Ahead of you rises the Casa Monica Hotel. This historic hotel in St. Augustine was opened in 1888 and originally carried the name Casa Monica; it later became the Cordova Hotel, then the Alcazar Annex, and has its original name again. It is one of the oldest hotels in the United States and a member of the Historic Hotels of America in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The hotel was opened by Franklin W. Smith, a Victorian architecture enthusiast and social reformer who earned a place in Florida history for interesting Henry Flagler in investing in the state. Smith was a leading experimenter with poured concrete; the building's original exterior finish was left natural, its horizontal pour marks visible and matching other grand Flagler-era structures in downtown St. Augustine. The hotel's architectural language blends Moorish Revival and Spanish Baroque Revival, styles Smith promoted; his winter home, Villa Zorayda, just a block to the west, was the first Moorish Revival building in St. Augustine.
In the 1960s the exterior was altered when the original concrete finish was covered with a modern stucco. Picture Franklin Smith's poured-concrete walls, their horizontal pour marks still visible beneath later stucco.