San Juan Hotel

Though the space on Orange Avenue that the San Juan Hotel once occupied is now the Morgan and Morgan building, the San Juan Hotel was Orlando’s first permanent hotel and at one point the largest building in the town when it was first constructed in 1885.

It lasted until the late 1970s; surviving a name change, multiple additions and legal issues, including two mysterious murders, only to succumb to a fire in 1979 which damaged much of the hotel while undergoing renovation.

Early History of the San Juan Hotel

Henry S. Kedney, originally from Minnesota, moved to Orlando from Maitland in 1885. That year he would build Orlando’s first permanent hotel and the largest building in town, the San Juan Hotel.

The hotel cost around $150,000 was made of brick, topped with a dome and was three stories high. The building contract was to Captain C. E. Pierce. Its construction was started in a rather unorthodox manner; according to Eve Bacon’s Orlando: A Centennial History:

To the surprise of everyone, builders, contractors, and sidewalk superintendents, and with dire predictions of disaster, Captain Pierce leveled the top of the ground, started the first course of his foundations on top of the ground, without any base except the wide footings.

The San Juan Hotel, as featured in the July 1922 issue of Orlando Magazine

Though originally known as the San Juan de Ulloa, its name later became solely the San Juan Hotel. In 1887, Harry L. Beeman purchased the San Juan Hotel. At a cost of more than half a million dollars, Beeman added two stories and an addition to the building. He also assigned his son, Edwin, the job of manager. During his time as owner, the San Juan Hotel also served as Orlando’s post office.

By 1903, a veranda was also added to the San Juan Hotel. More alterations were added in 1914. Henry Green was responsible for the $20,000 alterations which included sample rooms for salesmen, a laundry room, and replacing the barber shop with a café. In addition, twelve private baths were also installed in the building.

Clip of the 1956 republishing of the 1925 Sanborn map of Orlando, showing the location of the San Juan Hotel on Orange Ave. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

The San Juan Hotel and The Beacham Theatre, circa 1922. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida

Murder of F. A. Miltimore*

On August 1, 1921, in Room 87 of the San Juan Hotel, F. A. Miltimore was found dead of a gunshot wound to the heart. Next to him were two empty money bags that had previously contained $32,000 stolen from the West Palm Beach Post Office. Lena Clarke was arrested for the murder.

This murder, and the media case surrounding it caused a stir not only in Florida, but also reached newspapers like the Chicago Daily Tribune and the New York Times.

Front page of the Orlando Morning Sentinel, August 3, 1921

Front page article of the New York Times, August 5th, 1921

The Murder

Fred A. Miltimore was the owner of the Arcade Restaurant**, located at 16 Pine Street. He lived at 305 Main Street in Orlando, but had only recently moved to the area with his family. In years prior, he had lived in West Palm Beach. Miltimore knew Lena Clarke from his time as as postal clerk at the West Palm Beach Post Office, where she served as postmistress.

Lena Clarke, postmistress of West Palm Beach Post Office, was the daughter of Congregational Minister A. T. Clarke. Before being charged with the murder of F. A. Miltimore, she had served as the postmistress for the post office for two years but had been employed there for fifteen years. During World War I, she was involved with the Red Cross and was known for her “generous interest” in local charities.

Lena Clark arrived in Orlando on August 1, 1921, where she had booked Room 87 of the San Juan Hotel. She used a car belonging to J. E. Chambers and brought with her a chaffeur, named Braxton H. Patterson. Throughout her time in prison, she stated that she was a “superwoman” and wrote poetry on a typewriter; some of her poems were published in the New York Times. She admitted to stealing the $32,000 from the West Palm Beach Post Office on August 3, 1921, and wrote a letter to J. E. Chambers of West Palm Beach; indicating that investigators would find $5,700 of the money in his house. She admitted to the murder of F. A. Miltimore on August 5, 1921.

According to her confession, as reported in the August 7, 1921 Orlando Morning Sentinel:

[…] F. A. Miltimore came into the office one evening and offered her brother a bottle of wine in order to refresh him, as “Paul was very tired.”

The postmistress said in the confession that after her brother had drank the wine he began to act in a peculiar manner, she became frightened and took him home […].

She says that she took him home and when she came back to the post office $38,000 had disappeared during her absence. She says she then accused Miltimore of drugging her brother and taking the money. She says that Miltimore “laughed at me.”

She continues in the confession that her brother was “dearer to her than life itself,” and that she switched the $38,000 loss to accounts under her control.

[…] “After battling with the loss for several months, I borrowed the money from a friend of my brother’s whom I supposed to be a New York business man, […] Joseph Elwell by name, and I was shocked to learn later that he was a gambler.

“Some months after I straightened my accounts with his money, Mr. Elwell tried to hold this over my head and threatened to tell the inspectors of the occurrence unless I gave the money back to him or went to New York to work for him.

“I returned the money as soon as I could […]. In the early part of May, 1920, I worked until midnight on my accounts and went home leaving all vouchers in a drawer on my desk designed for that purpose. In the morning when I came to the office the desk was broken open and the accounts gone, […].”

Orlando Morning Sentinel, August 7th, 1921

Lena Clarke also claimed that before he died, F. A. Miltimore admitted to drugging her brother, stealing the $38,000 from the post office, and also destroying a $20,000 voucher.

Clarke admitted to drugging Miltimore after calling him to the San Juan, and then shooting him because she thought that “he would never go to sleep”. She had previously stated that she did not recall shooting him.

