The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel
Encyclopedia
The Bellevue is a landmark building at Broad & Walnut Streets in Center City
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. It has continued as a well-known institution for more than a century. In the past 30 years the hotel has undergone minor name changes, but still is widely known by its historic name, The Bellevue-Stratford.
and his Philadelphia-born wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt, opened an earlier facility, the Bellevue Hotel, in 1881. Louise's father, William Kehrer, steward of The Philadelphia Club
, had engaged Boldt as his assistant steward at the time of the 1876 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. Boldt and Louise Kehrer wed shortly thereafter. Prominent members of the Philadelphia Club assisted the couple in setting up their own hotel, the Bellevue, at the NW corner of Broad
& Walnut
Streets. A small boutique inn, it quickly became nationally-known for its high standard of service, fine cuisine, and elite clientele. The Boldts expanded by acquiring the Stratford Hotel at the SW corner of Broad & Walnut. The Stratford was demolished and the old Bellevue supplanted by construction of the grand Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, designed in the French Renaissance style by G.W. & W.D. Hewitt. These Philadelphia architects also designed the Boldts' famous landmark residence, Boldt Castle
in the Thousand Islands
.
In 1890, George Boldt was invited by owner William Waldorf Astor to be proprietor of the new Waldorf Hotel in New York City. Louise Boldt had been instrumental in making their Philadelphia hotel attractive and socially acceptable
to wealthy women. This was probably a major motivation for Astor in asking George Boldt to become proprietor of his new Waldorf, later expanded by John Jacob Astor
to become the world-class institution known as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
.
, Tiffany
and Lalique
glass embellishments, and the most celebrated marble and hand-worked iron elliptical staircase in the city.
Later, during the 1920s through the 1940s, the noted global host Claude H. Bennett, managed the rebuilt and greatly enlarged Philadelphia hotel. His son, Robert C. Bennett (Cornell
Hotel School 1940), and grandson, Robert Jr. (Drexel Hill, PA), currently a Professor of Hotel Management at a suburban Philadelphia community college (Delaware County Community College
), were both on the senior management staff of the "Grand Dame" of Broad Street as late as the 1970s prior to the temporary hotel closing.
through Ronald Reagan
have been guests at the hotel, which is respectfully called the "Grand Dame of Broad Street."
Originally the western end of the building was only three stories high. In 1911 Boldt added extensions to the hotel and carried it to the full nineteen stories. It was completed in 1912 at a cost of $850,000.
In June 1919 the Bellevue was leased to T. Coleman du Pont
, together with Lucius M. Boomer, president of Boomer-du Pont Properties Corporation. The ground and building were retained by George C. Boldt Jr. Boomer-du Pont offered the Boldt family $7,500,000 for the hotel. They refused, as the asking price was $10,000,000. In June 1925 the company backed by duPont, The Bellevue Company purchased the hotel for $6,500,000 from the heirs of George C. Boldt. It was said that $3,000,000 was paid in cash and a mortgage was taken over the property for $3,500,000.
In October 1926, Queen Marie of Romania
http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/women/queen.html stayed at the hotel. The Royal Suite of 11 rooms on the seventh floor to be occupied by Queen Marie and her entourage of 19 has a history. Among the world-famous people who have occupied the suite are President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge
, Cardinal Mercier
of Belgium, President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson
, Marshal Joffre
, General John J. Pershing
, President and Mrs. Warren G. Harding
, a brother of the Emperor of Japan
, Sir Esme Howard, Ambassador Jules Jusserand
, and Ambassador Geddes
.
The Great Depression
brought hard times to the Bellevue-Stratford, although it continued to be "Philadelphia's hotel." Gradually, through lack of income and attention, the hotel's glitter began to tarnish. During the 1940s and 1950s, the classic architecture and rich decorative details of the hotel were thought to be overpowering, anachronistic
and even offensive.
Noted hotelier, Charles Todd, managed the hotel after this period bringing it back "into the black." He had managed the Lake Placid
facility for the 1932 Winter Olympics
, and later retired from the famed Hershey Hotel in Hershey, PA in the 1960s. He is also known for teaching a public domain game called "The Landlords Game" (teaching economic principles espoused by the Henry George School of Economics in Philadelphia) in the 1930s to Charles Darrow
, who later claimed to have invented it as Monopoly
.
