Magic Beach Motel

This wacky inn is located on that island near St. Augustine that has no name, but I call it Vilano Key because Vilano Beach is its primary hub unless you count Mickler's Landing and I don't.

Originally this motel, which is very near the pier and the pavilion that once was the Vilano Beach Casino, was called simply Vilano Beach Motel. But in 1999, it was used as the set for the TV series Safe Harbor, which altered the sign to read "Magic Beach Motel" because the show's setting was in the fictitious town of Magic Beach, FL. After the show was cancelled, the owners chose the keep the sign and the name change, and is now of Florida's most elusive specimens: a old-school retro "Cadillac" motel that is also clean, updated and modern at the same time.

And yes, at night when the sign's turned on, the neon bunnies light up in a staggered manner so that it creates the illusion of them bounding out of the top hat.

Castle Otttis

Earlier this year, driving down a relatively desolate stretch of A1A north of Vilano Beach, I beheld a most unlikely visage: a huge faux-Irish castle in the middle of nowhere.

Even after doing a little research, I still can't quite wrap my head around how and why this place came to be. Like other great castle-creating obsessives such as Kentucky's Rex Martin and Florida's own Edward Leedskalnin, the man behind this structure (Ottis Sadler) pretty much just thought it up and did it. Apparently he didn't even file a building permit when he started, and it's officially designated a "garage" because the county property appraiser didn’t know what else to call it. The primary work was done by just two people all by themselves, which is a rather amazing feat.

The castle's website doesn't exactly shed much light on it all. One page says the castle was "Done in Remembrance of Jesus Christ" (a sentiment echoed by a sign outside the building) but another of its pages says "It was created as an expression of art" and then goes on to say, in all caps, "CASTLE OTTTIS WAS CREATED TO DESIGNATE A PLACE OF PEACE UPON THIS EARTH."

The website also gives some rather puzzling factoids, such as:

"The project was begun on May 1, 1984 and sense of completeness was felt about the concrete portion of the sculpture (exterior) in the summer of 1988."

And:

"The weight of the building is conservatively estimated at more than 7 million pounds."

And also:

"It is interesting to note that this structure is located on the same latitude as the Great Pyramids in Egypt (30° North Latitude)."

Alrighty then.

The website doesn't explain why "Ottis" is spelled with three Ts, but numerous online sources have stated that locals believe it to be because each T represents one of the three who were crucified at Calvary.