Holiday House owners convert to Ramada Resort

Sarasotans Vincent Payne and Rodney Dessberg, who bought the Holiday House hotel in Venice late last year, have big plans to reinvigorate it. The owners are flagging the 164-room hotel as a Ramada Resort and have started work on a full renovation.

The 36-year-old hotel was last renovated in 2003.

Demolition of the room interiors is under way. Along with the building renovations, the owners are developing a pool and gym next to the existing building and landscaping the courtyard for events.

“There is just so much real estate [in the courtyard],” Dessberg says. “Even though we are building a large pool that's 100-foot by 75-foot we were only using a quarter of it. So we decided to put in a 3,000-square-foot gym. It's so immense, just leaving it grass would have been a waste.”

Payne and Dessberg are in talks with a Sarasota restaurant group to operate 16,900 square feet of banquet, restaurant and bar space.

Improvements to the hotel are scheduled to take three to four months with total completion tagged at less than six months.

Sarasota-based Southern Cross Contracting Inc. has been hired as the general contractor for the work.