Willard's Hotel

“ I hired a finely furnished suite of rooms for only twelve dollars a month, and engaged board at Willard's, the leading hotel, for thirty dollars a month — prices that will seem almost incredibly low when compared with those of the present day. Altogether, I felt quite rich and very independent. What with Congress in session, the hordes of place-seekers from every part of the Union, and the many public men from the North and South who visited the capital from purely patriotic motives in those critical days, Washington presented a very animated appearance. ”

“ It was at a hotel on the borders of a beautiful lake that Helen first saw Lillian Stuart. One morning Guy had gone off fishing, and as Mrs. Appleton was writing letters in the seclusion of her room, Helen took her book and wandered out into the grounds in search of a cool, shady spot where she could read in peace. Coming at length upon a retired nook, she found herself forestalled, for, comfortably ensconced under the shade of a great willow, was a woman so beautiful that, as Helen caught sight of her, she could scarce repress an exclamation. ”

“ If you simply want to enjoy yourselves, stay at this hotel—there is no better place—sit on the piazza, look at the mountains, and watch the world as it comes round. If you want the best panoramic view of the mountains, the Washington and Lafayette ranges together, go up to the Waumbec House. If you are after the best single limited view in the mountains, drive up to the top of Mount Willard, near the Crawford House—a delightful place to stay in a region full of associations, Willey House, avalanche, and all that. ”

“ Willard, the steward of the Albany steamer, as its landlord, there would be no fear as to its success. Mr. Tayloe wrote to Mr. Willard, a native of Westminster, Vermont, who came to Washington, and was soon, in connection with his brother, F. D. Willard, in charge of Mr. Tayloe's hotel, then called the City Hotel. The Willards gave to this establishment the same attention which had characterized their labors on board of the steamboat. They met their guests as they alighted from the stages in which they came to Washington. ”

“ After resting on the summit, and taking in, to the full, this magnificent view, we returned to the city by the way of Mineral Spring, another delightful resort, which lies surrounded by charming natural beauties, about a mile and a half east of Reading. White House Hotel, a mile and a half to the southeast, on the Neversink Mountain, three hundred feet above the river, is still another favorite visiting place, from which a fine view of the city and surrounding country may be obtained, though not equal to that of White Spot. ”

“ Dinner over, I rested until five o'clock, resuming my journey at that hour and reaching Crittenden at six. As I rode up to the hotel at this place I found that a number of villagers had gathered to give me welcome, and to learn something of my journey and its objects. I talked to them for some time and then followed a strong inclination to walk into the country. There were no unusual attractions about this little village of a hundred souls excepting the cordiality of its people and the natural attraction that there always is about a small community in the midst of thriving acres. ”

“ I reached Albion in time for dinner, and immediately made myself comfortable at the hotel. Rest and refreshment having the desired effect, I afterward took a short stroll through the town, which I found very wide awake, although the Methodist college, the life of the place, was still closed for the summer vacation. In the meantime the men of the village had met, and before I remounted, came to me and persuaded me to return by rail and deliver the Ouster lecture on the fifteenth. ”

“ Jean replied quietly.
Miss Stuart stared curiously at her over the edge of her teacup.
"It seems to me that a dance without men is rather a tame affair, and I don't imagine the hotel will yield a very plentiful supply." ”

“ It is entirely fireproof, being constructed only of incombustible materials, brick, stone, iron, marble and cement. It has three fronts, on State and Monroe streets and Wabash avenue, and the building and furnishing cost $3,500,000. It is kept on both the American and European plans, and continually accommodates from six hundred to one thousand guests. The Grand Pacific Hotel is but little inferior to the Palmer House. It occupies half the block bounded by Jackson, Clark, Adams and La Salle streets. The Sherman and Tremont Houses are fine hotels and centrally located. ”

“ Left the aspiring village of Black River or "Lorraine," as the inhabitants are disposed to call it, at nine o'clock, stopping at the Lake House, Vermillion, for dinner. The scenery is very attractive along the Lake Shore Road between Black River and Huron, and I followed it all day and for two or three hours after nightfall, covering a distance of twenty miles. My sense of the beautiful was somewhat dimmed, however, by the cloud of mosquitoes which beset my path, and which were hardly persuaded to part company at the hotel. ”

“ Five days of nervous haste, five nights of real fear, during which time the Great Gilmore came to know that a lively imagination could be a curse to its owner, and then—Silver Tip in the distance, and safety at last. There would be no passenger-train until the morning, but the traveler remembered, with gratitude too deep for words, that there was at least one good bed in the Occidental Hotel—and money would buy it. ”

“ Occasionally the forest trees have been left, and the galleries built around them. Included in the premises are two churches, a gambling-house, a couple of country stores, and a post-office. There are none of the shops common at watering-places for the sale of fancy articles, and, strange to say, flowers are not systematically cultivated, and very few are ever to be had. The hotel has a vast dining-room, besides the minor eating-rooms for children and nurses, a large ballroom, and a drawing-room of imposing dimensions. Hotel and cottages together, it is said, can lodge fifteen hundred guests. ”

“ In July, H. G. Wilshire (after whom, I believe, Wilshire Boulevard was named) , as general manager of the new hotel at that place, offered lots at one hundred and fifty dollars and upward, advertising under the caption, "Peerless Long Beach!" and declaring that the place was "no new settlement, but a prosperous town of two thousand people," to be "reached without change of cars." The hotel was to be doubled in size, streets were to be sprinkled and bathhouses—with hot and cold water—were to be built. One of the special attractions promised was even a billiard-room for ladies! ”

