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Hotel History: Wentworth By The Sea, New Castle, New Hampshire (161 rooms): The Wentworth by the Sea (formerly the Hotel Wentworth), built in 1874 by Daniel E. Chase and Charles E. Campbell, was the largest wooden structure on the New Hampshire coast. It was bought in 1879 by Frank Jones, wealthy owner of banks, breweries, insurance companies, racing stables, railroads and the world’s largest shoe-button company. Jones hired the talented Frank W. Hilton (no relation of Conrad) to manage and promote the Wentworth.
The American artist Edward Hopper was known for interest in hotels, motels, tourist homes, and the wide scope of hospitality services. From 1920 through 1925 he worked as a commercial illustrator for Hotel Management and Tavern Topics from the Great Depression through the Cold War. He augmented his knowledge of hospitality services as a frequent guest in several lodgings on the long-distance automobile trips he took with his wife, the artist Josephine Hopper. Beginning in the mid-1920s and through the early 1960s, Hopper explored hospitality services subjects in paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints. Sometimes he titled these works as “hotel” or “motel,” but just as often he did not. More than half are composites of sites, with no small amount of invention and artistic license.
Hotel History: The Palace Hotel (1909), San Francisco, Ca (556 rooms): San Francisco and the Palace Hotel have shared a common heritage for more than 140 years. Inspired by a visionary developer, William Chapman Ralston, the Palace Hotel was known as the “Grande Dame of the West”, a hotel of timeless elegance and unprecedented opulence. It was designed by architect John P. Gaynor as the largest, costliest and most luxurious hotel in the world. To finance its $5 million cost, Ralston exhausted his Bank of California which collapsed in late August 1875. Soon thereafter, Ralston’s body was found floating in San Francisco Bay. Nevertheless, the Palace Hotel opened two months later on October, 1875. Nevada’s U.S. Senator William Sharon, one of Ralston’s partners, who was known as the “King of the Comstocks” ended up in control of the hotel when he paid off the Bank and Ralston’s debts with pennies on the dollar.