Robert Reamer
Encyclopedia
Robert Reamer was an American architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, most noted for the Old Faithful Inn
Old Faithful Inn
-Sources:*Barringer, Mark Daniel. Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 978-070061167-3...

 in Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

. Reamer was born in and spent his early life in Oberlin, Ohio
Oberlin, Ohio
Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, to the south and west of Cleveland. Oberlin is perhaps best known for being the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students...

. He left home at the age of thirteen and went to work in an architect's office in Detroit as a draftsman
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

. By the age of twenty-one, Reamer had moved to San Diego and had opened the architectural office of Zimmer & Reamer in partnership with Samuel B. Zimmer. The firm produced a wide variety of projects, but the only surviving example of Zimmer & Reamer's work is the George H. Hill Block in the Gaslamp District
Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego, California
The Gaslamp Quarter is the historic heart of San Diego, California. It is a 16½ block historical neighborhood in Downtown San Diego and is the center of downtown night life. The Quarter is home to many events and festivals, including Mardi Gras in the Gaslamp, Street Scene Music Festival, Taste of...

. The partnership dissolved in 1898, but Reamer continued to work on his own, including work at the Hotel del Coronado
Hotel del Coronado
Hotel del Coronado is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort...

. During this period he became acquainted with the president of the Yellowstone Park Company, Harry W. Child
Harry W. Child
Harry W. Child was an entrepreneur who managed development and ranching companies in southern Montana. He was most notable as a founder and longtime president of the Yellowstone Park Company, which provided accommodation and transportation to visitors to Yellowstone National Park from 1892 to 1980...

.

Yellowstone Park Company and the Northern Pacific Railroad

The Old Faithful Inn was commissioned in 1902 by Child, and funded with loans from the Northern Pacific Railroad, using laborers who were experienced railroad trestle builders. Child introduced Reamer to Charles Sanger Mellen
Charles Sanger Mellen
Charles Sanger Mellen was an American railroad man whose career culminated in the presidencies of the Northern Pacific Railway 1897-1903 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 1903-1913.- Railroad Man :...

, president of the Northern Pacific. While he was carrying out design work on the Old Faithful Inn for Child, Reamer was also designing the Gardiner, Montana
Gardiner, Montana
Gardiner is a census-designated place in Park County, Montana, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 851 at the 2000 census....

 depot for the Northern Pacific, at the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The depot and the Inn were complementary projects, and similar in style. The depot opened first, in 1903, and embodied many design features that Reamer explored on a grander scale at the Old Faithful Inn.

Old Faithful Inn

The Old Faithful Inn is a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

, honored as the inspiration for a rustic
Rustic
Rustic can refer to:*rural*pastoralIn zoology:* Rustic moths, various noctuid moths of subfamilies Hadeninae and Noctuinae, including** The Rustic, * The Rustic , a brush-footed butterfly...

 style of architecture popular throughout the western United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The rustic style is sometimes considered a branch of the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

, which emphasized fine, hand-hewn details and harmony with the surrounding environment. It became so popular at western National Parks that it is sometimes referred to "parkitecture".

At the Old Faithful Inn, the pitched roof is covered in yard-long redwood shingles; the roof shape echoes the shape of surrounding mountains. Inside, a spectacular, six-story lobby features native lodgepole pine
Lodgepole Pine
Lodgepole Pine, Pinus contorta, also known as Shore Pine, is a common tree in western North America. Like all pines, it is evergreen.-Subspecies:...

 balconies, and it is anchored by a 500-ton rhyolite
Rhyolite
This page is about a volcanic rock. For the ghost town see Rhyolite, Nevada, and for the satellite system, see Rhyolite/Aquacade.Rhyolite is an igneous, volcanic rock, of felsic composition . It may have any texture from glassy to aphanitic to porphyritic...

 chimney and fireplace
Fireplace
A fireplace is an architectural structure to contain a fire for heating and, especially historically, for cooking. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or other flue allows gas and particulate exhaust to escape...

. Reamer carefully placed windows to mimic light filtering through a canopy
Canopy (forest)
In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant community or crop, formed by plant crowns.For forests, canopy also refers to the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns and including other biological organisms .Sometimes the term canopy is used to refer to the extent...

 of pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...

 trees. Furniture was provided by the Old Hickory Furniture Company of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, whose 100-year old dining room
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...

 chairs are still in use today.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel

At the same time that Reamer was building the Old Faithful Inn from the ground up, he was also overseeing the expansion of the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. In complete contrast to the Old Faithful Inn, the Lake Yellowstone Hotel was originally an austere clapboarded barn-like structure. Reamer added Greek Revival porticoes and sparely-detailed trim that provided the expanded hotel with the air of a grand Victorian resort.

Personal tragedy

After the major work of 1903, Reamer spent ensuing years designing and supervising a variety of supporting buildings and residences around Yellowstone, particularly in Mammoth Hot Springs
Mammoth Hot Springs
Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate...

 and Gardiner. In 1906 he developed a proposal for Child for a huge hotel for Mammoth that was to foreshadow the Canyon Hotel. However, in 1906 Reamer's wife Mabel died at age 30, of Bright's disease
Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....

