In City of Grudges, Walker Holmes and Big Boy jog past the San Carlos hotel –“The Gray Lady of Palafox.” Built in 1910, lumber magnate and shipbuilder Frasier Bingham envisioned it would rival the upscale hotels in New Orleans, Mobile, and Atlanta when it opened on the first day of Mardi Gras celebrations. Over the years, a series of owners would expand on the north and west sides of the hotel, adding a ballroom and office and retail spaces.
The hotel wasn’t still standing in 2010 – the time setting for the book—but I wanted to include it in the story as a historic structure in disrepair and about to be demolished.
I also took the stories I had heard about Edward Ball, founder of the St. Joe Company and brother-in-law of Alfred I. du Pont, and created a character who lived for decades on the top floor of the San Carlos, Pinckney Hall.
Edward Ball was one of the most powerful men in Florida up until his death in 1981. Referred to as “a law unto himself,” despite the fact that he never held public office and did not own the assets he controlled for the du Pont trust.
He was a leader of the pro-segregation, anti-homosexual, and anti-communist Pork Chop Gang, a group of Democratic Party legislators from North Florida – the perfect model for a character in City of Grudges.
Tight-fisted with money, Ball built the Florida National Bank building in Jacksonville. The nine-story building didn’t have a single hot water tap and no executive washrooms.
For years, Ball lived in a a two-room suite at the Robert Meyer Hotel across the street from his office in the bank. At 5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, he would gather with his cronies for cocktails until the network news began at 6 p.m.
His toast – Confusion to the Enemy – was the title of his 1976 biography.