Sanibel Island's Casa Ybel Resort has an amazing story to tell. One that we are able to share with you visually, thanks to the efforts of David E. Carter for preserving valuable photographs and post cards as part of the Pfeifer Vintage Photo Collection as the Sanibel Public Library.

After the Sanibel lighthouse was completed in 1884, homesteaders began arriving.

It was in 1889 that a traveling evangelist preacher by the name of Reverend George Barnes’ boat ran aground on Sanibel and he decided to stay on the Island and homesteaded 160 acres of land. Barnes built his first home, a small stilt cottage on Tarpon Bay.

Hoping to attract the attention of passing sailors, he built The Church of the Four Gospels on the Gulf side of Sanibel which was later destroyed in the 1910 hurricane. After the Church was destroyed services were held at the Sanibel School.

Barnes also built Sanibel’s first lodging establishment in 1898 and called it “The Sisters” for his two daughters. His wife Jeanne ran the hotel, and while his 2 girls (the sisters) helped with the guests. While his son Will was not as helpful running the hotel, he loved to entertain guests with critters he would catch and would meet visitors at the steamboat dock. The Sister’s Hotel is known as Casa Ybel Resort today, an Island property rich in history. This photo above taken between 1895 & 1900 shows the Sister’s Hotel complex with the Church pictured to the far left.

By 1896, The Sisters Hotel had grown to three buildings and during that time there were only 2 hotels The Matthews & The Sisters Hotel and 1 church on Sanibel. 

Starting in 1907, the Steamboat “Thomas A. Edison” transported guests to Sanibel from Fort Myers frequently. On several occasions, Thomas Edison visited Sanibel as well. This paddle steamboat was later destroyed in a fire in 1914.

The Tayntor family arrived in 1908 and began to visit time and time again. The Sister’s hotel became their home away from home. Charles Tayntor Senior was one of the foremost mausoleum and monument builders in America at the time and was also a member of the US Olympic Pistol Team. His two sons Charles Jr. and younger brother Hal loved hunting alligators and snakes. This explains the many historic pictures of guests pictured with guns on the front steps of The Sisters Hotel.

When Rev. Barnes daughter Georgia married Edward Duncan, he went all out and built the Thistle Lodge as a wedding present for the young couple. Thomas Edison frequently visited the Sister’s Hotel and by February 1912, the Sisters changed their name to Hotel Casa Ybel. They created postcards and wanted a more exotic sounding name. His son Will suggested the name presumably because he never liked the hotel named after his two sisters.

In 1928 the First Sanibel Shell Fair occurred on the porch of the Matthews Hotel (Island Inn today) and the following year it was held at The Sisters (Casa Ybel Resort). The shell fair was a competition between the two resorts Winter Residents to show off the shells they collected during their stays. I’m sure they would be shocked to see how large and popular this event still remains to this day.

Thanks to David E. Carter for digitizing images into the Sanibel Public Library's Pfeifer Vintage Photo Collection. It was a community effort to bring many of these images to Pfeifer Realty Group to be scanned and returned to the families. Thanks also to DigitalFGCU, Florida Gulf Coast University Library.