Palmerin, an Italian name originating in medieval times, was the moniker for the $250,000 Mediterranean Revival style apartment-hotel built by D.P. Davis in 1925 and opened in 1926. It was one of nine hotels and apartment buildings constructed on the newly dredged, 834-acre property as part of the mid-1920s land boom. Summer room rates were $4 - $5 per day for a single room. As the Florida land bust began to take shape in 1926, Davis mysteriously died on a cruise to Europe. Some say he faked his death to collect on a recently purchased life insurance policy.

By January 1928, the building joined a list of most of the other original properties that went up for public auction on February 1 of that year. It sold for $125,000 to an investor from Pennsylvania who kept it open. It changed hands many times in the following decades, and sometime mid-century, it was known as the Hudson Manor Hotel. In 1964, it was renamed the Davis Island Motor Hotel after Tampa businessman and Miss Budweiser hydroplane owner Bernie Little bought it. He owned the original Davis Island Hotel on Biscayne Ave. but sold it to Berkeley Preparatory School, where they built their new campus.  Along with the hotel, he purchased the Rose Room cocktail lounge and package store, which would become the new Islands Club. The Casablanca Restaurant eventually became part of the complex. Little also owned the Davis Islands Hardware Store at the time. The club was a big hit, and the place to be for many partying residents in the 1970s and 1980s. It lasted until 1989, when owner Guido Caggiano sold it and transferred the liquor license to the Tapper Pub in Britton Plaza.

In 1990, building modifications began to transform the former hotel into the Hudson Manor assisted living facility. It went through another $3-million renovation in 2004. It has been added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

© 2024. Chip Weiner. Old Tampa Photos