel and food and moved over to the Edgewater Inn mid-Spring 1916. The food tended to be awful. Roasts were listed by Hedges as being the primary selection, hot, medium and cold. Of course, a staple item for the bay area were things that came out of the Bay or the Gulf. The Phillies who had lunch delivered to Coffee Pot always had food that was cold by the time it got there. It usually consisted of a fried piece of fish with the head still on between two slices of bread. Players relied on the nearby orange grove to supplement their food intake.
Hedges declared that he intended to have the Browns return in 1915. Highly satisfied with the ballpark, he indicated that the Browns would provide their own accommodation for future Springs. While the Browns ended up not returning, perhaps the Phillies missed hearing about it.
Even as early as 1915, the Philly papers described the hotel as dilapidated. A big reason likely had to do with the smell. An early ball field was located close by on the Northeast side of what today was known as Mirror Lake. At the time it was known as Reservoir Lake. An underground spring feeds fresh water into the lake and at that time it constituted the town’s drinking supply. It needed to be enlarged to supply the growing town, so part of the ballpark was incorporated into the lake. By 1912, the capacity of the lake was again insufficient. A dredging project was developed to deepen the lake.
Nearby, was another small lake, not sure the official name, but letters-to-the-editor generally referred to it as a muck lake. It was described as smelling very bad. The dredge apparently filled in the muck lake and the exterior of the 5th Ave. Hotel was described as acres of pure white sand. Versus doing anything to clean the lake up, the town leaders had it covered with sand. Apparently, some of the muck that smelled so bad creeped under the foundation of the hotel.
The Hotel continued to operate for many years. A want ad hiring hotel help can be found as late as 1948. There is little other information on what became of that hotel. The Edgewater Inn, as the name implies, was on the edge of the water prior to dredge and fill operations. In addition to the Phillies, it served as home base to the Indianapolis Indians in 1920 and was the first lodging the Boston Braves stayed in when they came to town in 1922. It was just north of today’s Vinoy Hotel.
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