The Jefferson Hotel: The History of a Richmond Landmark

appreciated?

Prologue

Steeped in history, laden with romance and providing twenty-first-century comfort with nineteenth-century ambiance, The Jefferson Hotel is a traveler’s dream come true—all travelers, weary or invigorated, old or young. High tea in the lobby—you feel like a character in an old black-and-white movie. Capacious one moment, the lobby mystically transforms into refreshing coziness, the chairs and settees arranged ever so perfectly, with lamps and tables placed with just enough open space. The woman a few yards distant is far away if you want privacy but magically close if you choose to converse. Even in the lobby, you’re alone reading your newspaper in the privacy and silence of your own living room. Then, instantly, with a subtle realignment of your eyes over the top of the page, presto, someone comes over and pours more tea or asks if you need anything. Back to the paper, and the invisible walls reappear if that’s what you desire. Of all the things worth savoring, my favorite is how the hotel simultaneously balances openness and privacy. Big place, flurry of activity; serene surroundings, quiet relaxation—a uniquely happy blend.

I

The Prettiest Women and Manly Men

But the Richmond hotel had a marble stair and long unopened rooms and marble statues of the gods lost somewhere in its echoing cells.

—F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number --

It started with an idea.

Late in the Gilded Age, a grand hotel opened in Richmond, Virginia. For the city, which had been destroyed by the war only three decades earlier, it must have seemed straight out of an H.G. Wells novel. Most Richmonders had never been to a grand hotel. The truth is, outside big northern cities like New York, there weren’t many grand hotels. Richmonders bubbled with enthusiasm when the hotel opened on Thursday, October 31, 1895, a day earlier than originally planned, but that original day was a Friday, an ominous day to start anything. The papers gushed with hyperbole and a creative array of artistic superlatives. Much of what Richmonders saw in The Jefferson were things they couldn’t have imagined. It had glamour, space—lots of it—and opulence. Lavish and capacious halls and ballrooms, ornate and awe-inspiring, electrically illuminated and furnished and decorated with the most spectacular and expensive accoutrements of the day. Exquisite dining; no expense spared. The walls exuded imagination and vivacity. Everything about it—its richness, its marble—was elegant, stunning and, to many, straight out of fantasy. Residents of Richmond witnessed no civic event that generated as much excitement as the opening of The Jefferson Hotel. People waited a day in advance just to see it. Visitors the first night, according to the manager, treated the hotel like a church. The Richmond Dispatch reported that the hotel

seems destined to become one of the great attractions of the entire Southland, and a powerful inducement to the great army of tourists to turn their steps in the direction of this city, so rich in historic associations…Everything connected with the house is on a scale of ultra-magnificence, and, as it now stands, the hostelry is the most complete and luxurious in the South, and takes a place of honor in the foremost rank of representative American hotels.

Two hundred employees would keep this modern establishment going. Rooms cost $5.00 per night, with a few as low as $3.50. Monthly rentals started at $100.00. It boasted 342 guest rooms (of which 34 were set aside for employees): 85 on the first floor, 79 on the second, 73 on the third, 65 on the fourth, 26 on the fifth and 14 on the mezzanine level. It had the most modern features of the day. Each room was furnished in cypress, and the walls of King’s cement were painted blue, green, pink, rose or cream.

All rooms had stationary washbowls with running hot and cold water, a trunk rest (so guests wouldn’t hurt their backs) and a mantel adorned with beveled mirrors. Some of the rooms had fireplaces; others, steam radiators. Several rooms had private bathrooms with handsome porcelain bathtubs. Each floor had a women’s bathroom at one end and a men’s at the other. The first hotel in America with a bathroom for every bedroom was the Mount Vernon Hotel in the resort town of Cape May, New Jersey, in 1853. It took about a half century before other hotels offered such extravagance.

Each room boasted the brand-new Herzog Teleseme (spelled various ways, including Tellesame), a device patented the same year the hotel opened. The word comes from tele as in telephone and seme as in semaphore. Its means: to signal from afar. It allowed guests to turn an indicator control in their room to select the service they needed. The dials had various settings, such as waiter, maid and valet, and were operated by electricity. The communication was faster and more direct than buzzing the front desk and waiting for someone to come up and ask what you wanted. As for the telephone, The Jefferson Hotel’s phone number at the beginning was Madison 6680.

The electric lights were something to behold, a fact remarked upon by many, which is not surprising when you consider electric lights had been introduced to many Americans just two years earlier at the World’s Exposition. Local girl Helena Lefroy Caperton, who had been used to gas lighting, recalled that the electric lights appeared as a revelation…the shaded brilliance like fairyland. Even the water fountains were illuminated at night with electric lights. The hotel had luxurious Roman, Turkish, electric and hydro-therapeutic baths, the magical elixir to good health, as well as roof gardens where performers entertained under the stars. The hallway wires were out of view, encased in brass tubes. Everything you could want, and nothing was overlooked. It had a writing room, a barbershop, news and cigar booths and a drugstore. The bar boasted a thousand-bottle wine closet, and the library was well stocked with books. A ladies’ billiard room on the fifth floor overlooked Jefferson Street. Nearby on the fifth floor were rooms for germans (dances), meetings and a place to keep refreshments to supply the roof gardens.

