For a short time back in 1965 and early 1966, the beautiful Casino Pool and the Hall of Fame Pool, aka the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center, stood side by side or back to back, depending on how you looked at it. There are not many of those amazing photos; to see the contrast of the two pools. The Casino built by famed Fort Lauderdale architect Francis Abreu, who built many of the homes in and around Fort Lauderdale, which if you grew up in town, its a style you can’t help but love.
The city’s original beach structure, built in about 1915, called “casino” was a story wooden structure which contained dressing rooms and a dance floor, but no pool. Promoted by a group of Fort Lauderdale businessmen led by local promoter Commodore A.H. Brook, the new Casino and pool was widely regarded as a means of lifting the city out of the depression which had followed the collapse of the land boom. It was designed by Abreu and constructed by building contractor John Obegon at a cost of $118,000 according to this 1930 account. A 1928 Ft. Lauderdale Daily News newspaper article which announced the building’s opening, however, placed the cost at $125,000.
The municipal complex included an Olympic-size pool 60 by 165 feet, and three to 12 feet in depth. A story in the Fort Lauderdale Daily News claimed “the pool is filled several times weekly with 420,000 gallons of filtered salt water pumped by three wells from more than 20 feet of rock and shell and sand. The chlorinating system is one of the best in the south.” The municipal building also included a wading pool for children and hundreds of lockers for visitors.
35,000 people attended the opening ceremonies and the accompanying swim meet, which was presided overby City Commissioner Will J. “Cap” Reed.
In the ensuing decades, the Casino lived up to its promise as the center of beachfront activities in Fort Lauderdale. Beginning in 1935, it hosted the annual Collegiate Aquatic Forum, a Christmastime college swim meet which introduced vacationing college students from around the country to the attraction of Fort Lauderdale. The Casino remained a popular location for competetive swim meets for visiting tourists and for local citizens until it closed in 1965. It was subsequently demolished to make room for the Swimming Hall of Fame complex which opened that same year.
Which one did you like better? The Casino Pool with the Spanish style architecture or the new modern Swimming Hall of Fame?