Retro Rebirth

Its rooms have hosted presidents and prime ministers, and stars of sport and music ranging from Babe Ruth to Bob Dylan. Vanderbilt, Ford, Edison and Edsel? All stayed there.

The Belleview Biltmore Hotel dates back to 1896, when railroad tycoon Henry Plant began its construction on the coastal bluffs towering over Clearwater, in what today is the Town of Belleair. The 400,000-square-foot resort, built from heart pine and dubbed the White Queen of the Gulf, would enjoy a century of notoriety as one of the largest wood-frame buildings in the world before it was shuttered in 2009 due to lack of maintenance and modern upgrades.

St. Petersburg-based JMC Communities, however, is giving the hotel a new life as the communal centerpiece of its ambitious, $130 million Belleview Place development. For years, Belleair's historic preservation board had opposed developers' ideas for the property — insisting on a full restoration. But JMC CEO Mike Cheezem won over the group with a plan to preserve a portion of the hotel as a boutique inn and events space, surrounded by a new community of condos and townhomes called Belleview Place.