City: Jacksonville Beach, FL

Category: Accommodations

Telephone: (904) 270-0025

Address: 691 North First St.

Description: There’s history in the halls of this oceanfront hotel, the name of which means “house by the sea” in Spanish. Built in 1925, the Casa Marina still sports a rare, original pecky-cypress ceiling in what is now the hotel’s dining room. (Pecky cypress is wood pecked full of holes by birds trying to get at bugs.) The recently renovated hotel has 23 oceanfront, ocean-view, and street-side rooms, 16 of them suites with sitting rooms and sofa beds. All are extremely clean and functional, and pets are allowed in certain rooms. Guests can enjoy a continental breakfast at the mahogany bar or in the oceanfront courtyard, then head to the beach and soak up the sun. The hotel’s great location in downtown Jacksonville Beach is within six blocks of many popular bars and restaurants and the beachfront band shell. But why go elsewhere when you can enjoy tapas and martinis in Casa Marina’s Penthouse Lounge? Special rates are available for longer stays.