THE! INN

One of Sarasota's earliest buildings, THE! INN had a varied and long career. Alex Browning, a teen-ager when he arrived with his family from Scotland in 1885, wrote in his memoirs that Hamlin Whitaker built it as a livery stable on the corner of Main and Palm where the Sarasota Hotel was later built. (That building now houses offices and Sarasota News & Books.) Browning recounted that when the front part of the livery stable was converted to a pool hall, the girls would come in at night to watch the boys play by kerosene lamp light.

When Elijah Grantham became the proprietor, having paid $125 for the lot and building, he added another story, including nine bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and the outside porches. This marked the shift to a rooming facility. This photo was taken in the early 1890s by Felix Pinard, a French photographer whose images provide some of the earliest photographic records of Sarasota. Grouped on the upstairs balcony are participants in a Baptist convention, probably Sarasota's first.

The downstairs portion of THE! INN was used for some time as a general store. "E.B. Grantham, General Merchandise" is faintly visible over the first-floor front door. Elijah Grantham is identified as the man in the white hat in the middle of the group sitting on the lower porch.

After the Grantham's sold the building, it continued to be used as a rooming house, in conjunction with the Watrous Hotel across Palm Avenue. To make way for Sarasota's first skyscraper, the Sarasota Hotel, this building was moved to (now) Fruitville Road, two lots west of Central. Frank Higel rented its furnished rooms during the mid-1920s.

In more recent years, the building was named Crescent Apartments. After becoming vacant and subject to vandalism and suspected criminal activity, this historic structure became caught in the struggle between the desire to save and reuse a historic building and the desire to remove buildings that fail to meet health and safety standards. In July, 1994, it was demolished.