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There are hundreds of historic hotels in the Sunshine State. Some were built at a time when guests arrived by carriage and skirts were never above the knee; others came during the age of the DC-3. As travel trends and fashions changed, so too did Florida’s hotels.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the inns were relatively small and wood frame. As America prospered, tycoons like Henry Flagler created great luxury palaces, built by men who were as bold as they were rich. Thankfully, many of these priceless live-in antiques are still around, though some now have modern necessities like electronic room keys and Wi-Fi.

If you look beyond the chandeliers, ornate frescoes and heart-pine floors of these historic hotels, you will find stories as colorful as their gardens.

Here are but a few of Florida’s great, early inns and resorts.

Through the Gilded Age

Ecotourism may be trendy, but nature has always been central to the appeal of one of the state’s oldest continuously operated hotels, the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, northwest of Orlando. Opened in 1883, when travel ads and handbills promoted the Sunshine State as “America’s last frontier,” the inn welcomed guests who arrived at this hotel by horse and stayed for weeks. They hunted game, fished and went searching for things that slither with a snake handler from nearby Silver Springs.

You can still sit on its veranda and enjoy a view of tranquil Lake Dora, or take a motorized boat tour of the Mount Dora canal, where you’ll see alligators, turtles and more birds than you can name. Its interior is Old-Florida romance, with floral fabrics, antiques and gourmet dining with a Dixie accent. Historic downtown Mount Dora is just around the corner, and the famed Renninger’s Antiques and Collectibles Market is a short drive away. (352-383-4101, www.lakeside-inn.com)

While the Lakeside Inn was luring adventurous nature lovers, tycoons Henry Flagler and Henry Plant were planning Florida’s largest resort empires and the railroad lines to reach them. Flagler envisioned making the state’s east coast a tourism mecca, and in the mid-1880s he began building and buying resorts including the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, which opened in 1888. The regal, castle-like hotel in northeast Florida has changed names and uses over the years (for a time it was the county courthouse), but it was refurbished and reopened as a four-star boutique hotel in 1999.

Velvet fabrics, handmade chandeliers and gilded furniture greet guests in the lobby. It’s easy to imagine living like a king (or sultan) in a suite high up in one of its Moorish towers. (904-827-1888, www.casamonica.com)

Not to be outdone by a rival, railroad magnate Henry Plant carved a grand resort from a 1,000-acre forest near Clearwater in 1897. With two miles of hallways wide enough to accommodate hoop skirts, 67 gables and a multilevel 230,000-square-foot roof, the Belleview Biltmore Resort on the central Gulf Coast is the largest wooden hotel in the United States and the only one of Plant’s eight hotels still operating as such. Some of the wealthiest Americans of the Gilded Age arrived at the “White Queen of the Gulf” via private rail car. After dinner, nannies scurried children up hidden stairways while parents mingled in the ballroom.

The resort’s unique architectural details have survived despite repeated attempts to turn the hotel into condos. New owners vow to preserve it. (727-373-3765, www.belleviewbiltmore.com)

There’s an intoxicating aura of wealth around The Breakers Hotel Resort in Palm Beach that has as much do with its illustrious past guests as it does its high-end service and hand-painted ceilings. Another Flagler hotel, the 560-room Italian Renaissance resort has been a playground for American aristocracy for more than 100 years. The original Breakers opened in 1896 with halls so long that room service attendants were said to ride bicycles. It burned and was rebuilt twice, the final time in 1926 by Flagler’s heirs. The existing resort surpasses previous versions in grandeur, a glamour that you can relive on one of the resort’s history tours. (561-655-6611, www.thebreakers.com)

Up north in Apalachicola, the wide porches of the Gibson Inn opened to visitors in 1907. Restored in 1985, the inn’s charms are evident from the outside, as its wraparound veranda carries even the most harried 21st-century traveler back to the Teddy Roosevelt era. (850-653-2191 or www.gibsoninn.com)

Industrialists including Henry du Pont and Henry Ford discovered remote Gasparilla Island near Charlotte Harbor on the state’s southwest Gulf Coast to be a great tarpon fishing destination. The luxurious Gasparilla Inn & Club opened in 1913 to accommodate those visitors. Complete with golf course, marina, tennis courts and beach club, the resort retains an Old-Florida feel. Jackets and ties are still required for dinner in high season. (800-996-1913, www.the-gasparilla-inn.com)

In the age of Interstates and international airports, the Kenilworth Lodge in Sebring was left along the railroad tracks in south-central Florida, but its charm carries on. In earlier days, the Mediterranean-style hotel overlooking Lake Jackson entertained 42 governors, prominent sports figures and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. Today it appears much as it did when it opened in 1916. It still has rocking chairs on its veranda, original wood floors, transom windows, deep original ceramic tubs (re-glazed) and a vintage Otis elevator. But it’s the courtesies from a simpler time that make it unique. Guests can take home novels from the lobby with only a promise to mail back two, borrow a puzzle or get a personal wake-up call. And yes, there’s wireless internet. (863-385-0111, www.kenlodge.com)

The 1920s ushered in the golden years. Stocks were high, dresses were short and Florida grew some of its most regal hotels.

