Hunter Arms Hotel

In the heart of St. Cloud’s historic downtown, the Hunter Arms Hotel has welcomed guests for almost a century.

Amid the post-war economic boom of the 1920s, when cheap land and improved roads and railways drew tourists and developers in droves, Ohio mausoleum builder Grover C. Hunter traveled to St. Cloud with plans to build a hotel. 

The Hunter Arms Hotel, designed by Ohio architect Harlan Jones, opened its doors in 1927, sporting the curved arches and natural stone that embodied the Mediterranean Revival style. The design was part of the broader “Spaniflora” trend, a romanticized Spanish-meets-Florida style that swept through the state's towns in the early 20th century, shaping both architecture and cultural life. 

Along with its exterior and garden area, the style extended inside the hotel as well, with Spanish tile floors, a coquina rock fireplace, and ceiling beams made of pecky cypress. 

The 1929 stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression derailed Hunter’s plans to sell the hotel. After his death, his wife managed the hotel for years and the establishment then changed ownership several times, falling into disrepair. Then in 1994, Ann Young and Sandi Pinkert restored it as a bed and breakfast. In 2016, ADMC International bought the building and continued its evolution.

Today, visitors can book one of 40 rooms that still follow the 1927 layout. The lobby features its original brick walls and fireplace, and a chandelier that has hung for nearly a century. Guests can trace the hotel’s past with old maps and clippings featured along its walls, candlestick telephones in the lobby and some rooms, and pieces of original furniture still in use. Along with its lobby, the ground floor features a coffee shop, a restaurant and an event venue. All the bedrooms are located on the second floor.

Movie buffs might recognize the Hunter Arms as the fraternity house in "The Waterboy" (1998) with Adam Sandler, or as the hotel in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter film "Two Thousand Maniacs! " (1964). With few other records of the hotel’s early days, the film captures rare glimpses of its interior.

Almost a hundred years later, the Hunter Arms Hotel remains a cornerstone of St. Cloud’s historic downtown.