On Wednesday, October 30th of 1963, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel became a 'testing ground' of sorts for the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy
, as he successfully rode in a 13 mile open car motorcade from the Philadelphia International Airport
to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Less than a month later, JFK was assassinated
in an open car motorcade through the city of Dallas, Texas
.
The hotel gained worldwide notoriety in July 1976, when it hosted a statewide convention of the American Legion
. Soon after, a pneumonia
-like disease killed 54 people and sickened 221 more who had been in the hotel. The vast majority were members of the convention. The negative publicity caused the hotel to close in November 1976.
In 1977, Dr. Joseph McDade discovered a new bacterium, which was identified as the causative organism. The bacterium was named Legionella
and the disease, legionellosis
, after the first victims. It was suspected the illness was caused by an bacterium which thrived in cool, damp places. Traces were discovered inside the hotel's abandoned nuclear bomb shelter. The hotel's air-conditioning systems spread the disease throughout the hotel.
The building was sold in 1978 to the Richard I. Rubin Company and given a $25-million restoration. The guest rooms were completely gutted and their number reduced from 725 to 565, while the public areas were painstakingly restored to their 1904 appearance.
The hotel reopened in 1979 as part of the Fairmont
chain as The Fairmont Philadelphia. The next year a 49-percent interest in the hotel was bought by the Westin
chain and the name reverted to The Bellevue-Stratford. By the mid-1980s, the hotel, which had become The Westin Bellevue-Stratford, was struggling to fill its hundreds of rooms, and closed in 1986.
The Rubin Company again undertook extensive work on the building, at a cost of $100 million. This time, the hotel rooms from floors 2 to 11 were converted into office space. The grand public areas on the ground floor were converted to shops. A huge atrium was cut into the lobby and escalators installed leading to an underground shopping area and food court. The parking garage adjacent to the hotel had a fitness club built on top of it to serve the complex.
In addition, the middle wing of the E-shaped building was removed from floors 12 to 18, and the back side was sealed up, creating an atrium. The historic 19th-floor Rose Ballroom atop this middle wing was retained, however, standing on seven-story stilts which ran through the atrium. The building's name was shortened to The Bellevue.
The hotel portion reopened in 1989 as Hotel Atop the Bellevue, with guest rooms on floors 12-18 and a lobby and public rooms on the remodelled 19th floor. The two domed ballrooms on that floor (the South and North Cameo rooms), were turned into the Ethel Barrymore
Tea Room and a restaurant called Founders.
The hotel was managed by the Cunard Line
. After Cunard moved out of the hotel business, the hotel operated independent of any chain through the mid 1990s. During this time, its name was shortened to match the whole multi-use complex, becoming The Bellevue. In December 1996 the hotel joined the Hyatt
chain's Park Hyatt boutique division and was renamed Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue. In 2010 the name was shortened to Hyatt at The Bellevue.
In 2007 the two restaurants and Founders bar were re-designed by Marguerite Rodgers and are now XIX Cafe, Bar and Restaurant. By 2009 all four balconies outside the cafe and restaurant were restored and open to the public for the highest outside dining experience in the city.
The Bellevue-Stratford was the headquarters of the 1936
and 1948
National Conventions of the U.S. Republican Party
and the 1948 Convention
of the Democratic Party
.
The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
in 1977.
Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, or Downtown Philadelphia includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As of 2005, its population of over 88,000 made it the third most populous downtown in the United States, after New York City's and Chicago's...
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. It has continued as a well-known institution for more than a century. In the past 30 years the hotel has undergone minor name changes, but still is widely known by its historic name, The Bellevue-Stratford.
George Boldt
Prussian immigrant George C. BoldtGeorge Boldt
George Charles Boldt was a Prussian-born American hotelier. A self-made millionaire, he influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxury destination.-Philadelphia:...
and his Philadelphia-born wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt, opened an earlier facility, the Bellevue Hotel, in 1881. Louise's father, William Kehrer, steward of The Philadelphia Club
The Philadelphia Club
The Philadelphia Club is a gentlemen's club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the oldest club of its kind in the United States.-Founding:Its founders were a group of men who met to play cards at Mrs. Rubicam's Coffeehouse at the northwest corner of 5th & Minor Streets...
, had engaged Boldt as his assistant steward at the time of the 1876 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. Boldt and Louise Kehrer wed shortly thereafter. Prominent members of the Philadelphia Club assisted the couple in setting up their own hotel, the Bellevue, at the NW corner of Broad
Broad Street (Philadelphia)
Broad Street is a major arterial street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is nearly 13 miles long.It is Pennsylvania Route 611 along its entire length with the exception of its northernmost part between Old York Road and Pennsylvania Route 309 and the southernmost part south of Interstate 95...
