Winter the Dolphin to be Featured on Hotel's Giant Mural

No, all bottlenose dolphins don’t look the same.

Officials with the Pier House 60, Clearwater Beach Marina Hotel realized that — especially in Clearwater, where Winter lives.

So, before plastering a 10x50 mural on the east side of Clearwater Beach’s newest hotel, some changes were .

Now beach-goers crossing the Memorial Causeway will be greeted by the sight of Winter with her prosthetic tail jumping out of the water as the sun sets behind her.

“It’s the same sunshine and palm trees in the background,” Chris Hubbard, the city's public arts specialist, said to members of the Public Art and Design Advisory Board that first saw the changes at a meeting Thursday. “This was news to me as it is news to you."

Installation of the dolphin mural is expected to start Friday.

Officials with the beach hotel worked for more than a year with artists Silas “Beach” Clifton Gatewood III and Johnny “Castleseed” Schunck to create a purely Clearwater Beach image for the hotel. They scrapped other designs because of issues with the city's stringent sign code and because a version looked too similar to a .