Rio Vista Ruins

History of the Rio Vista Ruins

The Rio Vista Ruins are among the few surviving elements of W. C. Hardesty’s dream, Rio-Vista-on-the-Halifax. The real estate development was the ambitious vision of Walter Collins Hardesty, an Ohio-based furniture manufacturer and real estate developer who launched plans for a grand resort-style community during Florida’s 1920s land boom. The development was to feature an array of attractions, including modest winter cottages, a luxurious hotel, a zoo, a casino, a boat and canoe club, a riding academy, polo grounds, and a hunting club. Its centerpiece was to be the Riviera Hotel, promoted as offering “Old World charm with New World comfort.”

W. C. Hardesty, Real Estate Developer

Back in Ohio, Hardesty was employed at his family’s company, the Hardesty Milling Company, which operated a large mill in Dover, among other financial ventures. According to Roger David Hardesty in his blog Hard Honesty, he explains that it was through his own ambitions that Hardesty began diversifying his business portfolio independent of his brothers.

On September 8, 1904, it was reported that Hardesty leased the old opera house in Dover with plans for renovation. Additionally, he purchased the A. R. Milner Seating Company in nearby New Philadelphia and began manufacturing new, innovative theater seats that were narrower to accommodate larger audiences. Although he left the theater business in 1908, he continued in the manufacturing of theater chairs through his company, Hardesty Manufacturing.

It wasn’t until 1916 that the W. C. Hardesty Realty Company was established with offices in Akron’s Second National Bank Building. Unlike the large success he had achieved with his manufacturing company, though, his venture into the real estate business in Ohio was lukewarm in comparison.

After World War I, the United States entered a recession due to a sharp decline in demand for war materials and a significant rise in unemployment as soldiers returned home from Europe, coinciding with the Spanish Flu pandemic. Hardesty got out of the manufacturing business, and the Hardesty Manufacturing Company was dissolved in November 1920.

On January 19, 1922, it was reported in The Akron Beacon Journal that Walter C. Hardesty had been staying in Palm Beach, Miami, and St. Petersburg for the past two weeks, and before returning home, would visit his brother, Harry, who owned a winter residence in Sea Breeze, Daytona Beach. Still, a little over a week later, it was reported in The Daytona Daily News that his wife and children had joined him and were staying at one of the cottages at the Clarendon Hotel.

It’s not known whether Hardesty was down in Florida for business or pleasure. Something must have inspired him because less than a month later, W. C. Hardesty Realty Company was doing business in Volusia County. Before long, he had offices in Daytona, St. Petersburg, Miami, Orlando, and Lakeland.

Rio Vista-on-the-Halifax

To bring his vision to life, Hardesty enlisted Cleveland landscape architect and planner Albert D. Taylor, along with engineer Frederick Swineford. Their master plan included curving roads, irregularly shaped residential lots, ornamental lagoons, public parks, plazas with monuments, commercial storefronts, and designated sites for the city’s church and school, hotel, riding academy, and Y.M.C.A. Construction began in February 1923.

In June 1924, it was reported that construction was to begin within the next two months on the new Rio Vista Hotel by the Rio Vista Hotel and Improvement Company, officered by George W. Hurlbert as president; Walter C. Hardesty as vice-president and K. W. Zimmershied, former assistant to the president of General Motors and former general manager of the Chevrolet Motor Company, as secretary and treasurer. Martin Hampton was named as the architect.

Martin L. Hampton, Architect

Martin Luther Hampton was a prominent architect in early South Florida’s development. Born on August 3, 1890, in Laurens County, South Carolina, he relocated to Miami in 1914 after studying architecture at Columbia University in New York. By 1916, he had obtained his architectural license in Jacksonville and began his professional career with the well-established firm of August Geiger, working on the original Miami Hospital.

Before establishing his architectural firm in 1917, Hampton worked for George Edgar Merrick, the visionary founder of Coral Gables, by designing a cottage for him and his wife.

Following his service in World War I, Hampton joined the team of Addison Mizner, the influential architect behind much of Palm Beach’s Mediterranean Revival style. Hampton contributed by designing interiors and supervising architectural details for Mizner’s prestigious projects.

Hampton was part of Merrick’s design delegation sent to Europe in 1921 to study Mediterranean architecture for the Coral Gables project. This group included Denman Fink, Merrick’s uncle and artistic advisor; H. George Fink Sr., Merrick’s cousin and an influential designer described by the New York Herald Tribune as “The Henry Ford of Architecture”; and Leonard B. Schultze, a New York architect later known for the Biltmore Hotel, Breakers Hotel, and Freedom Tower.

In 1922, Hampton worked with Merrick once again, this time by designing a hotel in the fledgling city of Coral Gables. Commissioned by Merrick, the Coral Gables Inn served as lodging for prospective land buyers and was praised for its Mediterranean Revival style. Hampton went on to design the Country Club of Coral Gables (1923) and the Casa Loma Hotel (1924), both in the same style.

Possibly drawing from his work designing the Country Club of Coral Gables, Joseph Wesley Young, the founder and developer of Hollywood, Florida, hired Hampton to design what became the Hollywood Golf and Country Club. Although the building was demolished in 1961, it marked the beginning of Hampton’s contributions to the city’s architectural landscape. His other notable projects in Hollywood included the Great Southern Hotel (1924), which was later demolished and partially reconstructed in 2021; the second Young Company Office and Administration Building (1924); and the Hollywood Beach Casino (1925).

Having admired the work Hampton had done in South Florida, especially for what were essentially brand-new cities, Hardesty hired him to work with him at Rio Vista-on-the-Halifax. Hampton not only designed the Rio Vista Hotel, but also the Riviera Country Club and several houses, including W. C. Hardesty’s own residence on the Dixie Highway.

The Rio Vista Arches

One of the project’s most notable features was a canal intended for canoes and gondolas, now part of the B-29 Drainage Canal off Calle Grande. Alongside it, a dramatic set of Romanesque arches and columns designed to replicate ancient ruins was constructed in 1924 at a cost of $50,000 as the planned entrance to the riverfront development.

Painted to resemble marble, the concrete pillars were adorned with friezes of charioteers and toga-clad figures, capped by a Cypress trellis. Hardesty’s wife, Annie Haines, is often credited with designing the faux Roman ruins, a façade psychologically intended to suggest the project’s enduring permanence to those receiving their first impression by rail. These decaying arches are among the few surviving elements of Hardesty’s dream.

The Riviera Country Club and Course

A golf course was also part of the grand design. In February 1926, renowned Chicago golf architect W.D. Clark oversaw the beginning of construction. Decades later, in 1953, the Meyers family purchased the Rio Vista nine-hole golf course from the Hardesty estate. They established the Riviera Country Club, reorganizing the original layout in 1960 by golf course architect Mark Mahannah. In 1967, an additional nine holes designed by architect Dave Wallace were added.

The End of a Dream

By 1927, the development had grown to include 3,600 subdivided lots, a sprawling 1,200-acre hotel site, 38 completed homes, and over 15 miles of paved roads. However, progress came to a standstill with the onset of the Great Depression.

Following the collapse of the land boom, a destructive hurricane, and the 1929 stock market crash, Hardesty struggled to attract buyers to his Florida resort. The grand hotel closed, and the area fell into decline. The hotel property was later annexed into Holly Hill in 1998 and acquired by HCM Properties. After renovations, it reopened as a 77-unit assisted living facility, one of the few remaining grand hotels in the Halifax area.

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