. Reamer's alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

, which had previously been noted, became acute, and he apparently returned to live with his family for next next two years.

Reamer returned to Child and Yellowstone in 1908 and prepared yet another proposal for a grand hotel at Mammoth as well as a variety of lesser buildings for the Yellowstone Park Association. In 1909 Reamer accompanied the Childs on a tour of European hotels, apparently in preparation for future work.

Canyon Hotel

In 1910 Reamer presented designs for a new hotel to be located at Canyon Village, adjacent to the Yellowstone Falls
Yellowstone Falls
Yellowstone Falls consist of two major waterfalls on the Yellowstone River, within Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States. As the Yellowstone river flows north from Yellowstone Lake, it leaves the Hayden Valley and plunges first over Upper Yellowstone Falls and then a quarter mile ...

 and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the first large canyon on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park...

, to be known as the Canyon Hotel
Canyon Hotel
The Canyon Hotel was built in Yellowstone National Park in 1910 by the Yellowstone Park Company to accommodate visitors to the area of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone Falls. The hotel was built on a huge scale, with a perimeter measurement of one mile. Situated on a hill to the...

. This hotel incorporated portions of a previous hotel, built in 1891, and was 750 feet long with 400 rooms and 100 baths. Occupying a prominent site on a hillside, it was built in the winter of 1910-1911. The design bore a close resemblance to Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

's Prairie style work, with a strong horizontal emphasis and a commanding roofline.

Expanding practice

Reamer relocated to Cleveland in 1912 and began a series of commissions with railroads, building on his experience with the Northern Pacific. A proposed summit hotel on Mount Washington
Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...

 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , was a railroad that operated in the northeast United States from 1872 to 1968 which served the states of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts...

 in 1912 never came to pass, but work for the Maine Central Railroad
Maine Central Railroad
The Maine Central Railroad Company was a railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. It operated a mainline between South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada-U.S...

 at Augusta, Maine
Augusta, Maine
Augusta is the capital of the US state of Maine, county seat of Kennebec County, and center of population for Maine. The city's population was 19,136 at the 2010 census, making it the third-smallest state capital after Montpelier, Vermont and Pierre, South Dakota...

 and the Union Station in Clinton, Massachusetts
Clinton, Massachusetts
Clinton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,606 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Clinton, please see the article Clinton , Massachusetts....

 did proceed. At the same time, Reamer designed additions to the Mammoth Hotel and the Old Faithful Inn.

Seattle

By 1918, Reamer had remarried and relocated to Seattle. Over the next few years, Reamer established a new practice, beginning as a staff architect with the Metropolitan Building Company. Once out on his own, he continued his hotel work with a series of eight hotels in Washington. The most notable of these was the Lake Quinault Lodge, constructed in 1926 on the Olympic Peninsula
Olympic Peninsula
The Olympic Peninsula is the large arm of land in western Washington state of the USA, that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the east by Puget Sound. Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the contiguous...

. Later, Reamer began to specialize in movie theaters, working in the elaborate thematic styles popular at the time. The 1926 5th Avenue Theatre
5th Avenue Theatre
The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theater building located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land is owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus...

 was part of the MBC's Skinner Building project in Seattle, with a Chinese-inspired interior. The Moorish-inspired Mount Baker Theatre
Mount Baker Theatre
The Mount Baker Theatre is a 1,509-seat performing arts venue and national historic landmark in Bellingham, Washington. The theater hosts professional productions and concerts as well as community performances from the north of Puget Sound...

 opened in Bellingham, Washington
Bellingham, Washington
Bellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...

 in 1927. An Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 Fox theater in Spokane
Spokane
Spokane is a city in the U.S. state of Washington.Spokane may also refer to:*Spokane *Spokane River*Spokane, Missouri*Spokane Valley, Washington*Spokane County, Washington*Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War*Spokane * USS Spokane...

 followed in 1931, with another Fox in Billings, Montana
Billings, Montana
Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, and is the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan area in over...

 the same year. During the same period, Reamer designed the 15-story 1411 Fourth Avenue building in Seattle, as part of a series of commercial buildings.

Return to Yellowstone

Reamer expanded and altered his hotels at Yellowstone with a series of additions and alterations to the Old Faithful Inn, Canyon Hotel, Mammoth Hotel and the Lake Yellowstone Hotel from 1926 to 1936. Most notably, the Old Faithful Inn was expanded to include the present dining room and Bear Pit Lounge, and the Lake Yellowstone Hotel received a modest addition facing Yellowstone Lake
Yellowstone Lake
Yellowstone Lake is the largest body of water in Yellowstone National Park, The lake is 7,732 feet above sea level and covers with 110 miles of shoreline. While the average depth of the lake is 139 feet its deepest spot is at least 390 feet...

 that is known today as the Reamer Lounge. Reamer also added a dining room and lounge to the Mammoth Hotel. The Map Room Lounge includes seventeen-by-ten-foot map of the United States, made of inlaid wood by Reamer and his associate W. H. Fey.

