TALLAHASSEE — Within the shadow of Florida’s Capitol, a supposedly closed boutique resort has grow to be an unique retreat for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ closest allies and high advisers — with a significant supporter of the governor performing as gatekeeper.
Ostensibly closed for renovations, the Governor’s Inn is the place DeSantis’ presidential marketing campaign paid hire for marketing campaign employees and the place his high deputies generally mingle on a balcony overlooking Adams Avenue. It’s the place the governor’s former chief of employees and marketing campaign supervisor held his first 2026 fundraiser after DeSantis made him Florida’s lawyer common.
There is no such thing as a approach for most people to ebook a room or occasion on-line. Stroll-ins aren’t welcome, in line with indicators taped to the glass doorways on the entrance entrance. To get in, it helps to know the proprietor: Craig Mateer, a high sponsor of the governor’s second inauguration who made his non-public planes accessible to DeSantis throughout his presidential marketing campaign.
The dynamics at play contained in the Governor’s Inn, as described by greater than a dozen individuals who have been inside for occasions, in a single day stays or drinks, have ethics specialists questioning about what’s going on inside a venue with no public details about the worth of rooms, drinks or occasions, and no clear standards about find out how to get in.
“It’s a black field,” stated Bob Jarvis, an ethics professor at Nova Southeastern College’s regulation faculty. “There is no such thing as a solution to know what’s occurring. There’s no solution to know what expectations there are of the proprietor. There is no such thing as a solution to know whether or not these expectations have been fulfilled on a quid professional quo foundation.”
The governor’s personal ethics coverage prohibits employees from accepting presents, corresponding to using non-public property or entry to purchases that aren’t accessible to others, to keep away from the “look of impropriety.”
Mateer, whose possession of the resort has created an uncommon degree of entry in a capital metropolis constructed on energy and affect, controls what the agency employed to renovate the Inn describes as “the right backdrop for leisure or putting offers.” However in a Might 7 interview, he downplayed the venue’s exclusivity.
“We’re not that cool,” stated Mateer, who lives in Orlando. “We now have some events there, it relies upon.”
DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin didn’t reply questions concerning the governor’s high staffers utilizing the resort and second-floor bar, or whether or not they pay for his or her drinks whereas there. He accused reporters of “stalking individuals on their lunch breaks and of their private lives, which even authorities staffers are allowed to have.”
Contained in the Governor’s Inn
The comings and goings on the resort and bar have grow to be a subject of dialog amongst Tallahassee’s governing class, in no small half attributable to its opaqueness.
The resort’s makeover was accomplished in 2023, in line with the structure agency that gained awards for its design. However Mateer, who purchased the resort in 2020 for $2.9 million, insists it stays closed as a result of it’s nonetheless underneath building.
“We‘re probably not able to open,” he stated, citing security issues associated to a gutted restaurant connected to the resort and plumbing points. “We‘ve type of limped alongside.”
An individual who answered a name from a reporter on the resort on Might 5 repeated that declare, although there aren’t any open permits for building on the property with the town of Tallahassee. The one solution to keep on the resort is that if the proprietor approves it, the individual stated.
It’s not clear how a lot Mateer spent on renovations to the historic constructing, a horse-drawn carriage and wagon store that was first transformed to a resort in 1983. Info accessible by metropolis permits and native newspaper articles recommend it was a multimillion-dollar undertaking involving a redesign of the facade and the development of a brand new balcony to go along with a modernized second-floor bar. The venue has an lively resort and liquor license.
Hungerford Design, the renovating agency employed and owned by Mateer’s late childhood buddy, describes the resort’s second-floor “Appaloosa” bar on its web site as a venue that gives top-shelf bourbons and personal whiskey and cigar lockers. The wooden and steel-lined inside extends to a balcony overlooking Adams Avenue. A go to “simply might need you mingling with the Tallahassee elites,” the design agency boasts on its web site.
Rooms are “furnished with their unique vintage poster beds and armoires, distinctive to every room, refinished in historic playful colours mixing the previous with the brand new,” in line with the agency. “Vintage brick and wainscoting full the classic setting.” Bogs are adorned with “premium Kallista fixtures” and “Italian Sicis mosaic tile” within the showers.
Contained in the foyer, a big portrait of DeSantis is prominently displayed subsequent to framed footage of former Florida governors. In step with the theme of the resort, its 29 rooms are named after Florida governors.
Mateer has been internet hosting visitors on the resort since at the least October of 2023, when a contingent from Dublin visited Tallahassee. In January of final yr, DeSantis’ wheezing presidential marketing campaign reported a fee of $2,300 for hire. In December, the Republican Celebration of Florida reported paying $45,311 to the Inn to cowl bills associated to the Florida electors who traveled to Tallahassee to solid the state’s 29 votes within the presidential election.
In line with a supply accustomed to the comings and goings on the Inn, it’s the place DeSantis and the primary woman watched outcomes roll in from the November election.
Mateer, whom DeSantis appointed to the state college system‘s Board of Governors, has additionally allowed New Faculty of Florida and Florida Worldwide College to host occasions on the resort. The schools’ respective presidents, Richard Corcoran and Jeannette Nuñez, are former DeSantis administration officers and have stayed on the Inn, in line with the schools.
Nuñez’s room value $113 an evening, in line with FIU, which stated its reception on the resort value $13,266, together with meals and beverage, and was paid for by the college’s basis. New Faculty didn’t instantly reply when requested how a lot the college paid for its occasions or Corcoran’s resort stays.
The truth that the resort is open to some is not any secret in Tallahassee. On the afternoon of Might 6, reporters witnessed DeSantis’ chief of employees, Jason Weida, and the governor’s director of legislative affairs, Peter Cuderman, assembly for about an hour on the outside balcony earlier than heading again to the governor’s workplace within the state Capitol.
