"Recent History"... (1992-2001)

   Tom Sanders and his English wife, Allison, bought the hotel from Rogers in January, 1992. Sanders had first visited the Island Hotel in 1971 when Bessie Gibbs owned it. He had returned many times over the years and it was on a chance visit in 1991 to show the hotel and Cedar Key to Allison that they learned Marcia had put the building up for sale.
   The couple lived in Tokyo at the time. Tom was a journalist with a television news agency, and Allison worked for a marketing research firm. They were motivated by a mutual dislike of winters in the United Kingdom--Sanders was due for reassignment to the London office--a desire to own their own business and a love and respect for the venerable Island Hotel.
   As Bessie and Gibby Gibbs had done 45 years earlier, Tom and Allison first set about giving the hotel a thorough cleaning. Next order of priority was the reopening of the Neptune Bar. First, the bar itself had to be rebuilt. A long-time patron volunteered his carpentry skills. He said he loved the bar because the 'first naked woman he had ever seen was when he peeked around the bar door as a child and saw the painting of the bare breasted mermaid on Neptune's lap'. The new bar, complete with a Cedar Key cedar top, was formally opened on Valentine's Day 1992.
   Old Timers like to tell tales about the days when the Neptune Bar was the scene of confrontations that sometimes turned violent.  And there were stories that a patron had once fired a pistol at the King Neptune painting. The painting was removed from behind the bar in February 1993, to enable restoration expert Katrina Blumenstein to begin badly needed restoration and preservation at her Inverness studio. When the painting was taken down several bullet slugs were found embedded in the wall.
   Under Tom and Allison's ownership, the Island Hotel again became a center for social and cultural life in the community. Most evenings an eclectic mix of 'regulars' and tourists could be found in the Neptune Bar, swapping stories and occasionally telling tall tales. In the spring and fall, the courtyard was turned into a beer garden with live entertainment, usually Florida folk music. The courtyard was the year-round home for Bernard Basset, the official hotel dog who was also Manager of Guest Relations.
   The hotel restaurant regained its reputation for excellence. Chef Jahn McCumbers, who served in the hotel kitchen for 14 years, helped to broaden the menu to include steak, chicken and pork tenderloin. The excellent vegetarian and seafood entrees remained, with locally caught seafood such as stone crab claws and soft shell crabs a specialty.
   Another tradition that remains is the romance of the Island Hotel. Many couples return to the Hotel year after year to celebrate their anniversaries with dinner and champagne in the candle lit restaurant. Numerous couples chose the Hotel as the place to exchange vows in1992. In October of that year, Tom and Allison were married at sea aboard the fishing and charter boat Gondola and returned to the Hotel for an evening reception attended by some 200 friends.
   While the hotel remained clean and comfortable, it did not offer some of the amenities to be found in modern hotels and motels. It is intentional that the rooms do not contain such distractions as televisions or telephones.
   The objective of the owners was to provide a place for guests to get away from the strains and stress of contemporary life and to renew the art of conversation, perhaps to read a good book or play a game of chess or checkers, to drink a Margarita on the hotel balcony while watching the sunset, or have a romantic candle lit dinner in the restaurant.

NOTE: The original author of the above part of this history is Tom Sanders. We wish to thank the Cedar Key Historical Society for assistance and for access to numerous files, news clippings and records. Appreciation was also expressed to numerous Cedar Key old-timers who offered insight and constructive criticism when the author was going astray.
   Other contributors to the above, who have added fact instead of speculation, were Mrs. Virginia Tooke Pugh (90), Mrs. Naomi Tooke Dorsett (87), Quitman Hodges (82), Helen Johanneseen (??) and Ernest Parham (93). To each of them we express our gratitude.
   Other valuable sources included Jesse Walter and Vivian Dees' fascinating history of Cedar Key. "Off the Beaten Path"; naturalist John Muir's "A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf ", and Historical Consultant David Nolan's nomination proposal to place the Island Hotel on the National Register of Historic Places.

