Bilmar Beach Resort marks full recovery a year after Hurricane Helene
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.

Clyde Smith snips the reopening ribbon in the lobby of the Bilmar Beach Resort in Treasure Island. Video: Kathryn Varn/Axios
On a recent Friday afternoon at the Bilmar Beach Resort, guests milled around the lobby and sipped drinks by the pool as the gentle Gulf sparkled in the distance.
- In other words, it felt utterly, totally normal.
Why it matters: That's no small thing for the 1960s-era Treasure Island landmark — and for a beach community that's still in recovery a year after back-to-back hurricanes.
- "I'll tell you what: This is back to normalcy," Treasure Island Mayor John Doctor said at a celebration of the Bilmar's last phase of reopening.
👋 Kathryn here. I attended the celebration at the invitation of general manager Clyde Smith, who is also an Axios Tampa Bay reader and member.
- Smith responded to my recent dispatch after a long walk on the beaches a year after Hurricane Helene, saying that he wished the story had included more success stories, like the Bilmar's.
- After hearing all Smith and his staff had been through, I understood why. It's a pretty moving story.

Flashback: As Hurricane Helene churned in the Gulf, a handful of employees sheltered at the hotel while Smith and his wife, Maria, hunkered down in their home about a mile away.
- At the same time he got the call that storm surge had breached the hotel, water began to seep into his home, first as a trickle, then a roar.
- The Smiths blew up a kayak and paddled away to safety at a neighbor's two-story home down the street. At the hotel, second-floor rooms facing into a courtyard shielded his staffers from the worst of it.
Yes, but: The next morning revealed the extent of the damage on the ground floor: The lobby and bar were destroyed. The pools were browned out.
- Furniture from the 33 first-floor rooms had been sucked out with the receding floodwater and strewn as far away as the Clock Tower a half-mile away.


Within 24 hours, a dozen employees and managers were on site, cleaning and carting away debris.
- Within a few days, they began serving drinks and sandwiches out of the resort's in-house restaurant, Sloppy Joe's on the Beach.
And thus began the Bilmar's pivot from beachside resort to post-disaster community hub.
- When Smith learned that Treasure Island firefighters, displaced from their flooded station, were sleeping on the floor at City Hall, he invited them to stay in the resort's higher-up rooms.
- As FEMA began coordinating temporary housing, the Bilmar became an evacuee village, giving refuge for an average of five months to displaced residents — including Smith and his wife. ("It was very interesting waking up at work every day," he told me.)
- When Thanksgiving rolled around, the Smiths, with help from a Tampa nonprofit, gave out 120 turkey dinners from the Sloppy Joe's patio.
Through it all, Smith and his staff worked out of a cramped hotel room and temporary front desk — even during the bumpy transition to welcoming regular guests back in February.
- Even so, Smith told me, he'd do it all again.
- "No question," he said. "And I probably would find a way to do it even more proactively."
The latest: Smith and his wife were able to move back into their home in August.
- And last week, he finally got his office back.
