Historic Harder Hall Hotel!

Historic Harder Hall Hotel!

Historic Harder Hall Hotel!

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The Harder Hall Hotel is someone’s opportunity to bring back to life a beautiful and classic Old Florida hotel. Construction on the hotel began in 1925 during the Florida land boom on 14 acres at the edge of Little Lake Jackson in Sebring, Florida and completed in 1927. It was designed by the same architects, Schultze and Weaver, who did the famous Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida.

At one time, the hotel was world famous. Vincent Hall started the first golf school in the world there and went on to hold golf and tennis camps for many years that brought people from around the world. In 1954, golf course architect Dick Wilson was commissioned to redesign the course into a championship layout where many tournaments, including PGA Tour events, were held. The course is still in good condition and is open to the public on a fee for play basis. During its heyday, the hotel was host to many famous guests including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw and Mario Andretti. The hotel was rescued from demolition in 1990 when it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It has been approved for an historic properties tax credit.

The hotel has been vacant since 1982 when investors' plans to turn the hotel into timeshares didn't work out. Since then, it has passed from owner to owner and has had a number of failed renovation starts. The City of Sebring purchased it at auction in 2007 and is now offering it for sale to a developer that recognizes its historical past and wants to bring it back to its original grandeur. Sebring is about 90 minutes south of Orlando, home to the Sebring International Speedway, one of the oldest continuously operating race tracks in the United States.

Though still in need of work, the Spanish Colonial Revival hotel originally contained 134 rooms with 50,000 square feet of rooms and halls. There are an additional 35,000 square feet of public areas including the two-story mezzanine lobby with wrought iron railings around the mezzanine and up the grand staircase. The great room and banquet room have 22-foot ceilings with huge French doors overlooking the lake. The ballroom is the same with the original fireplace and a roughed-in bar. When complete, the elegance of Harder Hall can be comparable to the Don Cesar and Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg and the Breakers in Palm Beach. For more information.

Sebring's historic Grand Lady on Little Lake Jackson, priced at $4.5 million.

Source: 70.90.70.145