Old partially vacant Hotel in Washington Georgia
Fitzpatrick Hotel, Washington Georgia
The Fitzpatrick Hotel is a fine example of late-nineteenth century hotel design in a mid-sized Georgia town. Its Queen Anne style design and detailing are particularly outstanding for a hotel in a town of this size. The building is an intact example of the hotels located in Georgia's county seats to serve local and county citizens with courthouse business, traveling salesmen (drummers) and out of town visitors. The hotel was one of the largest commercial enterprises in downtown Washington and contributed significantly to the economic development of the city. The hotel was an important local gathering place for meetings, eating and visiting.
The Fitzpatrick is a fine example of the "modern" hotels built in many of Georgia's county seats around the turn-of-the-century. Its three stories, load bearing brick construction, general layout and interior finish details are typical of small town hotels of this period. The Queen Anne detailing of the exterior, identified by the rich mixture of building materials, textures and forms, is particularly fine for such a building. Brick, stone, metal, a corner turret, a balcony, bay windows, stained glass, garlands and swags are combined here ina lively yet coherent manner. Interior detailing and finishes are commensurate with the exterior. The hotel is one of the largest and most impressive buildings in downtown Washington, and it makes an invaluable contribution to the courthouse square.
The Fitzpatrick Hotel was designed by Golucke and Stewart, a late-nineteenth-century
Atlanta firm. James W. Golucke (1865-1907) together with George Wilson Stewart (1862-1937)
designed five Georgia courthouses and Golucke alone designed about fifteen more. Golucke
was an important architect who in addition to the courthouses designed banks, churches and
other hotels. Stewart, about whom little is known except that he practiced by himself
after 1900, acted as assisting architect for the
The hotel is a reasonably intact example of Georgia's county seat hotels which at the turn of the century served travelers with courthouse business in addition to salesmen and other visitors. Many, like the Fitzpatrick, combined a hotel with first-floor stores. The Fitzpatrick was conveniently located on the courthouse square at the termination of the mule-drawn train which brought travelers from the railroad depot seven blocks away.
Washington, laid out in 1780, is located in the midst of highly productive farming country where by the early 1800s, cotton was King. It prospered as the market center for the region until the Civil War when the end of the slave economy brought financial ruin to the town. Recovery was slow but by the 1890's a period of growth and prosperity had begun. The community was incorporated as a city in 1899 and that same year a new courthouse, completed in 1904, was begun. In 1895, a devastating fire destroyed the entire block west of the square, including property owned by two brothers, T. M. and J. H. Fitzpatrick. In 1898, realizing the prime location of their site, and participating in the upswing of commercial activity of the period, they began construction of the Fitzpatrick Hotel. In 1900, the Fitzpatrick was one of two "modern" hotels in town that could boast of running water, electric lights and an elevator. However, not until 1912 did the hotel have more than one bathroom per floor. The hotel operated under several owners and names, becoming increasingly less profitable as the automobile became more generally available, until in the 1950s the hotel and restaurant were closed leaving only the stores in operation.
For many years it housed Washington's only restaurant. During the 1920s, after the boll weevil caused the collapse of the cotton-based economy still dominant in Washington, a group of men known as the Boll Weevil Club used the hotel's rocking chairs as their informal gathering place.
Several events that occurred at the hotel became a part of Washington's popular history. Accounts of a 1900 banquet held in the hotel restaurant and attended by many of Washington's notable citizens, and the 1900 stay of a team of scientists from MIT in order to witness a solar eclipse, appears in much of the historical literature about the town.
Building Description
The Fitzpatrick Hotel, built in 1898, is a three-story brick Queen Anne-style building located in the center of a historic commercial block on the west side of the courthouse square in downtown Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia. Retail stores and a lobby occupy the ground floor, and hotel rooms, a restaurant, and a kitchen are located above.
The Fitzpatrick is a three-story rectangular block with one and two-story extensions to the rear. The front facade of the building is divided into four bays by stone and brick plasters. On the ground floor, storefronts occupy the three bays to the south; the hotel entrance, protected by a canopy supported by cast iron columns that extends over the sidewalk occupies the northern bay. Two of the storefronts retain much of their original fabric; the third one and the lobby entrance have been modernized. The upper floors feature two two-story bay windows in the central bays and a southeast corner domed turret all clad with white-painted sheet metal embossed with garlands and swags. On the front, all windows are one-over-one double-hung sash with stained glass transoms above. Those in the end bays have stone caps, flat arched on the second floor and round-arched on the third. Stone string courses extend from the window sills; and from the arch springing points of the third-floor windows. Side and rear windows have four-over-four sash. The complex roofline features a metal cornice supported by corbeling and surmounted by a parapet that steps up around the tent roofs of the central bay windows. The word "Fitzpatrick" and "1898" in the parapet provide a central focus, chimneys project up through the parapet above the plasters and the onion-domed roof of the turret highlights the southeast corner. The sides and rear of the structure are utilitarian with no decorative work at all.
The interior has plaster walls and wood floors throughout except in the front and rear lobby entrance areas where the floors are stone tile. Ceilings are wood in the stores and in the front lobby entry area and plaster almost everywhere else. The long narrow lobby has paneled wainscoting and an arcade along the north side that separates the single-run stairway with its solid paneled rail from the rest of the space. To the rear, an arched opening leads to a rear lobby area and several small rooms of unidentified use. Upstairs, in the three-story rectangular section facing the street, guest rooms open off a central hall; Ten guest rooms and three baths (two added in 1912) are located on each floor. Rooms have molded trim with patera blocks around windows and doors, glass transoms above hall doors, and picture moldings. Five guest rooms and the second-floor northeast parlor have fireplaces with overmantels. The parlor has two sets of French doors which lead onto the lobby canopy roof. The main/stairway to the third floor, located along the north wall, and a secondary stairway at the end of the hall at the south wall have decorated newel posts and turned balusters. On the second floor, the dining room, kitchen, and pantries extend to the rear. The large dining room is finished with a pressed metal ceiling, paneled wainscoting, wide doors with cornices, and two fireplaces with mirrored overmantels. Knob and tube wiring, steam radiators dating from about 1912, and some original bathroom fixtures remain. The building has some areas where the plaster is crumbling off walls, but it is in remarkably good condition considering it has been unoccupied since the 1950s. One totally altered storefront and new entrance doors to the lobby are the only major changes. Only a railing around the entrance canopy roof is missing.
The hotel is located in the center of a historic commercial block facing the courthouse square. Nineteenth-century brick buildings flank the hotel. The building fronts on the sidewalk leaving no space for landscaping. An eleven-foot alley separates the hotel from the building to the south. The property behind the hotel is unpaved, unlandscaped, and untended and used for parking.