   Dawn Fisher and Tony Cousins came to Florida from England to investigate the possibility of purchasing a hotel/motel in the St. Petersburg area at the end of January, 1996.  It did not take long to realize that the reality did not live up to the dreams that they had in the middle of a cold English winter and so they admitted their mistake to their real-estate broker.  The only other business that he had on his books was 'an old hotel up north'.  With nothing else to do with the remainder of their time in Florida, they decided to look.

  On 31st January we left a warm sunny day in St. Petersberg wearing shorts and tee shirts.  We arrived in Cedar Key to thick fog and a very cold day.  Despite the weather we immediately felt at home on the island.   Everyone we met was incredibly friendly and made us feel welcome.

  Finally we made ourselves known to Allison. Tom was away on one of his jaunts to New York.  Our immediate impression was one of reservation.  The building so obviously needed major structural work and seemed somewhat depressed.  However, as we were taken around the building we fell instantly in love with the charm and feeling of warmth that it has.  Cedar Key and the Island Hotel had worked its charm once again - we fell in love with both.

   After overnighting at the hotel, Room 23, we returned to St Pete's to begin the long road to eventual ownership.  The road was long and difficult and many times it seemed that the hurdles being put in front of us would never be surmounted.  However, on October21st 1996, we finally completed and the deed was done.  Tom and Allison?  After a short time in New York they went to Germany with Allison's new job.  Later we found out that Tom has Parkinson's disease.   Bernard went with them and died later of cancer.

  Another chapter in the life of this incredible building had come to a close and another had begun.  As one member of the staff said to us when we were introduced - Owners come and go but the hotel goes on - we are but caretaker who have custody for a short time.

Bessie and "Shorty' Hodges

   Our immediate ambition?  All we wish is that people  remember our tenure as fondly as that of Bessie and Gibby and that we avoid the errors of some of our other predecessors. We set out to begin a careful restoration of the property, repairing the damage that time and negligent owners had inflicted. We intend to add central heat and air for the comfort of our guests and remove the existing units from the upstairs windows.  Also replacing the jalousie windows with new timber sash windows in the style that was there when Parsons first completed the building. Refurbishment of the annex and the addition of private bathrooms to all the bedrooms completed our initial ambitions.

  October 21st 1997, one year on.  So far everything is going well, we have installed central heat and air in the main building and upstairs annex.  As far as the annex goes, we now have a wonderfully restored conference room and the three bedrooms on the ground floor are fully refurbished and look great.  While the rooms are newly completed, they retain the atmosphere of the hotel with colonial furnishings.  The original tile floors remain, and televisions and telephones are still not included.

  The last project of the year that has been achieved is the landscaping of the courtyard.  All the old mulch has been replaced with grass and there is a new patio area.

  Next short-term plans are to complete the renovation of our personal quarters in the annex, alter the bar layout to provide new toilet facilities, and redecorate the dining room.  We need to repair the screened porch and build a new storeroom for the kitchen. When?  We intend to commence these projects in the new year.

1998

  Well, it's here, New Year 1998.  Tony & I were married at the end of last year on December 2nd 1997.  The service was held at the Episcopal Church here in Cedar Key, after which we returned to the hotel for a reception for 150 people.  The whole day was wonderful and our lovely hotel and staff did us proud.

  Anyway, today is January 12th 1998, we have now started the renovations of our personal quarters and Tony and I are camping out in one of our new rooms.
  March 25th, Tony and I are still camping out, as always things do not go as planned but we are getting nearer to completion.

   We have now achieved the redecoration of our dining room.  Here is an interesting little story.
   For those of you with an interest in the history of the hotel and the changes that have been made over the years there is an interesting series of events.  In deciding the color scheme we employed the services of an interior designer from Gainesville who came to the hotel armed with loads of paint and material samples.  The three of us spent a great deal of time in the dining room mulling over the different combinations.   In the end the final choice of colors was made by Dawn.  They were a plum and lilac with an off white trim. The ceiling was to be redone in pine.  Our interior designer concurred with the selection, but pointed out that they were not the normal colors that the text book would recommend for a restaurant.

