Press Release June, 2005                                                                                                 Home
 

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June 6, 2005

For Immediate Release

This is to announce that I, Diane Hein, am no longer associated with or cooperating with Rae Claire Johnson and her group "Friends of the Belleview Biltmore" to save the Belleview Biltmore Hotel. However, I will continue to try to stop the demolition and to save the Biltmore, its four wings, through my web site www.SaveTheBiltmore.com which I first put up in December 2004 when there were reports that the Belleview Biltmore would be demolished.

Rae Claire Johnson officially started this nonprofit organization Friends of the Belleview Biltmore herself sometime in late April 2005.  I have NEVER been an official member of Rae Claire Johnson’s nonprofit organization the “Friends of the Belleview Biltmore,” and I was NEVER asked to be on her board of directors.  Plus I do not want to be on that board, as her mission does not agree with mine.  Her group is to tear down the north and south wings and replace them with condo hotel units, and my mission has been to save the entire Belleview Biltmore Hotel since December 2004.

My independent web site, www.SaveTheBiltmore.com has only been cooperating with Rae Claire Johnson and a small group of others to stop the immediate demolition of the Belleview Biltmore Hotel. Rae Claire Johnson and many others had written to me April 12, 2005 after an article in the St. Petersburg Times by Aaron Sharockman and Lorri Helfand in which the name of my web site was printed.  I started working with Rae Claire Johnson and also with Laurie Adams, Julie Kleckner and Jeff Francis to stop the immediate demolition of the Belleview Biltmore, which we have succeeded in doing so far especially with the help of Sam Casella.  That was our immediate concern and main mission at that time.

In my independent web site, www.SaveTheBiltmore.com (under General Information on the main page, second paragraph) and in one or more of my Belleview Biltmore Updates, and in emails exchanged with Rae Claire Johnson, I have written and expressed my disapproval of tearing down the north and south Biltmore wings. Mrs. Johnson never mentioned to me the name of the developer she has been associated with, that is, Rory Hiller who wishes to tear down the north and south wings and replace them with hotel condo units in their place.  I had hoped that Mrs. Johnson would pursue efforts in saving the entire structure, but she has not even though she mentioned that saving the entire structure was an option.  I only learned the developer’s name, Rory Hiller, this past Saturday when an article in the St. Petersburg Times revealed it at a press conference that Rae Claire Johnson had with him at the Belleview Biltmore, Friday, June 3, 2005.

I am against putting condo hotel units in place of the north and south wings. In order to preserve the historical relevancy and the title “world’s largest continually occupied wooden structure,” we need to save the entire Belleview Biltmore building to preserve its Victorian size, look and elegance.   There are already large high-rise condominiums to one side of the Belleview Biltmore, constructed some 30 years ago.  These unfortunately now block the once beautiful view to the Gulf from the Belleview Biltmore. Our county is being overdeveloped with condominiums, we are losing our wonderful tourist industry as a result, and I do not want our county being called “Condo County” instead of Pinellas County as this will adversely affect the Biltmore tourist trade.  Adding more condo hotel units around the core of the hotel will only further ruin the tourist trade to the Belleview Biltmore and Pinellas County.

I also only learned through Saturday’s St. Petersburg Times article on June 4 that Rory Hiller had plans to sell the Belleview Biltmore back to Rae Claire Johnson’s group, the Friends of the Belleview Biltmore in about five years.  Rae Claire Johnson NEVER told me about this plan.

Here is the link to the Saturday’s newspaper article in the St. Petersburg Times about Rory Hiller for those news media who have not seen it:  http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/849294581.html?MAC=2105bc036d31f3fff7ba22093e3b4160&did=849294581&FMT=FT&FMTS=FT&date=Jun+4%2C+2005&author=LORRI+HELFAND&printformat=&desc=Consultant+shapes+deal+to+save+Biltmore+hotel

Because I still want to save the Biltmore, I will be keeping my www.SavetheBiltmore.com web site up and running.   I will continue to work with anyone who wishes to save the Biltmore with all of its four wings, thus preserving its historical relevancy and beauty.

It has been through my web site, www.SaveTheBiltmore.com that people have been writing HUNDREDS of letters to various organizations and public officials.  In fact, Kathleen Kauffman, Executive Director of the Florida Trust, wrote me that she herself has received hundreds of emails from concerned citizens, and this is a result of her email address being on my web site www.SaveTheBiltmore.com.  As a result she placed the Belleview Biltmore as one of the 11 most endangered historical places in Florida.  The hundreds of letters she and other organizations and officials received were a result of the Biltmore web site with my ONE MINUTE EMAIL campaign that I personally started back in April 2005.

Will Michaels, Executive Director, of the St. Petersburg Museum of History wrote me to ask that his name be removed from the ONE MINUTE EMAIL campaign on my Biltmore web site because he had been receiving so many emails from people wanting to save the Biltmore!   The interest in saving the Belleview Biltmore is very broad ranged, and I have received over 9,000 hits on my Biltmore web site as of today!

Also the National Trust received so many emails from people directed from my Biltmore web site in my ONE MINUTE EMAIL campaign, that they put the Belleview Biltmore just recently on their list of 11 most endangered historical places in America, June 2, 2005.  The deadline for this list was in January 2005 which had already past.  However, because so many people wrote the National Trust, directed from my Biltmore web site, they included the Belleview Biltmore on their 2005 endangered list!

I have posted this press release on my web site at http://www.savethebiltmore.com/BelleviewBiltmorePressRelease_June_2005.html so you can verify its authenticity, and that it is from me.

A final note:  my request to the news media is to ask you to differentiate my Save the Biltmore web site from the Friends of the Belleview Biltmore group in your publications, articles, radio or TV coverage from now on should this topic come up.

Thank you.
 

Sincerely,
 

Diane Hein at www.SaveTheBiltmore.com