The Henry B. Plant Museum, Tampa
Isn’t it encouraging to know that wealthy, successful people make mistakes just like us? Only on a grander scale. Their mistakes can often cost millions or billions of dollars. The lessons learned come at a high price, but the good news is we can share the same valuable lessons for free. Ah, the elixir of history.
The Henry B. Plant Museum maintains a frozen parcel of time, a revelation of the exotic and the opulent in a fledgling outpost city whose existence was only just becoming known to Americans: Tampa, Florida. Where a train magnate’s venture into whimsy becomes his loss, but our gain. And it’s a great spot for an air-conditioned day trip.
Our weekend–Wednesday and Thursday–arrived and I was in the office sorting pictures into folders when my wife poked her head in to see what our activity plans were. We had a little tiff earlier and I hadn’t expected her to want to spend the day with this jerk, so I was caught unprepared. I jumped at the change and consulted my spots and vittles list for ideas. It was a beautiful day and seemed a pity to waste it by working indoors. So, why did I suggest visiting a museum? I don’t know.
I had been wanting to go to a museum and asked if she had a preference for either art, history or natural history, and she said opted for art or natural history, with a shudder at the mention of a historical museum. The Tampa Museum of Art was undergoing a change in exhibits, which, though the ticket price was reduced, could result in a less than fulfilling experience. Truthfully, I had been mulling over a visit to the Henry B. Plant Museum, with the various artworks, furniture, and the like, and I said as much, to which she said, “Oh, sure, that kind of history is okay.” My girl.
The Tampa Hotel and the University of Tampa are not without their personal significance to me. From the ‘70s into the ‘80s my grandfather worked in the maintenance department and we had throughout my childhood an official UT dictionary on our bookshelf embossed with the iconic onion domes. Every time I’d ease down from the high shelf that weighty tome, I’d see those onion domes pressed into the simulated leather and think of my grandparents a thousand miles away in Florida. Visiting the museum was a sort of pilgrimage for me to touch a bit of my past and the sight of it will forever remind me of my grandparents and homework. It’s bittersweet.
I noted a few options for lunch but kept it under wraps and we headed out the door for south Tampa. I aimed the sporty little runabout for the scenic route by the seat of my pants, but I mistook Causeway Blvd for Rt. 60, caught the mistake too late and added 20 minutes to the drive getting back down to the University of Tampa from Seminole Heights via the map app. Newbies, amirite?
We caught sight of gleaming onion domes but were unsure of where to park. We consulted a passing student to find parking for the museum and he directed us to make the next left and seek a seated woman with a yellow sign. We turned off W Kennedy Blvd and up UT University Drive to find the woman in question across from the museum. With her skilled management of the parking system, she guided us into a curb space directly in front of the museum entrance.
There is free parking in a garage off North Blvd and North B Street.
We placed the parking pass she gave us on the dashboard and we prepared to walk over to the Henry B. Plant Museum.
Henry B. Plant Museum
401 West Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33602
Phone: (813) 254-1891
Hours:
Tuesday to Sunday – 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Monday – Closed
General Admission:
$10 for adults
$7 for seniors and students
$5 for children (ages 4-12)
Infants (under 4) are free
www.plantmuseum.com/
I had to pause for a moment to take it in. It was an elaborate spectacle, housed in the former Tampa Bay Hotel, an imposing Victorian brick edifice, four-stories tall, six-hundred feet long, featuring Byzantine arches, ornate woodwork, and most iconic and singular–towering silver onion domes with crescent moon finials. A columned porch further complicated the style and, though it was made of wood, it evoked the wrought iron balconies of New Orleans.
In November we had observed the gleaming domes from the Downtown River Walk across the Hillsborough River, but seeing the structure in its entirety is a treat. I tried to imagine walking up the steps from a horse-drawn carriage as guests of the hotel in the 1890’s but was too far removed to get the proper feeling.
We entered and were met by the smiling desk clerk who welcomed us, completed the $10 ticket transaction and gave us hand-held devices for the self-guided audio tour (included with the price of admission). She also informed us of the companion exhibit: Imperial Designs: From the Habsburgs’ Herend to the Romanovs’ Faberge. A temporary display of objets d’art from the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Imperial houses.
Starting with a looped video that explains the history of the Tampa Bay Hotel through to its present multi-use state as a museum, offices, and classrooms for the University of Tampa, we became acquainted with the history of the old building before we explored its halls. The actual Henry B. Plant museum occupies only the first floor of the left wing of the main structure.
Of interesting note is the fact that Florida, let alone Tampa, was hardly a though in the average American’s mind before the turn of the century, with Key West (a sponge fishing and marine salvage village) being the largest city in the state, then. That’s hard to imagine today.
In a time when few people traveled more than several miles outside their own towns and it could take months to travel a thousand miles by horse and carriage, few people could make such a journey merely for recreation. Henry B. Plant had done for the Gulf coast as Henry Flagler and his railway had done for the Atlantic coast (reminder to name child Henry to improve chances of success)–he built a railway to Tampa and with the discovery of phosphate in the soil, as well as a healthy fishing industry, arguably put the place on the map.
The Tampa Hotel was for the well-heeled a paradise in a wilderness that might as well have been the Australian Outback. Untamed landscapes, mosquitos, and crocogators were a threat to life and limb.
The museum refers to the Tampa Bay Hotel as Florida’s First Magic Kingdom. However, where The Magic Kingdom helped propel both Walt Disney into immortal legend and the Disney company into intergalactic wealth and power, the Tampa Bay Hotel was eventually to be known as Plant’s Folly and it would prove to be so for him, though not for the University of Tampa.
