Glennwanis Hotel, Glennville Georgia

The Glennwanis Hotel, located on the edge of downtown Glennville, was built in 1926 on the site of the former c.1905 Hughes Hotel, which burned in 1920. In July 1925, plans were underway to construct a new hotel for tourists traveling through Glennville to and from Florida along the soon-to-be-numbered U.S. Highway 25. The hotel was built by the Glennville Hotel Company at the urging of the local Kiwanis Club, hence its name, a combination of Glennville and Kiwanis. The hotel was constructed by the local Glennville firm of Bacon and Rolls, and originally featured 40 rooms and all the modern conveniences of the day, including electric lights, steam heat, and hot and cold running water. The Glennwanis Hotel operated as a hotel from 1926 through 1981. Although originally designed for tourists, from the 1940s, it served a local clientele as well, with the addition of a dining room and meeting spaces. It was later converted into efficiency apartments, offices, and a flea market. It is now owned by the city of Glennville, with plans to rehabilitate the building for community use.

The hotel is a good example of a locally built and owned small-town hotel. The hotel retains its historic exterior and interior character-defining features, including its U-shaped plan, arched loggia, lobby space, and interior finishes. Hotels like the Glennwanis are found in many smaller cities in Georgia. Most, like the Glennwanis, date from the early 20^th Century. The hotels vary greatly in terms of overall form, architectural style, and construction materials. Some are relatively large (three to five stories) with high-style architectural design. Others are quite small (two stories) and architecturally quite plain. All exhibit common design characteristics, including: a central lobby, usually the most ornamented space in the building; a dining room and/or meeting room; relatively elaborate stairways; an arrangement of relatively small guest rooms on both sides of central corridors; and sometimes small integral stores with separate storefronts. The Glennwanis Hotel features many of the characteristics of these early 20th-century hotels in Georgia.

The Glennwanis Hotel is significant in the area of transportation as a good example of a small town hotel built during the 1920s to take advantage of the increased demand for lodging by tourists traveling through Georgia to Florida. The Glennwanis Hotel was one of two hotels in Glennville in 1933. The hotel's location, two blocks east of U.S. Highway 25 and 301, a major north-south route prior to the construction of I-95, provided convenient lodging for tourists. The Glennwanis Hotel belongs to a relatively small subset of small-town hotels in Georgia designed primarily for automobile travelers and tourists. The majority of these hotels were built to serve a mixed clientele, including out-of-town businessmen, salesmen, and people attending to legal affairs along with local residents looking for places to dine or gather for social and civic events. The Glennwanis, like some other small hotels built in the 1920s, catered primarily to automobile travelers, although later it diversified to serve local dining and social needs.

The hotel is significant in the areas of commerce and social history as a prominent local business and an important gathering spot for Glennville residents. The viability of a hotel in Glennville is evidenced by the construction of the Glennwanis Hotel on the same lot as the previous Hughes Hotel, which burned in 1920. As one of two hotels in the town, the Glennwanis was important to the local economy by drawing tourists into town from the highway. Also, the hotel's location on the edge of downtown made it a prominent gathering and meeting spot for Glennville's residents. A restaurant was added to the hotel in the mid-1940s The Glennville Lions Club held their weekly lunch meetings at the hotel during the 1940s and 1950s, and the hotel was used by other civic organizations and for social events such as town dances and parties.

Building Description

The Glennwanis Hotel is located on the southwest corner of East Barnard and Tillman streets on the eastern edge of downtown Glennville in southeastern Tattnall County. The hotel is located in an area of mixed historic and non-historic houses and freestanding commercial buildings.

Built in 1926, the Glennwanis Hotel is a two-story, brick, U-shaped building with the bottom of the "U" as the front facade. The gable-on-hip roof features wide eaves. The exterior brick is running bond with a stringcourse between the first and second floors. There are two interior chimneys and single and paired double-hung windows with various light configurations. The symmetrical nine-bay front facade features a three-part arched loggia, each section consisting of an arched open "window' on either side of an open entry. The three bays in the center of the loggia are enclosed rather than open with arched multi-light windows flanking a central recessed entrance that leads into the lobby.

The building is built to the lot lines with the front facade directly adjacent to the sidewalk. The landscaping consists of a few shrubs and grassed areas along the sidewalk. The courtyard at the rear of the building (inside the "U") once contained a patio, garden pond, lagoon, deck, and fountain. However, there are no remnants of the landscape features that once graced this outdoor space.

The interior of the hotel retains its historic floor plan and finishes. The first floor plan features a lobby space in the center (the bottom of the "U") with a double-loaded corridor of various-sized rooms in either wing. The main staircase is located in the right (west) wing, and a secondary staircase is located in the left (east) wing. The second floor plan features a double-loaded corridor with various-sized rooms. The lobby retains its historic finishes, including exposed wood beams and columns, moldings, door and window surrounds, pine floors, and a fireplace with a simple wood mantel shelf. Throughout the interior, the hotel retains its historic wainscoting, French and paneled wood doors with transoms, moldings, window and door surrounds, and plaster walls and ceilings. The main and secondary staircases feature simple square newel posts and balusters.

Changes to the hotel include converting guest rooms into efficiency apartments and the addition of carpet over the pine floors in some areas.