Iconic hotel in Mexico Beach close to reopening

MEXICO Seashore, Fla. (WMBB) — Soon after much more than three many years of currently being harmed by the hurricane, the Driftwood Inn in Mexico Beach is on observe to open back again up soon.

“We’re nonetheless a Mom and Pops operation,” proprietor Tom Wooden stated. “I’m genuine proud of it. It was like an individual dropped an atomic bomb in the middle of Mexico Beach and everything was gone. But it is starting up to create back again and it is setting up back again superior than it was.”

It will be the initial hotel in Mexico Seaside to reopen since the classification five storm. It’s some thing the complete town is very pleased of right after dealing with the heartbreak of hurricane Michael.

“This is like the beacon, the light is finding brighter and brighter at the finish of the tunnel,” Mexico Seashore Local community Growth Council President Kimberly Shoaf said. “We have ongoing to shift forward and worked resiliently as a neighborhood.”

The Wooden spouse and children opened the hotel a long time in the past. The creating has been by way of a lot— even burning down in 1995.

Now, it is crafted again up with 23 units all set to rent.

“It’s a small bit much more modern, hopefully,” Wooden stated. “All of the rooms have paintings that I have finished or paintings that I collected. I had a pair hundred birdhouses. They are scattered all over. And sailboats, factors that I have gathered in the past.”

Shoaf mentioned she appreciates the homage to the prior building.

“Even however it’s a new building with new paint and new windows and new household furniture, it nevertheless has that charismatic charm that it is normally experienced and the Wooden relatives made sure to incorporate that again in because it does indicate so a great deal for the group to have the Driftwood back again,” she claimed.

The lodge has the only celebration center in Mexico Beach, holding up to 110 people.

“We cannot hold out to exhibit off this gorgeous resort to not only our inhabitants but our wonderful website visitors that go on to like Mexico Beach front,” Shoaf said.

The lodge nonetheless has a number of much more ending touches just before reopening, but they system to open its doorways to the community in early June.