Sunday Favorites: Eerie Tales of Florida's Gulf Coast

This week, we'll look at the history and hauntings of the San Marco Hotel in Venice, Fla. 

The hotel, completed in 1927, later became the Park View Hotel, followed by the winter quarters of Kentucky Military Institute. It then became the …

The building now known as the Venice Centre Mall on Tampa Avenue was once called the San Marco Hotel. The three-story, mixed-use structure with storefronts at the bottom and housing on top was first commissioned by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers at the height of the Florida land boom, according to the city’s website.

Designed in the Mediterranean revival style that was popular at the time, the construction wrapped up during the autumn of 1926, with a remarkably swift 90-day timeline, and it came in at an approximate cost of $300,000. The concrete blocks and the initial red roofing tiles were sourced from the nearby Venice Tile Company, situated in the city's industrial district east of the railroad tracks.

The San Marco Hotel was one of the first buildings to be erected when the City of Venice was first being developed. Although the hotel had been originally designed to accommodate the financial elites who visited the region intending to purchase land, it closed its doors a mere three years after its initial opening due to the Great Depression.

Overnight, the up-and-coming city became a ghost town. Many residents believe the ghosts are still around.

The building was vacant for two years until the Kentucky Military Institute, once the oldest military school in the U.S., established a presence in the area in 1932. Suddenly the once ornate hotel rooms became basic officers’ quarters and classrooms, according to Kim Cool in her book “Ghost Stories of Venice, Old and New.”

The new winter headquarters for KMI had a tragic beginning. A campus situated on Florida's East Coast was engulfed in flames, prompting a Venice City Councilman to reach out to the school, suggesting Venice as a suitable alternative, Cool said.  

When KMI first opened its doors, it introduced 150 new residents to a town of 400. The students and faculty quickly were embraced as part of the community. This connection endured for over four decades. However, in 1970, the school made the difficult decision to close its doors.

The hotel has served many different purposes since, a senior living residence, an assisted living facility, and finally condos. When the building was converted to the latter it was in bad shape. Abandoned, it served as a home for those without shelter for over two years. Undertaker David Farley and three associates purchased the property with plans to restore it to its former glory. They anticipated the usual unwanted guests, mice, spiders, and other creepy crawlers. What they didn’t count on was dealing with spirits, Cool wrote.

At first, David hired a security company to guard the premises at night. A large guard dog was enough to deter the most brazen of trespassers. But when that got too expensive, David took the night shift himself. That’s when things began to get strange. Every night, David would hear voices and strange sounds, so creepy, he’d often threaten to release his bloodhound. (A total bluff, as the guard dog was an employee of the security company he could no longer pay for.) Despite his threats, the sounds continued to haunt David every night, scraping and screaming away at his sanity.

Then there was the ghost sighting by a massage therapist who owned a shop on the ground floor. Normalinda Hayes was doing laundry on the third floor one night when a man in uniform jumped out at her from a dark corner. When she told others about her experience, they were familiar. The prankster ghost, a former cadet at KMI, had a habit of jumping from dark places and scaring residents, according to Cool’s book.  

A cook at the assisted living facility saw the ghost of another cadet in the pantry one evening. She was fetching ingredients for dinner when she saw a young man in a military uniform crouched in the corner. He appeared to be crying. When she asked what was wrong, he looked right at her but said nothing. She went to get help but when she returned, he’d vanished, Cool wrote. 

These spirits all appear to be benign, serving as an eerie reminder of the storied history of the century-old building. Join us next week as we delve into more local hauntings. Until we meet again in the realm of the supernatural, have a ghoulishly good week!