Hard Rock Hotel opened in Daytona in 2018: A look back
DAYTONA BEACH — As Hard Rock Hotel prepares to cut the ribbon on April 25 to officially celebrate $1 million in renovations to mark its fifth anniversary in May, it’s a fitting time to look back on the hotel’s original grand opening in 2018.
That celebration, capped by a mass guitar-smash by two dozen dignitaries on the hotel’s Wave Terrace, was the culmination of a five-year odyssey by the hotel’s owners, then known as Summit Hospitality Management, to transform one of the destination’s most infamously dirty and dangerous hotels, the Desert Inn, into one of the beachside’s marquee properties.
Here’s a look back at the celebration and what it took to get there:
What about that guitar smash?
Against the backdrop of a postcard-perfect beach afternoon, the outdoor stage on the hotel’s Wave Terrace was filled with an array of local elected officials, tourism and business leaders who made splinters fly as two dozen electric guitars were wielded Pete Townshend-style against the floorboards.
A look back: A smashing celebration at Daytona's Hard Rock Hotel
The rock ‘n’ roll christening was followed by a sunset concert by country act LANCO and fireworks on the beach. Earlier in the day, executives with Hard Rock International joined the hotel’s owners for a press conference in the hotel’s main ballroom.
Meanwhile, other VIP guests took guided tours of the hotel’s memorabilia, a collection with a Florida focus represented by photos of the Beatles in Miami Beach and guitars once used by Florida-based icons such as the Allman Brothers and Tom Petty.
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In case you’re wondering about those sacrificed guitars, they were broken or worn-out instruments donated by Volusia County Schools. A few weeks later, the hotel presented a donation of 20 Fender Squire Stratocaster guitars to the district to be distributed to music classrooms countywide.
What was involved in bringing Hard Rock to Daytona Beach?
It was a long road for the hotel’s owners.
Summit, which as since been renamed Asante Asset Management, started working to redevelop the former Desert Inn after acquiring the property for $6 million in 2013.
Summit had to gut and rebuild the entire interior of that former hotel, once proclaimed by TripAdvisor as one of the dirtiest hotels in the nation, to transform it into a luxury gem.
Initially, the owners had plans to reopen it as a four-star Westin Hotel, but those plans changed in early 2017 when the Volusia County Council approved Summit’s request to instead convert the oceanfront property to a Hard Rock Hotel.
Wasn't a Hard Rock in the works elsewhere in Daytona Beach?
Yes, Canadian developer Bayshore Capital had plans to develop an oceanfront hotel/condominium complex that would have included a Hard Rock Hotel on vacant beachfront property south of International Speedway Boulevard on State Road A1A.
Plans for that goal also began in 2013, but were suspended about 10 months before Summit approached the County Council for permission to turn the Desert Inn into a Hard Rock.
Bayshore Capital’s proposed site for its complex that would have included a Hard Rock remained vacant, but the company did develop the Max Beach Resort, a $45 million beachfront property that opened in June 2022 as a vacation rental property with 72 one-, two- and three-bedroom vacation residences on Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach Shores.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona's Hard Rock Hotel: A look back at its 2018 grand opening
