San Marco Point House B&B Website
Let me tell you a fun story about the first website I ever made! It was way back in 1997 when I was working at America Online (AOL). My first real project for a paying client was for a cozy bed and breakfast called the San Marco Point House.
My journey into web development began at AOL, where I mastered various tech support scenarios involving network cards, modems, and AOL client installations. With a T1 broadband connection at the office, I frequently searched Yahoo! and became curious about the technology behind the web pages I was viewing. Soon I discovered that all of the content was created with HTML.
I searched Yahoo! to learn more about HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language. I found a website called HTMLgoodies.com by Dr. Burn. It had fun tutorials that taught me how to code HTML step by step like, “So, you want to learn HTML huh?” Each of these tutorials would kind of hold your hand and lead you through step by step with coding the HTML documents, what the tags were and how to start creating your own set of web pages to build your first website.
Using AOLpress and my private members.aol.com account, I quickly put together a basic website. This was my own little sandbox space to experiment and hone my web development skills. Then, I got the chance to make a real website for the San Marco Point House Bed and Breakfast.
A Historic First
The San Marco Point House was a charming, historic property in the San Marco neighborhood of Jacksonville, FL. It was one of the first homes to be developed in 1921 on the Southbank of the St. John’s River, which is why it was called The Point House. You could see it from the Northbank.
To develop the website for this bed and breakfast, I was initially running on Windows 3.11. I remember at that time everything was in threes:
Windows 3.11
JASC Paint Shop Pro 3
Internet Explorer 3
Netscape Navigator 3
AOLpress 2.0 (which was the first Web editor I ever used)
Soon I upgraded my little Packard Bell PC with a CD-ROM drive and made the jump to Windows 95. Then I remember graduating to Microsoft Front Page 97. Yes, and then Internet Explorer 4 came out. Then Netscape Navigator 4 released and I installed it immediately. So, I switched over to all 4.0 versions of stuff in Windows 95 during the website project.
Then I got the opportunity to do a real website. So, I honed my craft while working on the development for the bed and breakfast site. I visited the bed and breakfast with one of the first digital cameras I ever bought, a Minolta Dimage V. It was expensive and tricky to get good pictures, but I managed to take photos of the property, both inside and outside.
I wanted to try and keep it all digital, so I wanted all digital photos on the website. I didn't want to have to take photos on film and then have them developed and deal with scanning them. So, I guess this first website opportunity forced me to buy my first digital camera too.
With the photos and input from the bed and breakfast owner, I built a simple marketing site. I started on Windows 3.1 and later switched to Windows 95. The website was hosted on the client’s AOL account, sanmarcopt@aol.com, and the address was members.aol.com/sanmarcopt.
Soon, I had the initial San Marco Point House bed and breakfast website up. It was a little, static marketing site and of course we utilized it to promote reservations for the bed and breakfast.
At first, I didn’t know how to promote the website. But I learned about search engine optimization (SEO) to help the site rank better on search engines like Yahoo!, Hotbot, and Lycos. This helped more people find the site, see the property, and make reservations by Email or phone.
The project was a success! The bed and breakfast owner was happy because the website brought in more reservations. I was happy because it proved my code really worked.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
I then moved on to using Windows 95, Internet Explorer 4, and Netscape Navigator 4, and I started using Microsoft FrontPage. I probably dropped AOLpress at this point like a bad habit!
Next, I created a reservation form to enable users to submit a reservation request on the website. This required me to learn JavaScript and HTML forms. The reservation form sent custom formatted reservation request Email to the owner, without the user needing an Email client. This was my first real web application!
Later, the owner bought another property and turned it into a bed and breakfast at the beach. I made a similar website for this new property, using the same techniques and adjusting the content for the new location. This experience taught me a lot about HTML, digital photography, SEO, and working with clients. It was the very early start of my journey into a full career in web development.
As a bonus, another benefit I received from developing this first B&B website was to my apartment rent in San Marco. The owner of the B&B was also my landlord, so some months I would end up trading rent for website updates! ;)
OK I cannot lie, posting this article was very therapeutic for me. I had to do quite a bit of Wayback Machine surfing to find the archived home page for the San Marco Point House B&B site. LOL, I got quite a kick out of reviewing my original web code from 27 years ago!