The Palm Court, where real alligators resided for five decades. Courtesy of James Oliver Images.

The Palm Court had real grass and even real alligators. A creative genius like Lewis Ginter was going to make sure the Palm Court earned its name. In stories a few days before the hotel opened, the Richmond Dispatch referred to the upper lobby area as the Arcade, and the Richmond Times called it the Franklin Street court or the Winter Garden. According to the Times:

From the north and south sides around the statue, and extending to the walkway of the corridor, are two basins of marble, highly decorated, with a dozen or more miniature fountains, sending forth from either side their sparkling spray, in such a manner as to form perfect arches. These produce a brilliant effect with the electric lights bringing out their beauty. Each basin is bordered by a natural evergreen growth, two feet in height. Between the basins…there are spreading palms, bay trees, cactuses, and tropical plants of various kinds, shipped from the West Indies and South America.

The Thomas Jefferson Statue originally faced north toward Franklin Street. In the Ladies’ Café, off the Palm Court, the rapidly developing ambition of the modern woman to enjoy ‘man’s’ privileges found a favored spot. One room was called the Pink Parlor; another—with a $1,000 Steinway grand piano—the Green Parlor.

Even the paintings adorning the walls were world class. One of them was Les Bulles de Savon, or The Soap Bubbles. Done in 1890 by Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouquereau, the sixty-four- by forty-six-inch masterpiece was exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World Exposition. It is believed Ginter purchased it after seeing it at the exposition.

Next to the registration desk hung a gigantic bell, previously used as a timekeeper for the workers during construction. The bell stayed after construction was finished and was used as a good-luck token. Openingnight dinner included Bluepoint oysters, broiled striped bass with lobster sauce, leg of mutton, chicken sauté, venison and fillet mignon.

One early publication referred to the new hotel as the Aristocrat of Southern Hotels and provided this commentary:

Appreciation of the classics is expressed in the decoration and architecture. The walls of the grand salon, the reception rooms and the library are hung with meritorious paintings and their windows and doorways with luxurious draperies—rooms rich with thick carpets and beautiful brocades. The blended colors present an effect of perfect harmony… Through the huge glass dome of one of the two spacious courts, the natural light falls on a noble statue of Thomas Jefferson standing in easy poise. About the court runs a wide arcade supported by great Corinthian columns. Opening to its marble walls, banked by refreshing palms and hedges, are the ladies’ café and the writing rooms…there is no crowding or skimping of space. It is…said to have the largest lobby of any hotel in the world.

Les Bulles de Savon, or The Soap Bubbles. Exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair. Courtesy of James Oliver Images.

Close-up of The Soap Bubbles. Courtesy of Mary Stuart Cruickshank.

The Richmond Dispatch opined, Everything connected with the house is on scale of ultra-magnificence, and, as it now stands, the hostelry is the most complete and luxurious in the South, and takes a place of honor in the foremost rank of representative American hotels. It was said to be one of the finest hotels in the world. The courts, with fountains, flowers, turf, and electric-lights, are like scenes from the Arabian Nights. A fine orchestra furnishes good music every night… Saturday nights the lobbies are crowded with the prettiest and best dressed women and manly men.

Helena Lefroy Caperton wrote many delightful short stories dealing with her hometown. One is about working as a hostess at The Jefferson. In Welcome, she describes the hotel: Covering half a city block, it stands suave and stately, a perfect bit of Spanish architecture…It is a fitting gateway between the North and South…[Many guests from the North] regard this hotel as an oasis in a desert…the only civilized spot between the Pennsylvania Station [in New York City] and Palm Beach!

Women had what was generally referred to as the women’s entrance on Franklin Street. But anyone could enter or exit the hotel from whatever side they wanted. The women’s entrance was really the family-friendly entrance, shielding children and women from traveling salesmen. In addition, carriages could drive into the hotel to unload baggage at the Jefferson Street entrance. The men’s entrance on Main Street is where you’d find the rougher set, with men occasionally swearing and spitting.

Guests entering the Rotunda from Main Street were greeted by a collection of features dedicated to men: a barbershop, a bar, a railroad ticket office, a telegraph office and a fifty-square-foot smokers’ hall, a veritable El Dorado to all lovers of the fragrant weed. On the east side of the Rotunda, holding six Monarch billiards and pool tables, stood a billiards room furnished in light oak. The original registration area was on the Rotunda level, to the left as you entered from Main Street, where TJ’s Restaurant is located today. The registration desk wasn’t moved to its current location upstairs until 1986. There’s an area on the floor right outside TJ’s where you can feel how the weight of all those travelers through the years wore down the tiles.

