The original Tides Hotel and Bath Club opened on New Year's Eve 1936 and started a love affair with the residents of Pinellas County, Florida. The Tides had creaky wood floors, oriental rugs and an ambiance that made going to The Tides an affair to remember. Everyone who was anyone wanted to be seen there. Pinellas County's high society made The Tides their very special recreation area. The Tides hosted weddings, art exhibits, fashion shows, class reunions and every social function imaginable. From Rolls-Royces to station wagons, passengers entered under the club's canopy for events to be remembered. You could play cards, eat lunch or dance the night away on the parquet floors of the Four Seasons Room.
Famous people and families alike visited The Tides. All were enchanted with the art deco rooms and the atmosphere of elegance. Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio all stayed at The Tides. The service was known to be impeccable, and if you left your shoes outside your room they would be polished by morning!
But just as the ocean tides roll in and out, traditions and buildings come and go. As the land became more valuable than the rundown, old, beloved hotel the inevitable happened. The fourteen acres of beachfront land were worth far more than the old hotel and bath house and they were sold to make way for a new condominium complex.
The old Tides was a way of life for many locals but keeping her up and running became impossible to manage economically. For the people who learned to swim here, danced the nights away, and spent their honeymoons here, economic feasibility were hollow words. The regular visitors to The Tides knew there would never be another place like this one. Another piece of old Florida was dying and sadness filled the air.
The original Tides Hotel was actually a series of buildings that included the main hotel, patio apartments, a motor inn and some cottages. The Bath Club was in the center and had two dining rooms, a ballroom, a dinner theater and two swimming pools.
The almost quarter-mile beach is one of the longest private stretches of beach in Florida and was very attractive to developers. The heirs of Charles Alberding, who died in 1989 and owned The Tides, would eventually sell. In 1996 the old Tides was demolished. The building of the new Tides began in 1997 and was completed in 2000.
Today the Tides Beach Club consists of six condominium buildings, 214 units, 3 swimming pools, beautiful, landscaped grounds and sits on the same beachfront area as the original Tides Hotel and Bath Club. The Tides Beach Club cannot replace the old Tides with all its history, but the regulars of old are proud of the new Tides and all it has done for the North Redington Beach area.
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