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Mr. Hopkins apparently was now ready to try again to make the hotel a success. This entrepreneur had been developing subdivisions in Virginia, and previously had developed areas of New Orleans and Waveland. In the Virginia enterprises, Hopkins had employed Mr. Hugh Turner Carr, a construction superintendent in whom Hopkins had a great deal of trust. Carr, in his fascinating little book entitled My First Eighty Years aboard the Planet Earth, narrates that in September 1925 Hopkins came to Carr's home with train tickets, accompanied by a key to a house in Clermont for which a year's rent had been paid. With these items Hopkins made a request of Carr that he go and rebuild the hotel that had been nearly demolished by the 1915 hurricane. Carr goes on to recount one store, one post office, and millions of mosquitoes in Clermont Harbor, but he evidently fell in love with the area nonetheless. From 1925 on, Carr spent the rest of his life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Carr's work began with letters of introduction to local banks and businesses, verifying that Hopkins would be responsible for purchases made by Carr. The reconstruction proceeded well from the fall of 1925 through mid-1926, when "a special train from New Orleans, Louisiana, brought five hundred people for the opening." The date was July 4,
1926.	Carr says that there was standing
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