Image of Lena Clarke from front page of the Orlando Morning Sentinel August 7, 1921.

The Trial

Lena Clarke and Baxter H. Patterson were put on trial for the murder of F. A. Miltimore on November 22, 1921, with a verdict being reached on December 3, 1921. Clarke pleaded insanity. The jury believed her; and she was unanimously sentenced to one year at the Florida State Mental Hospital in Chattahoochee. Baxter Patterson was acquitted of the murder.

Lena Clarke would spend one year in the Florida State Mental Hospital before returning to West Palm Beach and living the rest of her life there in relative obscurity. She died in 1967.

Additionally, in 1920, Joseph Elwell, the man who had lent Lena Clarke $38,000, was shot and killed in New York in an unrelated murder. Though papers at the time seemed keen to link Lena Clarke to the murder of this man, and she was questioned about it, she maintained her innocence, stating she was not in New York at the time of the murder and was not investigated further; Elwell’s murder is still unsolved.

Headlines from the Evening Reporter Star, December 3, 1921

* The author of this post cannot explain why reports in the Orlando Morning Sentinel listed the decedent’s name as W. H. Miltmore or F. A. Miltimore almost interchangeably. The Eve Bacon book previously mentioned and Orlando, The City Beautiful by Jerrell H. Shofner refers to the decedent’s name as W. H. Miltmore. In other sources, however, the decedent is named F. A. Miltimore or Fred Miltimore. The author has used the Carey Hand Funeral Register and the Carey Hand Funeral Records from 1921 to confirm the decedent’s legal name.

** Additionally, sources often list the decedent as the proprietor of the Arcade Restaurant in Orlando, however, according to the 1920 West Palm Beach City Directory, Fred Miltimore was the proprietor of the West Palm Beach News Agency, which was located inside of the West Palm Beach Post Office. The 1921 Orlando City Directory lists the owners of the Arcade Restaurant as W. H. and J. H. Rike. The author has been unable to locate evidence of a contract that shows that the Arcade Restaurant changed owners from the Rikes to F. A. Miltimore. She has included information naming Miltimore as the owner of the Arcade Restaurant as it is also listed in the Carey Hand Funeral Records.

Murder of Dolores Myerly

The second of the infamous murders at the San Juan Hotel occurred on February 16, 1938.

Dolores Myerly, originally from Jacksonville, was staying in Room 208 of the San Juan Hotel. She had met a man, Robert Etty, at Jack Holloway’s Friendly Bar earlier that night and had invited him to her room.

When he arrived, he offered her some whiskey. She took a drink of it, asked “What in the world did you put in this stuff?” before collapsing on the floor. Robert Etty attempted to revive her and called Doctor Duncan McEwan but these attempts were unsuccessful. An autopsy would reveal that it was potassium cyanide that killed her.

Robert Etty was arrested for the murder of Dolores Myerly, but he maintained that he did not know the whiskey was poisoned. He stated that he had received it from another man at Jack Holloway’s Friendly Bar. The investigation led to Donald Long, who also was unaware the whiskey was poisoned, stating that he had received it from George Coston on Valentine’s Day.

George Coston was well known in Orlando, at that time running a private investigation firm, but had previously served as police captain. Donald Long was in his employ for about a year, but at the time of the murder was no longer an employee of Coston’s.

Blurb from front page of Orlando Reporter Star, February 19, 1938
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Dr. E. N. Sykes admitted to supplying George Coston with the quarter pound of potassium cyanide. The amount of potassium cyanide that was in the whiskey was enough to kill three people.

Donald Long, Dr. E. N. Sykes, and George Coston were all charged with the murder of Dolores Myerly. George Coston was found guilty and sentenced to death but died in prison in 1942. The State of Florida’s case against George Coston has now become legal precedent and has been referenced in other unintentional murder cases.

Bankruptcies, Closure and Rebranding

The San Juan Hotel maintained a fixture in the Downtown Orlando area through the 1940s and 1950s, receiving additional improvements in the middle of the latter decade. It remained the largest and most modern hotel in Orlando.

However, on June 4, 1965, the San Juan Hotel closed its doors for the first time due to unpaid back taxes and construction bills. It was purchased by John D. Weed and reopened in November 1972, before closing again in 1974, this time due to low occupancy. It was purchased by its final owner Edward Tomas “Ken” Bray in 1977.

Under Bray’s ownership, the San Juan Hotel was renamed the Grand Central Hotel. The Grand Central was transformed into a “disco hotel”, where performers such as Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, and and Earth, Wind & Fire performed and the hotel itself catered to the LGBTQ community. The Grand Central, however, also received threats from members of the Orlando community, including from religious leaders in the area.

On January 2, 1979, a fire broke out at the Grand Central Hotel. Though the fire was contained to the first three floors, the Grand Central was, however, undergoing remodeling which allowed the fire to spread more rapidly. There were suggestions that the famous hotel was the victim of arson, but no one was ever held accountable for the fire that ultimately closed the San Juan Hotel for good.

Historical Site Designation Attempts and Demolition

The closed Grand Central / San Juan Hotel stood vacant for one year before its demolition. The Orlando Historic Preservation Board attempted in vain to save the hotel, but it could not be saved. The Historic Preservation Board at that time had little power and no director to help them.

The building was demolition in 1980 and was replaced by First Union Bank. In its site currently is the Morgan & Morgan Building.