& Walnut
Walnut Street (Philadelphia)
Walnut Street is located in downtown Philadelphia and extends from the city's Delaware River waterfront through Center City and West Philadelphia. Walnut Street has been characterized as "the city's premier shopping district"...
Streets. A small boutique inn, it quickly became nationally-known for its high standard of service, fine cuisine, and elite clientele. The Boldts expanded by acquiring the Stratford Hotel at the SW corner of Broad & Walnut. The Stratford was demolished and the old Bellevue supplanted by construction of the grand Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, designed in the French Renaissance style by G.W. & W.D. Hewitt. These Philadelphia architects also designed the Boldts' famous landmark residence, Boldt Castle
Boldt Castle
Boldt Castle, located on Heart Island in the Thousand Islands of the Saint Lawrence River, along the northern border of New York State, is a major landmark and tourist attraction in its region.-History:...
in the Thousand Islands
Thousand Islands
The Thousand Islands is the name of an archipelago of islands that straddle the Canada-U.S. border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for about downstream from Kingston, Ontario. The Canadian islands are in the province of Ontario, the...
.
In 1890, George Boldt was invited by owner William Waldorf Astor to be proprietor of the new Waldorf Hotel in New York City. Louise Boldt had been instrumental in making their Philadelphia hotel attractive and socially acceptable
Social Register
Specific to the United States, the Social Register is a directory of names and addresses of prominent American families who form the social elite, . The "Directory" automatically includes the President of the United States and the First Family, and in the past always included the U.S. Senators and...
to wealthy women. This was probably a major motivation for Astor in asking George Boldt to become proprietor of his new Waldorf, later expanded by John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV was an American businessman, real estate builder, investor, inventor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War and a member of the prominent Astor family...
to become the world-class institution known as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
.
Construction
George Boldt owned the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel outright. The present building opened in 1904. Over two years in the making and costing over $8,000,000 (in 1904 dollars), the Bellevue-Stratford was described at the time as the most luxurious hotel in the nation and perhaps the most spectacular hotel building in the world. It initially had 1,090 guest rooms, the most magnificent ballroom in the United States, delicate lighting fixtures designed by Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, Tiffany
Tiffany glass
Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1933 at the Tiffany Studios, by Louis Comfort Tiffany....
and Lalique
René Lalique
René Jules Lalique was a French glass designer known for his creations of perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks and automobile hood ornaments. He was born in the French village of Ay on 6 April 1860 and died 5 May 1945...
glass embellishments, and the most celebrated marble and hand-worked iron elliptical staircase in the city.
Later, during the 1920s through the 1940s, the noted global host Claude H. Bennett, managed the rebuilt and greatly enlarged Philadelphia hotel. His son, Robert C. Bennett (Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
Hotel School 1940), and grandson, Robert Jr. (Drexel Hill, PA), currently a Professor of Hotel Management at a suburban Philadelphia community college (Delaware County Community College
Delaware County Community College
Delaware County Community College, also known as DCCC, DC3, "Route 252 U" or Delco, is a 2-year community college in the Philadelphia area. While it is based in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, it has two campuses, one of which is located in Chester County, Pennsylvania...
), were both on the senior management staff of the "Grand Dame" of Broad Street as late as the 1970s prior to the temporary hotel closing.
Heyday
From its beginning, the Bellevue-Stratford was the center of Philadelphia's cultural, social and business activities. It soon functioned as a sort of clubhouse for the Philadelphia establishment, not only a place where the rich and powerful dined and occasionally slept, but also the venue for their meetings and social functions. Charity balls, society weddings, club meetings and special family gatherings have all been held in the hotel's ballrooms and meeting rooms. The rich and famous, royalty and heads of state from all over the world, presidents, politicians, actors and famous writers have stayed within its walls. All U.S. Presidents from Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
through Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
have been guests at the hotel, which is respectfully called the "Grand Dame of Broad Street."
Originally the western end of the building was only three stories high. In 1911 Boldt added extensions to the hotel and carried it to the full nineteen stories. It was completed in 1912 at a cost of $850,000.
In June 1919 the Bellevue was leased to T. Coleman du Pont
T. Coleman du Pont
Thomas Coleman du Pont was an American engineer and politician, from Greenville, Delaware. He was President of the of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and a member of the Republican Party who served parts of two terms as United States Senator from Delaware...
