At left: Henry Plant (1819-1899)
was near the end of his life when
he built the Hotel Belleview in
1897. JMC Communities turned
the historic building 90 degrees
and moved it 300 feet before
renovating it to become the
Belleview Inn.
Bottom Left: In addition to his
larger works, the Belleview Inn
lobby displays some portraits by
Christopher Still, including this
one of Morton Plant, who built
Florida’s first golf course.
Neither Henry nor Morton Plant could have
imagined that 120 years after the hotel was built,
JMC Communities would turn a major portion of
the original building 90 degrees and move it 300
feet before renovating it to become the Belleview
Inn in Belleair. As part of the preservation and
restoration of this grand old building, JMC’s
CEO Mike Cheezem commissioned Tarpon
Springs artist Christopher Still to create two
new masterworks to honor the Belleview Inn’s
importance to the history of the Tampa Bay area.
In A New Day, a 60-inch-by-108-inch oil painting
that hangs in the lobby near the Belleview Inn’s
reception desk, Christopher painted the original
1897 hotel as it was when it opened as part of
Henry Plant’s system of railroads, steamships
and hotels. The artwork depicts the morning sun
illuminating the hotel and its west balcony, which
became the seating area for the Duke of Windsor
Suite. In addition to its chimneys, the hotel had
modern amenities such as electricity and clean
water that bubbled up to the Spring House, which
is shown in the lower right hand corner of the
painting. To the far left center of the painting you
can see the Mascotte, an ocean steamship owned by
the Plant System that sailed from Tampa to Cuba.
Near the steamship is a long pier that spanned
the bay to a boat dock and bathing pavilion. The
work is filled with images from the hotel’s long
history, such as a World War II bugler to remind
viewers that during the war, troops were stationed
at the hotel. There is an image of Florida subtly
under the water’s surface on the right side of
the painting above a pair of roseate spoonbills.
Still has included the east wing that was added
to the hotel by Henry’s son Morton Plant in 1910
to double the size of the hotel. Other additions
added by later owners are not shown.
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MARCH/APRIL 2019 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 47