Financially, The Tampa Bay Hotel failed almost as soon as it started, opening April 5,1891 and Plant’s heirs selling it to the State at a loss in 1904. Though, it continued operations as a hotel until 1932. Still, it was a magnificent thing in its day and has been restored to a portion of its original wonder, if partially obscured by the climbing modern architecture of Tampa rather than set as a pearl in its former ring of boathouses, tennis courts, amphitheaters, and fairgrounds.
The rooms are fitted with many of the surviving items that Mr. And Mrs. Plant obtained during a European shopping spree and had shipped to Tampa by the train carloads. Victorian furniture, place settings, tapestries, sculptures, paintings in gilded frames, and so much more stuff decorate the restored rooms.
We left the video room armed with a practical appreciation for the history of the building and Tampa, still laughing with the featured elderly women and her disdain for the “hip-swinging” kids of the eighties. We started the tour with no particular plan and just went from the nearest room to the next and so on.
Many of the rooms are repurposed as exhibit spaces to focus on particular period features, such as a room housing many of the garden statuary, planters, and decorative ceramic curiosities from the era. Another is stocked with surviving foodservice and hospitality items, such as place settings, silverware, and surviving print menus. Yet another is devoted to Tampa’s place as a staging ground during the Spanish American War, and the “Garish” Tampa Bay Hotel’s role as billeting for the officers and press, in addition to the tourists.
Intact and reset to reflect the look of the period are several guest rooms, including a suite–complete with its own hallway and sitting room. They’ve also restored a complete tiled bathroom updated for the early 20th century with a low-tank toilet and porcelain tub in place of the original copper-lined wood box. But for the lack of air conditioning, those socialites had it made.
The Reading and Writing room is restored and set with stationary, blotters, pens, newspapers and other accouterments. The ancient glass panes ripple with sunlight as it pours through the eastward facade. I imagined waistcoated men in their long-tailed coats with their spectacles and pocket watches taking in the news of the day while ladies in bodice and bustle writing letters to home. What? I get my knowledge of historical gender roles from BBC period series, don’t blame me.
The tall windows look past a reflecting pool in the campus roundabout over the manicured lawns to the modern downtown skyline, filtered by large trees. In its heyday, you’d be able to see lush gardens across the descending hill to the river where gentlemen rowed their dinghies while ladies daintily clutched parasols in gloved hands.
That’s The BBC at:
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We walked from room to room, taking in the exhibits and imagining ourselves in that time and place. The who’s who of society traveling by boat and train to an otherwise dangerous locale with mosquitos, snakes, and alligators, to lodge in an oasis of opulence in an escape of the frigid winters of the north. Now, That’s what I call snowbirds.
It was not lost on me that we had just done the similar, only we came by Penske truck and are living and working here for several years rather than playing shuffleboard, dining on pheasant under glass, and being tended to by uniformed staff. Also: airconditioning, internet, and industrialized farming.
The companion exhibit was interesting as well, though I did not catch if it was directly connected to the Tampa Bay Hotel, other than to experience the lavish accessories owned by the aristocracy of the age, many of whom might have ventured to this spectacle of a hotel. It was a nice window into the artisan world of the time and a beautiful visual experience for anyone who appreciated jewelry, ceramics, porcelain, and other curiosities, particularly of the late nineteenth into the twentieth century. There were samples of porcelain service sets from yachts, palaces, and castles, gilded cigar and cigarette cases, vases, and chalices. We both particularly appreciated a blue Faberge chamberstick, but then, who wouldn’t.
When we were finished with the museum, we ventured into the non-museum portions of the first floor, walking through the lobby to the music room (in use at the moment), poking our heads in the Grand Salon (being cleaned after a lunch meeting) down the hall of the right wing, through the solarium and peeking through the windows into the original dining room (being set for a function). This area is a functioning part of the University and is thronged with students and staff.
Now a bit peckish, we turned our minds to lunch and ventured out a backdoor to make our way to Tampiz, half a block over. The tour had us moderately beat by the time we got there and we appreciated the sit-down. After the delicious lunch, we walked back to our car, gave the parking pass to the attendant and commenced our trip home, feeling a little more cultured, well schooled in local history, fat in the tums, and munching on hazelnut eclairs.
The price of admission for the Henry B. Plant Museum is well worth it. If we took our time to read each bit of text, to listen to each number on the recorded tour, to study every item on display, and to walk the grounds, we could have spent all day there and learned a great deal of interesting history about the dawn of Tampa as we know it. That’s a bit much for us, though and we felt our experience was plenty fulfilling. As it was, it’s a pleasant opportunity to take in some stimulating knowledge for an hour or two before grabbing a tasty bite to eat and maybe an outdoor walk around the campus or waterfront.
The Henry B. Plant Museum is a wonderful experience for anyone who takes an interest in history, entrepreneurialism, the industrial revolution, art, architecture, fashion, craftsmanship and both the ingenuity and the folly of man. We thoroughly enjoyed it and I snapped lots of pictures and learned a good deal about the history of Tampa.
I also learned that there is no other word, technically or colloquially in the English language for “onion dome”.
Though I feel as if I’ve had my fill of what there is to see and wouldn’t necessarily need to pay the price of admission to see any more, I might be compelled by future companion exhibits, like Imperial Designs.
I will certainly return just to walk around the campus to look at the rest of the sculptures decorating the grounds and to explore the neighborhood. Combined with lunch at Tampiz or any of the other surrounding eateries, it would make for a relaxing and rewarding late morning or afternoon. If you’ve never been, certainly take the time and explore this interesting relic from Tampa’s past. But for its existence, my wife and I might not be here.
Thanks for reading!