, together with Lucius M. Boomer, president of Boomer-du Pont Properties Corporation. The ground and building were retained by George C. Boldt Jr. Boomer-du Pont offered the Boldt family $7,500,000 for the hotel. They refused, as the asking price was $10,000,000. In June 1925 the company backed by duPont, The Bellevue Company purchased the hotel for $6,500,000 from the heirs of George C. Boldt. It was said that $3,000,000 was paid in cash and a mortgage was taken over the property for $3,500,000.
In October 1926, Queen Marie of Romania
Marie of Romania
Marie of Romania was Queen consort of Romania from 1914 to 1927, as the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania.-Early life:...
http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/women/queen.html stayed at the hotel. The Royal Suite of 11 rooms on the seventh floor to be occupied by Queen Marie and her entourage of 19 has a history. Among the world-famous people who have occupied the suite are President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
, Cardinal Mercier
Désiré-Joseph Mercier
-Early life and ordination:Désiré Mercier was born at the château du Castegier in Braine-l'Alleud, as the fifth of the seven children of Paul-Léon Mercier and his wife Anne-Marie Barbe Croquet....
of Belgium, President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, Marshal Joffre
Joseph Joffre
Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre OM was a French general during World War I. He is most known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in 1914. His popularity led to his nickname Papa Joffre.-Biography:Joffre was born in...
, General John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing
John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB , was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I...
, President and Mrs. Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
, a brother of the Emperor of Japan
Emperor of Japan
The Emperor of Japan is, according to the 1947 Constitution of Japan, "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people." He is a ceremonial figurehead under a form of constitutional monarchy and is head of the Japanese Imperial Family with functions as head of state. He is also the highest...
, Sir Esme Howard, Ambassador Jules Jusserand
Jean Jules Jusserand
Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand was a French author and diplomat. He was the French ambassador to the United States during World War I.-Career:...
, and Ambassador Geddes
Auckland Geddes, 1st Baron Geddes
Auckland Campbell-Geddes, 1st Baron Geddes GCMG, KCB, PC was a British academic, soldier, politician and diplomat...
.
The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
brought hard times to the Bellevue-Stratford, although it continued to be "Philadelphia's hotel." Gradually, through lack of income and attention, the hotel's glitter began to tarnish. During the 1940s and 1950s, the classic architecture and rich decorative details of the hotel were thought to be overpowering, anachronistic
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
and even offensive.
Noted hotelier, Charles Todd, managed the hotel after this period bringing it back "into the black." He had managed the Lake Placid
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....
facility for the 1932 Winter Olympics
1932 Winter Olympics
The 1932 Winter Olympics, officially known as the III Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1932 in Lake Placid, New York, United States. The games opened on February 4 and closed on February 15. It would be the first winter olympics held in the United...
, and later retired from the famed Hershey Hotel in Hershey, PA in the 1960s. He is also known for teaching a public domain game called "The Landlords Game" (teaching economic principles espoused by the Henry George School of Economics in Philadelphia) in the 1930s to Charles Darrow
Charles Darrow
Charles Brace Darrow was born in Philadelphia; he is best known as the purported inventor of the Monopoly board game. Darrow was a domestic heater salesman from Germantown, a neighborhood in Philadelphia during the Great Depression. The house he lived in still stands at 40 Westview Street...
, who later claimed to have invented it as Monopoly
Monopoly (game)
Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...
.
On Wednesday, October 30th of 1963, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel became a 'testing ground' of sorts for the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, as he successfully rode in a 13 mile open car motorcade from the Philadelphia International Airport
Philadelphia International Airport
Philadelphia International Airport is a major airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, and is the largest airport in the Delaware Valley region and in Pennsylvania...
to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Less than a month later, JFK was assassinated
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
in an open car motorcade through the city of Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
Recent
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
. Soon after, a pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
-like disease killed 54 people and sickened 221 more who had been in the hotel. The vast majority were members of the convention. The negative publicity caused the hotel to close in November 1976.
In 1977, Dr. Joseph McDade discovered a new bacterium, which was identified as the causative organism. The bacterium was named Legionella
Legionella
Legionella is a pathogenic Gram negative bacterium, including species that cause legionellosis or Legionnaires' disease, most notably L. pneumophila. It may be readily visualized with a silver stain....
and the disease, legionellosis
Legionellosis
Legionellosis is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by gram negative, aerobic bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella. Over 90% of legionellosis cases are caused by Legionella pneumophila, a ubiquitous aquatic organism that thrives in temperatures between , with an optimum temperature...