“ To call it "the best hotel in the world" is to show a false conception of excellence as applied to hotels, but it presented everything that German luxury could demand.
We were given a row of excellent rooms on the first floor, with long windows opening on to a terrace which roofed the great restaurant, and whence there was a noble prospect. We went to bed early, and soon the whole vast establishment seemed wrapped in velvet silence. Not a sound broke in the dark warm summer night, not even a whisper from the river. Suddenly an amazing, an unintelligible riot woke the row of us from slumber. ”

“ Willy was waiting in the lower hall, and the moment Rose stepped from the elevator he came forward, and drew her into a large reading room, very much like an English “lounge,” a cozy, comfortable room, with flowers and books and papers about on the numerous tables—not the usual cold, arid waste of a place that that sort of a hotel room is so frequently, with its long, desert spaces of rugs and polished floor, and dejected artificial palms adding to the dreariness of the picture. ”

“ With what I hope may be deemed a pardonable curiosity, we peeped and sometimes stepped into these interiors, and were gratified by the neatness and even elegance which they exhibited. We found the people remarkably civil, and apparently too much accustomed to English travellers to trouble themselves about us. The hotel was not of the best class, and we only saw some very inferior cafés, consisting of one small room, with a curtain before the open door, and on the outside a rude representation, on a board, of a coffee-pot, and a cup and saucer. ”

“ It only means that the hotels are improving. The truth is that as the typical old-fashioned hotel was built and conducted in America, with the main entrance opening directly from the street into the large paved lobby, where men congregated at all hours of the day to talk politics and to spit, where the porters banged and trundled luggage, and whither, through the door opening to one side, came the clamour of the bar-room, it was out of the question that women should frequent that common entrance. ”

“ It is one of the strangest features of French hotels that dressing-tables are not included in any suite of bedroom furniture; there are looking-glasses by the score, there are handsome marble slabs bearing ornate clocks that do not go, there are gorgeous armoires à glace, but never a good, commonplace, useful dressing-table. French people seem to do without them in the same simple, uncomplaining way that they do without baths.
We cannot pretend to say we slept well in our opera-box. Everything in the hotel seemed to stay up{23} ”

“ At the top was a closed door; and this open, Loveland was plunged into the life and movement of the Bat Hotel, appropriately named for its night activities. Behind a grating, which formed a small room, stood the proprietor or manager of the establishment, ready to accept payment, allot beds, inscribe the names of new clients in a book, and deal out keys of lockers or cubicles. This tiny office was cut out of a long narrow room, in which fifty or sixty men were sitting glancing over the newspapers, or writing a last letter before they went to bed. ”

“ There are, however, hotels of high rank in the city, where ladies and families are accommodated. They are kept by ladies, and often agreeably unite, with the public character of a hotel, the pleasures and advantages of social society. The boarding-house of Madame Wilkinson, widow of the late Gen. Wilkinson, a lady distinguished for her talents and accomplishments; that of Madame Herries, the widow of a titled foreigner, I believe, in Canal-street, and one or two others [Pg 185] kept in good style, in Chartres-street, are the principal in the city. ”

“ The Willows Hotel, beautifully situated on the Valdez Straits within a few yards of the sea, is all that a sportsman could desire. Clean, well-furnished bedrooms, a bathroom and quite a decent table, all for the moderate sum of 2 dollars a day. ”

“ What is apparent from the whole affair is that the old ideal of one's inn, as a place where one shall take one's ease, has perished in the evolution of the magnificent American hotel which we have been maliciously seeking to minify in the image of its Old World germ. One may take one's ease in one's hotel only if one is dressed to the mind of the hotel-keeper, or perhaps finally the head waiter. ”

“ In the evening of the day on which she experienced such an ovation, she decided to go to the parlors for a short time to satisfy the persistent callers.
Learning of her decision, the hotel hurriedly decorated the rooms with a profusion of flowers, giving a festive and brilliant appearance for an impromptu reception. This was to prove a singular function. Men and women of wealth and fashion crowded and elbowed persons from the humblest walks of life. The parlors, the corridors, the stairways were thronged. ”

“ These people sell you a cup of coffee, or a glass of beer, or of liqueur, and they have a spare room, which is very clean. If any traveller wishes to spend a night, they will make him as comfortable as they can. One English gentleman came, and liked the place so well, that he stayed for months, and wrote a book, I have been told. But it is desolate. Perhaps Monsieur would think it too triste even for a night. At St. Pierre there is at least a little life. And the hotel 'Au Déjeuner de Napoléon,' I think it will amuse Monsieur. ”

“ With a snack to eat in the refrigerator or laid out on the dining-room table. Lamps burning and waiting. Nighties laid out and bedcovers turned back. And then—me. Second-rate hotels. That walk through the dark downtown streets. Passing men who address you through closed lips. The dingy lobby. There's no applause lasts long enough, Marcia, to reach over that moment when you unlock your hotel room and the smell of disinfectant and unturned mattress comes out to you. ”

“ After so many weeks of wandering, I have settled down to a job again. The last six “huts” in which I have been were in a barracks, a casino, a private house, a convent, a college and a hospital. This “hut” is in a hotel. The hotel is situated directly back of the Conflans-Jamy railroad station. Before the war the hotel was a prosperous and pleasant place, judging from the photograph which Madame showed us; its windows filled with real lace curtains all matching! as she pointed out; the broad terrace in front on sunny days filled with little tables and crowded with well-dressed people. ”

“ The house door stood wide open, which indicated, I suppose, that accommodation might be had within by any one who could manage to awake one of the inhabitants; but otherwise there was no sign of readiness for guests; the premises were totally unlighted; there was no guardian—human or canine—to give notice of the arrival of either friend or foe, nor was there any bell or other means of summons.
The diligence having drawn up opposite to this primitive hotel, one of the passengers got out with a bag in his hand, and the conducteur descended from his perch bearing a lantern. ”