Legacy

Reamer's second wife, Louise Chase Reamer, niece of Yellowstone National Park Commissioner John W. Meldrum
John W. Meldrum
Judge John W. Meldrum was a carpenter, a Wyoming politician and the first U.S. Commissioner in Yellowstone National Park, a position he held for 41 years .-Early life:...

, died of ovarian cancer in 1933. In 1935, Reamer began to experience health problems that led to the amputation of a leg in 1937. He died in Seattle of a heart attack on 7 January 1938.

Reamer's work at the Old Faithful Inn came at a time when the National Park Service was developing the western national parks to handle an influx of tourism. As the one of first and most notable examples of the National Park Service Rustic
National Park Service Rustic
National Park Service rustic, also colloquially known as Parkitecture, is a style of architecture that arose in the United States National Park System to create buildings that harmonized with their natural environment. Since its founding, the National Park Service consistently has sought to provide...

 style, the Old Faithful Inn influenced subsequent work at other parks throughout the American West.

Extant work

  • Hall's Mercantile, Gardiner, Montana
    Gardiner, Montana
    Gardiner is a census-designated place in Park County, Montana, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 851 at the 2000 census....

    , now the headquarters of the Yellowstone Association, 1903
  • Old Faithful Inn
    Old Faithful Inn
    -Sources:*Barringer, Mark Daniel. Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 978-070061167-3...

    , Yellowstone National Park, 1904, additions 1913-1914
  • Lake Yellowstone Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, expansion, 1904, additions 1923, 1928, 1936
  • Masonic Home, Helena, Montana
    Helena, Montana
    Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County. The 2010 census put the population at 28,180. The local daily newspaper is the Independent Record. The Helena Brewers minor league baseball and Helena Bighorns minor league hockey team call the...

    , 1906
  • H.W. Child House (Executive House), Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, 1908
  • Mammoth Hot Springs
    Mammoth Hot Springs
    Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate...

     Hotel addition, Yellowstone National Park, 1913
  • Union Station, Clinton, Massachusetts
    Clinton, Massachusetts
    Clinton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,606 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Clinton, please see the article Clinton , Massachusetts....

    , 1914
  • Lake Quinault Lodge, Quinault, Washington
    Quinault, Washington
    Quinault is an unincorported community in Washington in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States. Quinault is located on the Olympic Peninsula....

    , 1926
  • Edmond Meany Hotel, Seattle, Washington
    Seattle, Washington
    Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

    , 1931
  • Skinner Building, Fifth Avenue Theater
    5th Avenue Theatre
    The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theater building located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land is owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus...

    , Seattle, Washington, 1926
  • Mount Baker Theatre
    Mount Baker Theatre
    The Mount Baker Theatre is a 1,509-seat performing arts venue and national historic landmark in Bellingham, Washington. The theater hosts professional productions and concerts as well as community performances from the north of Puget Sound...

    , Bellingham, Washington
    Bellingham, Washington
    Bellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...

    , 1927
  • 1411 Fourth Avenue Building
    1411 Fourth Avenue Building
    The 1411 Fourth Avenue Building is a historic building in Seattle, Washington, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 28, 1991 . The 15-story plus basement Art Deco structure is located at the Northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Union Street...

    , Seattle, Washington, 1928
  • Fox Theater, Spokane, Washington
    Spokane, Washington
    Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

    , 1931
  • Fox Theater (later Alberta Bair Theater), Billings, Montana
    Billings, Montana
    Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, and is the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan area in over...

    , 1931

Demolished work

  • Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, Gardiner, Montana
    Gardiner, Montana
    Gardiner is a census-designated place in Park County, Montana, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 851 at the 2000 census....

    , 1903, demolished 1954
  • Transportation Building, Mammoth Hot Springs
    Mammoth Hot Springs
    Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate...

    , Yellowstone National Park, 1903, burned 1925
  • Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, 1910, addition 1930, demolished 1962
  • Maine Central Railroad
    Maine Central Railroad
    The Maine Central Railroad Company was a railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. It operated a mainline between South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada-U.S...

     Depot, Augusta, Maine
    Augusta, Maine
    Augusta is the capital of the US state of Maine, county seat of Kennebec County, and center of population for Maine. The city's population was 19,136 at the 2010 census, making it the third-smallest state capital after Montpelier, Vermont and Pierre, South Dakota...

    , 1913, demolished 1961

Unbuilt designs

  • Mount Washington Summit Hotel, Mount Washington
    Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
    Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...

    , New Hampshire
    New Hampshire
    New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

    , designed 1912

Sources

  • Barringer, Mark Daniel. Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 978-070061167-3
  • Quinn, Ruth. Weaver of Dreams: The Life and Architecture of Robert C. Reamer, Gardiner, Montana: Leslie & Ruth Quinn, 2004. ISBN 0-9760945-1-7
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