Manufacturer: Fraunfelter China
User: Vinoy Park Hotel
Distributor: Alfred Pick & Company – Chicago
Date of examples: circa 1924 – 1939
Notes: From Wikipedia: "The Vinoy Park Hotel was built in 1925 by oil tycoon Aymer Vinoy Laughner. Construction began on February 5 and took 10 months to complete, with a grand opening on December 31. It was a seasonal hotel, open from around December to March. Rates were $20.00 a night, the highest in the area at that time. Celebrities ranging from Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and James Stewart are known to have stayed there.
"With the onset of World War II, the hotel closed on July 3, 1942 and was taken over by the U.S. Army for use as a training school. The hotel reopened in December 1944. It was then sold in 1945 to Charles Alberding for $700,000. It continued to prosper for the next couple of decades but fell out of favor and into decline and disrepair by the end of the 1960s. In 1974, the Vinoy Park closed and most of its contents were sold at auction. On September 11, 1978, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
"The hotel sat vacant until 1990, when it was bought by the Vinoy Development Corporation, which renovated it at a cost of $93 million. The hotel reopened in 1992 as the Stouffer Vinoy Resort. Stouffer Hotels was bought by Renaissance Hotels the following year, and the hotel became the Renaissance Stouffer Vinoy Resort, and then in 1996 the Renaissance Vinoy Resort. In 2005, the Vinoy earned AAA Four-Diamond status.
"On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter placed it on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.
"In August 2018, the Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort & Golf Club was sold by RLJ Lodging Trust to SCG Hospitality, owned by Tampa Bay Buccaneers' owner Bryan Glazer. The sale included a golf club and 74-slip marina as well as the 362-room hotel. The amount of the sale was reported to be $188.5 million. The hotel left the Renaissance brand of Marriott and joined the Autograph Collection brand as The Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, Autograph Collection in April 2023, at the conclusion of major renovations.
"Paranormal activity:
Over the years, there have been reports of ghost sightings and other supernatural events at the hotel. Some of the reports were by visiting major league baseball players and staff, who stayed at the Vinoy when in town to play the Tampa Bay Rays.
"One of the reports came from a strength coordinator for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He described seeing a translucent apparition of a man near a desk in his room. Others have noted seeing a man dressed in formal attire walking the halls only to disappear without a trace."
White body platter with a turquoise blue, hot pink, and green tableau that fills the entire rim. The tableau consists of a sky background populated with green palm trees and small white sailboats. At the top and bottom center of the rim are gold shields on top of pink ovals. There are four other pink oval shapes on the rim with black drawings of either a woman diving or a black sailboat.
Source:
Wikipedia – history of the hotel
For additional info:
Vinoy Park Hotel by Syracuse China
Vinoy Park Hotel 2 by Syracuse China, Carr China, McNicol China, and Warwick China
Contributors:
Angela McCravy – platter photos
Christopher Riggs – waiter's badge photo
Ed Phillips – author