REDDINGTON BEACH, Fla. — A Reddington Beach motel that served as the backdrop to family memories for more than 30 years is finally welcoming back guests.

The opening comes 18 months after the first floor and most of their grounds were destroyed by Hurricane Helene.

What You Need To Know

The Sails Resort Motel on Redington Beach reopened after 18 months of rebuilding

Hurricane Helene destroyed the motel’s entire bottom floor in 2024

Regular visitors, including families from Canada, were eager for it to reopen

The family that owns the motel said they were determined to open their doors to families they’ve known for a lifetime.

For five years straight, The Sails Resort Motel on Redington Beach served as a home away from Annette and Mitchell Hamann.

“We have the same time every year. We come down for three and a half weeks,” Mitchell said.

That was until 2024 when Hurricane Helene destroyed the entire bottom floor of the beachfront, family-owned motel.

“We took a walk through here when we were down here last year and I couldn’t believe it,” said Annette. “Our place on the lower level was just demolished.”

The couple kept checking in for updates on a reopening date and so did sister and brother, Marlena and Damian Basek.

“It’s such a nice place and for it to be closed down as long as it was while they were rebuilding, it was devastating,” said Damian.

They spent a lot of their childhood at the Redington Beach hotel. They say for the last 20 years they’ve been coming down from Canada with their parents.

“I would count down the days. Sometimes we went twice a year. So, before I had my own kids, I would come with my parents twice a year,” Marlena said.

Now there’s another generation of their family visiting their beloved family vacation spot.

Their stories and memories here are a large part of why Zaneta Cieslak said their family were determined to rebuild.

“It makes you get up one more time the next day and keep going because some days were kind of long,” she said. “No income for like a year and a half. It was hard, but you did what you could every day. A little bit here, a little bit there and it slowly, it seemed like nothing was happening until people started showing up and they noticed how much was done.”

In 2024, Cieslak showed the extensive damage after the back-to-back storms. She had hoped to be done in a few months but that turned into more than a year.

“The last room, the two-bedroom, got finished last Friday,” she said.

So far, they’ve already got reservations up as far as a year out.

Data from Visit St. Pete/Clearwater shows hotel room openings and closures throughout the county.

On Redington Beach, there are still almost 90 rooms considered temporarily closed.

The numbers for closures on St. Pete Beach are much larger because of the larger hotels with more rooms that aren’t available.