"There's a Small Hotel" is a 1936 popular

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 composed by Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...

, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart

Lorenz Hart

Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...

 originally written for but dropped from the musical "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1935), then used in On Your Toes

On Your Toes

On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....

(1936), where it was introduced by Ray Bolger

Ray Bolger

Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...

 and Doris Carson and also interpolated in the film version of Pal Joey

Pal Joey (film)

Pal Joey is a 1957 film, loosely adapted from the musical play of the same name, and starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak. Jo Ann Greer sang for Hayworth, as she had done previously in Affair in Trinidad and Miss Sadie Thompson. Kim Novak's singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin...

(1957) with a fine Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

-Nelson Riddle

Nelson Riddle

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

 collaboration.

According to Lorenz Hart's biography, Lorenz Hart - A Poet on Broadway (By Frederick Nolan Published 1994 Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0195102894), the song was inspired by a visit by Richard Rodgers to the Stockton Inn, in Stockton

Stockton, New Jersey

Stockton is a Borough in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. The borough sits on the Delaware River at the western end of Amwell Valley...

, NJ

Nj

Nj or NJ may stand for:*New Jersey*Nanojoule , an International System of Units unit of energy equal to 10−9 joules*Nj *Narva-Jõesuu, Estonia*Nordjyske Jernbaner, a Danish railway...

. Hart reputedly found the melody insistently cloying and often ad libbed raunchy parody verses much to Rodgers' chagrin.

Another claimant to be the inspiration is the Montecito Inn

Montecito Inn

Montecito Inn is a boutique hotel in the southwestern part of Montecito, California. It is considered a Santa Barbara landmark. Located on Coast Village Road in Montecito, adjacent to U.S. Route 101, the inn is 2.5 blocks from Butterfly Beach...

, in Santa Barbara County, California

Santa Barbara County, California

Santa Barbara County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, on the Pacific coast. As of 2010 the county had a population of 423,895. The county seat is Santa Barbara and the largest city is Santa Maria.-History:...

. Renovations to the hotel in the 1950s replaced the wishing well, mentioned in the song, by a floral fountain.

Notable recordings

• Chet Baker
  Chet Baker
  Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
  
   - My Favourite Songs, Vol. 2: Straight From The Heart (1988)
• Ella Fitzgerald
  Ella Fitzgerald
  Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
  
   - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook
  Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook
  Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook is a 1956 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Buddy Bregman, focusing on the songs written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.This album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in...
  
  (1956)
• Benny Goodman
  Benny Goodman
  Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
  
   Quartet - 1954
• Hal Kemp
  Hal Kemp
  James Harold "Hal" Kemp was a jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, and arranger. He was born in Marion, Alabama and died in Madera, California following an auto accident...
  
   - The biggest chart hit in 1936, the song's year of introduction.
• Frank Sinatra
  Frank Sinatra
  Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
  
   - Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey - from the soundtrack of the Columbia Picture (Capitol, 1957)
• Della Reese
  Della Reese
  Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...
  
   - Della, Della, Cha-Cha-Cha (1960)
• Bobby Van & Kay Coulter - On Your Toes
  On Your Toes
  On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
  
  - a Decca Original Cast Production (1954 revival)