In January, The Floridian reported that state Rep. Meg Weinberger, R- Palm Seaside Gardens, and her husband have been advised to pack their luggage and discover a new resort. The rationale, in line with witnesses: She sided with GOP legislative leaders as a substitute of the governor on a hotly debated immigration invoice.
Weinberger declined to remark. Mateer declined to touch upon Weinberger’s ejection.
Those that have been inside say the resort has been superbly remade.
Barry Richard, a high-profile Tallahassee lawyer whose spouse is a Democrat within the Florida Home, stated he was capable of get his son a room in Mateer’s resort for his marriage ceremony night time after calling a common supervisor who had given him a tour. He booked it by his regulation agency.
“I’ll let you know what, he spent some huge cash on his pastime,” Richard stated. “Some individuals purchase gigantic yachts. He simply constructed a fantastic resort.”
Observe the cash
A lot of Mateer’s fortune is attributed to an airport baggage-handling firm he offered for $275 million in 2018. Two years later, he began to provide massive political money to DeSantis and the state GOP, marketing campaign finance information present.
Since 2020, Mateer and his rapid household have given $1.9 million to DeSantis’ gubernatorial and presidential marketing campaign efforts and to his inauguration.
Corporations affiliated with Mateer have been additionally paid almost $1 million for journey bills as DeSantis criss-crossed the nation whereas working for president, federal marketing campaign finance information present.
DeSantis has in flip put in Mateer on state boards. He serves on the Board of Governors and was beforehand appointed to boards that oversee Florida State College, the Orlando airport and Walt Disney World’s particular district.
In an interview, Mateer stated the results of his donating is “they put you on these boards.”
“Then I do what I believe, and generally they prefer it, and generally they don‘t,” he stated. “I don‘t actually belong on these boards.”
He made gentle of his relationship with DeSantis, who he stated “does what he thinks is true and pushes ahead.” He stated politics wants “extra individuals giving that don’t need something.”
“I’m not some massive political man,” he stated. “You gained‘t see me with any state contract. You gained‘t see me with benefits. I don‘t want them. I don‘t need them.”
A assessment of the latest three years of lobbying information discovered that not one of the dozens of lively firms that look like affiliated with Mateer and his household have had registered state lobbyists.
The Mateer household has continued to assist the term-limited governor after he dropped out of the presidential race.
In March, Mateer’s son, William James, gave $500,000 to a political committee that DeSantis plans to make use of to assist his successor. Mateer’s son additionally contributed $275,000 to Lawyer Common James Uthmeier’s political committee, making him the lawyer common’s high donor up to now, marketing campaign information present.
Uthmeier, who was seen on the resort a number of instances when he was DeSantis’ chief of employees, picked Mateer’s Inn to host a March fundraiser with influential political operatives enlisted to assist him increase cash.
Amongst these in attendance, in line with the flyer: Jeff Aaron, who has grow to be the go-to lawyer for a few of the DeSantis administration‘s most high-profile assignments, together with representing the embattled Hope Florida Basis charity; Aaron‘s spouse, Chelsea, the governor’s appointments director; Weida, DeSantis’ chief of employees; and Carlos Duart, the CEO of Miami engineering and emergency administration agency CDR Maguire, which has acquired tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} in contracts from the DeSantis administration.
Duart, an FIU trustee whose spouse serves on the primary woman’s Hope Florida Basis board, was seen by reporters going out and in of the Inn on Might 6. He gave $500,000 to DeSantis’ political committee, Florida Freedom Fund, in March and $25,000 to Uthmeier’s political committee.
Duart didn’t reply to a request looking for remark.
Marketing campaign finance information present tens of hundreds of {dollars} flowed to Uthmeier’s political committee after the fundraiser on the Inn however no file of the institution being rented out for the occasion.
Marketing campaign spokesperson Makenzi Mahler stated bills associated to the marketing campaign launch are mirrored in a $4,000 fee to the regulation agency DownsAaron. The agency is co-led by Aaron, the registered agent for Uthmeier’s political committee, and Mayanne Downs, who has performed non-public authorized work for Mateer. Aaron advised the Occasions/Herald in an e mail that the agency “helped coordinate” the fundraiser.
Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Uthmeier’s workplace, didn’t reply questions on why the lawyer common was hanging out on the Governor’s Inn, whether or not he carried out official enterprise there or accepted free meals or drinks. He advised a reporter to “get a life.”
“Because the Governor’s former Chief Ethics Officer, James maintains the very best degree of ethics and certainly has been requested by many state workers to supply ethics trainings,” Redfern stated in an announcement. “That is simply one other hit piece from a pretend reporter.”
20 years in the past, Florida officers reformed ethics guidelines and legal guidelines to forestall particular pursuits from influencing state enterprise by freebies corresponding to meals, drinks and journeys.
These guidelines require state officers who obtain presents price $100 or extra, together with using non-public property, to reveal it to the state’s Fee on Ethics. The Fee stated on Might 13 that it has acquired no present disclosures from Uthmeier, Weida or different high administration officers who’ve been on the Inn.
Because the disclosure requirement was put in place, state officers have reported presents starting from cigar containers to bottles of wine and swords, information present. DeSantis has by no means filed a present disclosure as governor, in line with the Florida Fee on Ethics. However he has been accused of failing to report journeys on non-public jets. DeSantis additionally acquired a $28,000 golf simulator on the Governor’s Mansion from one in every of his donors, which state ethics officers discovered was a present to the state, not the governor.
Mateer dismissed the concept opening his resort to the governor’s employees introduced a possible ethics drawback.
“What worth is it?” he stated. “I’m nonetheless underneath building.”
