Owners shutter Longboat Key hotel due to heavy Helene damage

The Sandpiper Inn, a Longboat Key hotel built in the 1960s, has permanently closed due to damage from Hurricane Helene.

According to Facebook posts and a note on the property's website, the 11-room hotel is shut down effective immediately and those who’ve made deposits will get a refund.

The hotel’s owners say in the note that Helene caused extensive water damage to all rooms and the exterior of the hotel. The note goes on to say that it is not feasible to repair the property, especially as storms of Helene’s magnitude are happening more often.

Asked if the closing was permanent on a local Facebook page, Christine Cullison, who owns it with her husband Harold, wrote: “Yes I am the owner sadly we are closed forever the damage is extensive.”

The Cullisons declined to comment for this story in an email Friday evening to the Business Observer but posted on Facebook on Oct. 1 that they are “dealing with a lot of grief today as we process the pain of our Sandpiper family who are devastated by our mutual loss of our paradise.”

Hurricane Helene just grazed the area Sept. 26 but caused massive flooding along Florida’s barrier islands, destroying businesses and homes before making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4 storm and continuing north.

According to a report from Yahoo Finance, preliminary estimates from Moody’s Analytics found the storm caused between $15 billion to $26 billion in damage. Locally, preliminary damage estimates are tracking over $1 billion across Sarasota and Manatee counties, according to interviews with county spokespeople, statements and press releases. 

The Sandpiper, at 5451 Gulf of Mexico Drive, is on the Manatee side of Longboat Key. Despite being more than 50-years old the property, according to its website, “remains unchanged from then.”

County records show the Cullisons paid $4 million for the land in 2005.

One couple who stayed at the hotel year-after-year told the Longboat Key Observer, a sister paper of the Business Observer, in 2022 that “every year we're like, ‘Oh, please don't sell this and build a giant thing.’’’

“You know, just keep this sweet little place, it's like an oasis.’’