The decade kicked off with the opening of the lavish Casa Marina Resort & Beach Club in Key West. Although Henry Flagler died in 1913, a year after his Overseas Railroad connected Key West to mainland Florida, his vision for tourism lived on through Florida East Coast Railroad, the railroad company he created. The company opened the Casa Marina in 1920, and it quickly became a popular haven for artists and writers including Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens. A Key West icon, it also has the island’s largest private beach. (305-296-3535, www.casamarinaresort.com)

Although most of the era’s grand resorts were built along the coastline, The Terrace Hotel, which opened in 1924, capitalized on the Lakeland area’s growing agricultural dynasties and enticing real estate market. Opened before air-conditioning, the 10-story hotel was an anomaly in that it stayed open year ‘round. Guests sipped drinks in the downstairs lounge and peered through its French doors onto Mirror Lake. The downtown hotel later fell on hard times and wasn’t restored and reopened until 1998. Today it is a centerpiece of a vibrant downtown, surrounded by shops and restaurants. (863-688-0800, www.terracehotel.com)

On the east coast, Flagler continued to leave his mark, even if it was through a challenge to his rivals. Millionaire and consummate Kentucky gambler Cornel E.R. Bradley, nicknamed “Mr. Lucky,” first ran afoul of Flagler when he opened his casino, the Beach Club, prompting Flagler to write to Palm Beach city officials that there wasn’t enough room there for both of them. Bradley opened a posh hotel, now The Bradley Park Hotel, in 1924 to accommodate his gambling patrons. The Mediterranean revival resort, just two blocks from the beach, is a landmark that still envelops guests in opulence. (561-832-7050, www.bradleyparkhotel.com)

Before Hollywood, there was Jacksonville. Struggling to become the nucleus of the budding film industry, the city attracted such film stars as Jean Harlow and Charlie Chaplin, who stayed at the opulent Casa Marina Hotel & Restaurant. The beachfront resort built in 1925 is the only Jacksonville area hotel remaining from that star-struck era. Guests can see reflections of the carefully restored inn’s illustrious past in its cherry wood floors and Spanish-Mediterranean revival architectural details. (904-270-0025, www.casamarinahotel.com)

Like a scene from “The Great Gatsby,” the bubbly flowed and the ballroom floor was filled with women in flapper dresses and men in black tie when what is now the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club opened on the banks of Tampa Bay in 1925. By the mid 1970s, the elegance had given way to cobwebs and chipped paint. But in 1992, the Mediterranean-style resort reopened, restored to its impressive original state. You can learn about its history and remarkable restoration in a hallway off its main lobby that is filled with historic photos. (727-894-1000, www.vinoyrenaissanceresort.com)

The year 1926 was an expansive one along Florida’s coastlines, as evidenced by six luxury resorts. The most glamorous, the Biltmore Coral Gables, opened that year to movie stars, royalty and the richest Americans. Crowds later flocked to watch synchronized swimmers, see boy wonder Jackie Ott dive from an 85-foot platform and watch Johnny Weissmuller, who later played Tarzan, set a world swimming record. Built by Biltmore hotel magnate John McEntee Bowman (who at one point also owned the Belleview Biltmore), the resort cost $10 million to construct. Decades later, after being abandoned, it cost the city $55 million to restore it. Today, guests unwind in its historic ambiance as well as in its modern, world-class spa. (305-445-1926, www.biltmorehotel.com)

There were enough well-heeled northern travelers to encourage development of other resorts in Southeast Florida during those heady economic times. Still operating today, the Colony Hotel & Cabana Club in Delray Beach, the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton, and the Brazilian Court and Chesterfield Hotel in Palm Beach were among them.

Painted its original bright-yellow hue, with matching striped awnings, the Colony Hotel & Cabana Club is a flower of Mediterranean revival architecture. Guests still ride its original elevator and walk beneath its original iron chandeliers. (561-276-4123, www.thecolonyhotel.com).

Just south in Boca Raton, intricate mosaics, hidden gardens and ornate cedar-beamed ceilings remain at the former Cloister Inn, which is now part of the expansive Boca Raton Resort & Club. (561-447-3000, www.bocaresort.com)

The Brazilian Court and the Chesterfield appeal to those who prefer to stay and play just off Palm Beach’s swanky Worth Avenue. The two-story B.C., as it’s informally known, was once the discreet home-away-from-home for high society. Today it’s the place to see and be seen. (561-655-7740, www.thebraziliancourt.com)

The Chesterfield, which opened as the Lido-Venice, retains its original architectural character while attracting new faces to its Leopard Lounge, a renowned meeting place for the rich
and wannabes alike. (561-659-5800, www.chesterfieldpb.com)

Farther inland, near the banks of Lake Okeechobee, the men who made their wealth from Florida’s sugar industry opened a resort to accommodate them and their visiting business counterparts. The Clewiston Inn, built by the U.S. Sugar Corporation (then called Southern Sugar), was destroyed by fire, but immediately rebuilt in1938 to its original classical revival style. You can see photographs of the early sugar barons, their workers and the house big band that played for them on the hotel’s hallway walls and find sugar cookies in your room upon check-in. (863-983-8151, www.clewistoninn.com)

Florida’s real estate market was depressed by 1928, but Black Monday was still a year off. The Don CeSar Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach and the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club near Jacksonville barely beat the stock market crash, but they soon faced the pain caused by it.

The Don CeSar, modeled after the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki Beach, was troubled from the beginning, as its construction costs ran 300 percent over budget. It thrived for a few years, hosting F. Scott Fitzgerald, Al Capone and Lou Gehrig, among other notables, before its owner died and the property fell into the hands of the U.S. Army. The Veterans Administration turned it into a convalescent home for war-weary airmen and later used it for office space before abandoning it.

The empty building was a canvas for graffiti artists until preservationists stepped in with a buyer who reinstated the Pink Lady’s reign over the Gulf. The likes of rock stars including Madonna, Steve Tyler and Prince now find her to be a gracious host. (727-360-1881, www.doncesar.com)