St. Augustine · Old City
Casa Monica Resort & Spa
Franklin W. Smith's 1888 Moorish Revival castle of poured concrete, a Flagler hotel and later the county courthouse, restored as the city's grand hotel.
- Built
- 1888Built 1887–88 by Franklin W. Smith of poured concrete; opened as a hotel on New Year's Day 1888. The 1985/86 Town Plan inventory dates the building 1886–1896.
- Style
- Moorish Revival / Spanish Baroque Revival
- Type
- Grand hotel
- Rooms
- 137
- Area
- Old City
- Credentials
- Historic Hotels of America member; Inside a National Register historic district
The story
Franklin W. Smith, a Boston reformer and concrete-construction experimenter, opened the hotel as the Casa Monica in 1888. Within months he sold it to Henry Flagler, who renamed it the Cordova Hotel; a 1902 bridge to the Hotel Alcazar made it the Alcazar Annex. The hotel closed in 1932, and St. Johns County bought it in 1962 and reopened it as the county courthouse in 1968. Richard Kessler bought the building from the county in 1997 and reopened it as the Casa Monica Hotel in December 1999.
The ghost story
Guests and staff report glowing lights on the third floor and pillows disturbed in rooms staged for photography; a medium on a tour reported seeing a man matching founder Franklin W. Smith's description in the Kessler Suite. Historic Hotels of America put it on its 2025 Top 25 Most Haunted list.
Source: www.historichotels.org
Good to know
- Breakfast: available
- Pets welcome
- Address: 95 Cordova Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Things to do
Tours in St. Augustine
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Sources (2)
Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.