, after the first victims. It was suspected the illness was caused by an bacterium which thrived in cool, damp places. Traces were discovered inside the hotel's abandoned nuclear bomb shelter. The hotel's air-conditioning systems spread the disease throughout the hotel.
The building was sold in 1978 to the Richard I. Rubin Company and given a $25-million restoration. The guest rooms were completely gutted and their number reduced from 725 to 565, while the public areas were painstakingly restored to their 1904 appearance.
The hotel reopened in 1979 as part of the Fairmont
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is a Canadian-based operator of luxury hotels and resorts. Currently, Fairmont operates properties in 18 countries including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Bermuda, Barbados, United Kingdom, Monaco, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, the...
chain as The Fairmont Philadelphia. The next year a 49-percent interest in the hotel was bought by the Westin
Westin Hotels
Westin Hotels & Resorts are an upscale hotel chain owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. As of 2011, Westin operated over 160 hotels in 37 countries.-History:...
chain and the name reverted to The Bellevue-Stratford. By the mid-1980s, the hotel, which had become The Westin Bellevue-Stratford, was struggling to fill its hundreds of rooms, and closed in 1986.
The Rubin Company again undertook extensive work on the building, at a cost of $100 million. This time, the hotel rooms from floors 2 to 11 were converted into office space. The grand public areas on the ground floor were converted to shops. A huge atrium was cut into the lobby and escalators installed leading to an underground shopping area and food court. The parking garage adjacent to the hotel had a fitness club built on top of it to serve the complex.
In addition, the middle wing of the E-shaped building was removed from floors 12 to 18, and the back side was sealed up, creating an atrium. The historic 19th-floor Rose Ballroom atop this middle wing was retained, however, standing on seven-story stilts which ran through the atrium. The building's name was shortened to The Bellevue.
The hotel portion reopened in 1989 as Hotel Atop the Bellevue, with guest rooms on floors 12-18 and a lobby and public rooms on the remodelled 19th floor. The two domed ballrooms on that floor (the South and North Cameo rooms), were turned into the Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
Tea Room and a restaurant called Founders.
The hotel was managed by the Cunard Line
Cunard Line
Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
. After Cunard moved out of the hotel business, the hotel operated independent of any chain through the mid 1990s. During this time, its name was shortened to match the whole multi-use complex, becoming The Bellevue. In December 1996 the hotel joined the Hyatt
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels Corporation , is an international operator of hotels.Hyatt Center is the headquarters for Hyatt corporation...
chain's Park Hyatt boutique division and was renamed Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue. In 2010 the name was shortened to Hyatt at The Bellevue.
In 2007 the two restaurants and Founders bar were re-designed by Marguerite Rodgers and are now XIX Cafe, Bar and Restaurant. By 2009 all four balconies outside the cafe and restaurant were restored and open to the public for the highest outside dining experience in the city.
The Bellevue-Stratford was the headquarters of the 1936
1936 Republican National Convention
The 1936 Republican National Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio at the Public Auditorium, from June 9 to June 12, 1936. It nominated Governor Alfred Landon of Kansas for President and Frank Knox of Illinois for Vice-President....
and 1948
1948 Republican National Convention
The 1948 Republican National Convention was held at the Municipal Auditorium, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 21 to 25, 1948.New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey had paved the way to win the Republican presidential nomination in the primary elections, where he had beaten Minnesota Governor...
National Conventions of the U.S. Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and the 1948 Convention
1948 Democratic National Convention
The 1948 Democratic National Convention was held at Convention Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 12 to July 14, and resulted in the nominations of incumbent Harry S Truman for President and U.S. Senator Alben W...
of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
.
The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1977.
External links
- The Bellevue complex - official website (note: page cannot be viewed at anything under 1024x768 screen resolution)
- Hyatt at the Bellevue - official site
- BBC Article about the search for the cause of Legionnaire's Disease
- The disaster that struck the Bellevue Stratford Hotel
- The Bellevue Memorabilia Collection, 1884-2005, including photographs, brochures, programs, drawings and other materials, are available for research use at the Historical Society of PennsylvaniaHistorical Society of PennsylvaniaThe Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items...
. - Listing and photographs at the Historic American Buildings SurveyHistoric American Buildings SurveyThe Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...
- The application for the National Registry
- Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings