The Ghost Hotel (Former Ringling Ritz-Carlton) — Chart House Site

John Ringling, of Ringling Brothers circus fame, was one of the principal forces behind the development of Sarasota and its barrier islands in the 1920s. Among his most ambitious projects was a luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel on the south end of Longboat Key near New Pass. Construction began in March 1926, and Ringling poured an estimated $650,000 of his own money into the venture, which was planned for some 350 rooms and accompanied by the first of three intended golf courses.

By late 1926 the exterior of the building was largely complete and the first rooms were taking shape. But the Florida land boom that had fueled the project burst that same year, and Ringling's sprawling holdings in real estate, banking, and entertainment began to unravel. He halted construction in November 1926, intending the stoppage to be temporary. It never resumed.

The unfinished hotel stood abandoned on Longboat Key for more than thirty years. Trees and shrubs reclaimed the grounds, bats and owls nested in the empty rooms, and locals came to call the looming shell 'the Ghost Hotel.' During those decades the derelict structure drew curiosity-seekers and trespassers, and according to Sarasota County historian Jeff LaHurd, as many as eight people fell to their deaths inside the abandoned building before it was demolished. Among them was a Sarasota High School student named King Richter, who died at the site in 1954.

The building was finally torn down in 1964. The Arvida Corporation developed the Longboat Key Club on the surrounding property, and today the Chart House restaurant — a waterfront seafood establishment overlooking Sarasota Bay — sits on the ground where Ringling's grand hotel once rose. The 'Ghost Hotel' remains one of the most enduring local symbols of the boom-and-bust era that shaped Florida's Gulf coast.