L'HÔTEL MONTICELLO STILL STANDING
Construction of L'HÔTEL Monticello (L'HÔTEL) at 500 Court Square started in 1924 and opened in 1926. The building was designed by architect Stanhope Johnson of Johnson and Brannan. It was a full-scale five-star hotel hosting many famous guests including Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, band leaders Tommy Dorsey and Guy Lombardo, writer Gertrude Stein, and movie stars Robert Taylor, Sterling Hayden, and Joan Blondell. The dining room of the Monticello Hotel was locally renowned until it closed in 1989 and was converted into office space now housing the law firm of Michie Hamlett Lowry Rasmussen & Tweel. Today L'HÔTEL houses luxury condominium apartments (well, sort of luxury) and POG VC, who has resided there for twenty years, can guarantee L'HÔTEL will not go the way of the Landmark 'Luxury' Hotel or the Greenbrier Resort. Why? Because we the people own and operate it, with a frugal Board that sees to it that we stay IN THE BLACK.
On August 2, 1927 a few minutes after 8 p.m. the 'largest searchlight in the world' lit up the sky from on L'HÔTEL's roof, which was claimed to be visible three hundred miles away. The light scanned the heavens over Charlottesville, and was often pointed at distant Monticello at night. A very good article was reprinted in Lighthouse Digest (taken from an old Daily Progress article) in September, 2005.
Built by Sperry for army use in spotting airplanes at night, the searchlight was given to Charlottesville as a gift by the Virginia Public Service Company (now Dominion Power). It was named The Thomas Jefferson Light (what else?) and would be operated by linemen from the power company.
Directly across the street is the historic Albemarle County Courthouse. Construction of the first building was from 1763 and 1781. Additions were made 1803 and 1860, and the building was remodeled and restored in 1938.
The Thomas Jonathan 'Stonewall' Jackson Monument to the west of the courthouse building in Jackson Park was unveiled in 1921. Jackson detested riding and the pony is a bit diminutive. He liked it that way; small and steady (gait). The gardens on the 17,500 square foot are exquisite, planted to rotate with the seasons.Living in the Historic District has been a wonderful pleasure for the past two decades. Y'ALL COME and see L'HÔTEL, a relative success story in Charlottesville! No Crack Heads, no Meth Heads and no Old White Clubs. Just a beautiful building with stories that would defy the Fawlty Towers scriptwriters. "88" Keys Wilson who worked at L'HÔTEL for five decades, the elderly lady who rode up and down the elevator for hours sitting on a Chippendale bench dead, and a cast of characters one could not make up. One sad note: this Spring we lost our building manager Bill Muller. More than just a manager, Bill was a person who we all miss very much. L'HÔTEL doesn't seem the same without him.
Labels: 500 Court Square, Albemarle County Courthouse, Fawlty Towers, Hotel Monticello, Michie Hamlett, Stonewall Jackson Park
posted by P.O.G. VC at
1:28 PM
2 Comments:
Thank you so much for posting this. I didn't know a lot of this history, but I'm glad to know it now. What can you tell us about the basement space where the Court Square Tavern has been since 1976? I've worked there on and off for a few years, and I've heard lots of stories.
In fact, I'd like to hear a lot of the stories of the hotel in general. Would you be willing to do an oral history with me sometime?
Sean, here's some information about the Court Square Tavern space.
The Tavern was called for decades the "Hunt Room" before being renamed Court Square Tavern to take advantage of a change in Virginia ABC naming rules. ("Taverns" using that word were not allowed an ABC license until the 70s unless the name was grand-fathered.)
Behind the Hunt Room there was a one-room barbershop from the 1920s to about 1969 when the last barber left. Clark Mann, owner-manager of the building, turned the room into a salesmen's sample showroom in 1970-71, but no salesman used it. The era of drummers traveling through the south by train and hauling their sample cases to the downtown hotel were over.
Over coffee one morning I mentioned to Clark that I needed a small downtown office to run "Education Incorporated," my small business that owned a local Montessori school. I was also trying to start a new daily newspaper for Charlottesville, which was the real point of the office.
Clark offered me the old barbershop for $50 a month, and I spent wonderful years having a respectable office literally five steps from the best coffee shop in town.
Among the highlights of my years there was trekking to the absolute top of the roof, atop the utility tower, and taking down the communications antenna for the Albemarle County Medical Society. Quite a fine view from up there.
A few years after I moved in, Clark sold the building to developer Henry Maclin. Maclin converted the hotel to condos. Henry also decided to expand the Hunt Room, and my office was the only place to expand to. So Education Inc. and I were out.
Henry offered me the Eagle Tavern as replacement space. It was on street level facing Court Square, historic as hell, and only $65 a month. Rather than being so available, I took inconspicuous digs on 3rd Street instead. (Aside: I was a realty broker by then, and that was the dumbest decision I ever made.
Two pieces of furniture are worth mentioning. The desk in my hotel office came from Stuart Rothwell, Charlottesville's legendary savings & loan officer. One of the few bankers in the country for whom they erected a public monument.
The desk was the oversize free-form one he used at Virginia Federal S&L. The day he cleaned out their old office at 5th and Market when they moved to East Main St., Ike from the hotel and I wheeled the desk up the street. 35 years later I sold that desk at a Harlowe-Powell auction when the local historical society didn't want it.
The second piece of furniture is a glass top 2-person writing desk. The hotel had a few of these in a side lobby, probably since the 20s. When Mann sold the building to Maclin, he had Ike bring one downstairs to me. I still have it.
Rey Barry
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