Any aspect of the hotel might have been the most dazzling, but for many it was the architecture. Interior Design magazine mentioned this about the hotel’s architecture: Pompeian, Louis XVI, Victorian, Colonial Renaissance—all of it and more can be found. Brad Elias, who worked with Carole Hochheiser in designing the hotel in the mid-1980s, opined, They just threw in everything. It’s wacky and wonderful, but it looks charming and it works. Edwin Slipek Jr. wrote in Style Weekly, If architecture is theatre, The Jefferson interior is like a movie set: Those passing through feel like Garbo. And the level changes magnify the drama.

Forty-three guests registered the first day, the first being John H. Fowler of Baltimore. It took several years of planning to get to that first day. Perhaps the earliest identifiable day in the hotel’s history was sometime in 1881, when the newspaper reported local leaders were discussing the need for a prominent hotel in Richmond. The president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce stated in his annual report, Thousands pass through the city yearly who would be glad to stop over if they could be assured of such accommodations as are offered in towns of half our population in eastern states. Three years later—by March 1884—fourteen citizens and/or entities promised to donate a total of $103,000 toward a new hotel. Peter H. Mayo, James H. Dooley and Joseph Bryan, three men who would later someday own The Jefferson Hotel, agreed to $5,000 each. Lewis Ginter subscribed for $10,000. The Jefferson was just a distant mirage, more than a decade away, but they were on the journey to get there.

In January 1893, it was reported, plans to build The Jefferson had been extended a month from the original deadline to February 1. Messrs. Poindexter and Bryant of Richmond presented a drawing, as did New York architects Carrere and Hastings. Other architectural drawings were expected from Baltimore, Philadelphia and Atlanta. On February 21, 1893, the Dispatch reported: The first step towards building The Jefferson Hotel…was taken yesterday when the work of tearing down the brick walls which enclose the site of the great hostelry were taken down. The fact that the new hotel has become a certainty was hailed with delight.

In August 1893, Peres B. Polhemus of New York broke ground. The hotel’s brickwork was done by T.E. Savage; ironwork by Chamberlayne & Scott; plumbing and steam fitting by Dalton & Chappell; carpets by W. and J. Sloan of New York; and the carpentry work by Charles E. Langley. The Meriden Britannia Company of Meriden, Connecticut, provided the silverware; the Shaw Company of Boston furnished the upholstered furniture; W.H. Ketcham of New York supplied the bedroom pictures; and the Nelson-Matter Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, provided the bedroom furniture. The hotel’s paintings were purchased by T.J. Blakeslee of New York. In addition, we know a company named Otis, Brother & Company of New York was involved because, in March 1895, a newspaper advertisement offered a reward to anyone who returned that company’s lost blueprints of pipe work for The Jefferson.

On March 24, 1894, with two floors already under construction, a cornerstone-laying ceremony took place. There’s nothing to capture history better than first-person narratives. Fortunately for us, fifteen-year-old Miss Lefroy, who lived at 118 East Franklin Street, described the event. On an immaculate morning of spring sunshine, she placed her calling card inside a burnished copper box sealed in the cornerstone. Other items in the box included copies of the Times, Dispatch and State-Richmond newspapers of the day; an 1894 city directory; a package of Richmond Straight Cuts cigarettes; a miniature from Powhatan Clay Works; the Holy Bible; an Episcopal Prayer Book and Hymnal; a check and letterhead of The Jefferson Hotel Company; a copy of the charter by J.C. Shaefer Jr.; a history of the hotel by William H. Campbell; and United States and foreign coins. It was natural, Miss Lefroy added, that I felt a personal responsibility as I watched the rising of those walls, as if a tiny bit of myself and my two friends rested in that copper box for all time to come, so that when the great day came at last, that the hotel was actually completed my excitement was almost more than I could bear. The entire essay is in the Helena Lefroy Caperton Papers at the James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University.

LEWIS GINTER

Many years ago, a big hearted, public spirited man, built for us a beautiful hotel.

—Helena Lefroy Caperton

In October 1895, a modest millionaire gave Richmond a gift still treasured today. He paid a massive amount of money—various accounts claimed $1.5 to $2 million, without any adjustments for inflation. He didn’t even put his name on the building, nor did he allow his friends to erect a monument or plaque to him inside the hotel. If you know nothing else about Lewis Ginter, just think of that for a moment. He didn’t put his name on the sign and wouldn’t allow anyone else to do it. In New York City about this same time, two grand hotels were built: the Waldorf and the Astor. The Astors can’t be blamed; they were simply doing what most millionaires with the fame and ego that comes with a lifetime of untold riches would do: name buildings for themselves.

Lewis Ginter was many things but chiefly a creative genius. He made three fortunes in his lifetime, in three completely separate ventures. His success didn’t result from family money or gifts or connections. It came from his ideas as much as hard work. In 1824, the young Ginter moved from New York to Richmond—no one knows why—and opened a dry goods business. There were many other dry goods businesses in Richmond, and they had been around for years. But they didn’t come up with the idea to prominently display attractive goods in the windows, something we take for granted today. Then the Civil War came. Ginter served in it (as a major in the Confederate army). He moved back to New York and got involved in the banking business, making a great deal of money until the Great Depression of 1873 wiped him out. So it was back to Richmond to start over again. He ended up