   That was summer last year, and all that we did in the meantime was to get color samples that we carried with us at all times to help us select the other parts of the picture.

   Later in 1997 Miss Bessie's nephew and niece came to visit Cedar Key and the Hotel.  We had a very interesting talk with them, during which they told us that they had some photographs to show us.  We arranged to sit down on the following Sunday morning.  Sunday duly arrived and we all sat in the lobby with a large box of old photographs which were handed round.  Most of them were black and white showing the hotel in its former heyday, but eventually a color picture came out of the box and was handed to me.  The picture was of Miss Bessie and 'Shorty' Hodges standing on a table in the dining room, with 'Shorty' pretending to look up Miss Bessie's skirt.  A picture that shows the sense of fun that abounded in the hotel back in the late 50's.  What most caught the attention, however, was not so much the characters, but the decor.  The main colors were exactly those that we had recently chosen for the redecoration!!!  That was 1) quite a shock and 2) felt by all to be the final blessing on the selection and is why the restaurant is now resplendent in its 50's glory.

   We feel justifiably proud of our achievements in the dining room.  It is the most visual of all the improvements that we have made to date, but will not be the last.  We both hope that you will dine with us during your stay, and sample the profound elegance of the dining room.  We look forward to welcoming you.

  April 16th, one day before the Arts Festival we finally settled into our newly decorated accommodation in the annex - and it's great.  After 18 months of living in a state of dereliction, with rags stuffed in broken windows, clothes stacked in boxes, an old claw foot tub with no enamel (or shower!), we finally had a place to call home.  We are both sure that it saved both our sanity and our love of the hotel.

  The remainder of the year we spent finishing off lots of little jobs.

  The replacement windows for the upstairs of the hotel have now been ordered for delivery over the next few months, so that will be the main project over the winter.  It should look much better and should save a great deal of money on heating and cooling.  We will save the old window units to build into the garages when we build them.  We are now beginning to look at paint colors for painting the outside of the building.

October 21st 1999

  The new windows were finally installed by the end of June this year and made a huge difference to our air conditioning bills and to the noise from outside.  On occasions we had guests who were not happy to have shared the enthusiasm of late night drinkers as they left the local watering holes at 2:00 a.m.   Since the windows were completed we have had not a single complaint!

We have also totally redecorated 9 of the 10 bedrooms in the main building.  We have tried very hard to bring them up to the standards that people expect of a bed and breakfast but without sacrificing the charm and character that is so much part of the hotel.

During the next 6 months we are intending to demolish the old car port at the rear of the hotel and to paint the outside.  We have chosen yellow walls with white trim - a combination that we have unashamedly stolen from Don & Nancy Duden's new house on Cedar Key.

July 4th 2000

Where does the time go?  It seems like only yesterday that we last updated the history of the hotel, and when we look back it's been 9 months!!   As usual, a lot has happened over that period of time, and a lot hasn't!

For those of you who have visited us over the last months you will note that we have not yet painted the hotel, nor for that matter have we completed the demolition of the carport!  We are still intending to do this work, but we have changed some of our priorities.

What we have done is complete the repairs to the wall in the courtyard so that it is ready for painting.

   Many other improvements were made during this period. Rooms were repainted, the dining room was completely redecorated and looks much like it did in the 1940's. New fire protection and fire escape stairs were installed,  an old wooden garage was dismantled, and the building was completely repainted throughout.
   During this same time period, Dawn and Tony married, Tony's son David arrived from England to live here in Florida. Then, on October 29th, 2000, Dawn and Tony became the proud parents of Samantha Hailey Cousins.
   It wasn't long before Dawn and Tony began to realize that the demands of this fine old hotel conflicted with the demands of their family. After much soul-searching Dawn and Tony  Cousins decided to sell the hotel.