Maryland Hotel - Mark Twain Hotel, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: November 07, 2023 Categories:

Designed in 1907 by prominent St. Louis architect A. B. Groves, the Maryland Hotel is one of downtown St. Louis' few remaining historic hotels. The Classical Revival design, featuring outstanding Winkle Terra Cotta Co. ornament, is a noteworthy example of an academic style popular in St. Louis commercial architecture of the early twentieth century.

On March 29^th, 1907, a St. Louis Globe-Democrat caption, "Important Lease Signed," announced the initial plans for the new hotel. The 99-year land lease from the George D. Hall Real Estate Co. to Rajaw Realty stipulated that Rajaw construct a fireproof building costing not less than $300,000. Conditions of the lease required Rajaw, a subsidiary of Kilgen-Rule Real Estate Co., to begin construction by September 1^st, 1907, and complete the building within sixteen months. The deed set land rent at $12,500 for the first year and $20,000 for the remainder of the term. The location of the parcel at Ninth and Pine Streets was a significant indicator of the business district's westward expansion and commercial growth. The projected hotel answered St. Louis' need for modern hostelries to lodge an increasing number of buyers and merchants who flocked to the "Queen City of the Southwestern Empire."

On September 8^th, 1907, the Globe-Democrat published architect Groves' design along with detailed descriptions of the building, projected as "one of the most handsome hotel buildings in the West." One year later, on October 3^rd, 1908, the $500,000 hotel opened to the public during a week of local fall festivities which included German Day celebrations, the Veiled Prophet parade, and a campaign visit of Republican presidential nominee William Howard Taft. Most of the press coverage stressed the Maryland Hotel's advanced features of safety, comfort, and interior fittings.

The fireproof construction of a steel skeletal frame clad with brick boasted the lowest fire underwriter's rate of any hotel in the city, possessing "not enough wood in it to make a fire." Each of the 250 rooms (240 with connecting bathrooms) opened toward either the street or a large inner court. With rooms popularly priced at $1.00 to $2.50 per day, the hotel also offered special eighth-floor accommodations for salesmen which combined "large and light sample rooms" with private rooms and baths. Public reception spaces included parlors on the second floor and a large lobby on the street level. The lobby, finished with white Italian marble wainscoting, also featured a floor of Tennessee marble. The 400-guest basement dining room operated by James H. McTague, a well-known restaurateur, displayed birch paneling and a decorative ceramic tile floor, both still intact. A special ventilating system both cleaned and cooled dining room air, making it "absolutely odorless and healthful." When the hotel opened, streetfront retail shops were rented for a cigar store, a barber shop, a shoe store, and a haberdasher; four additional stores awaited tenants.

Virtually all of downtown St. Louis' nineteenth-century hostelries, along with several dating to the early twentieth century, have been lost to urban renewal. The Maryland Hotel remains one of the oldest of only seven historic hotels surviving in the central business district. (The only nineteenth-century building, the small Terminal Hotel, opened in 1895 as part of Union Station.) Architect Groves' Classical Revival design is distinguished from the other hotels by its extensive program of fine terra cotta ornament, making it by far the most richly embellished in the group. The Union Station Terminal Hotel, the 1904 Jefferson Hotel, and the 1913 Majestic Hotel exhibit a minimum of ornamentation. The later hotels (Statler, 1917; Mayfair, 1925; and Lennox, 1929) also follow a more restrained stylistic model. In the Maryland Hotel, Groves skillfully combined a functional plan and up-to-date fireproof construction with a sophisticated Classical Revival design in warm apricot-colored brick set against cream-colored terra cotta ornament.

The unusually rich variety of ornamental motifs exhibited throughout the building showcases the fine craftsmanship and knowledge of materials of the Winkle Terra Cotta Company. The St. Louis firm was established in 1883 by English-born and trained Joseph Winkle (1837-1914). Among Winkle's first large contracts, Louis Sullivan's 1890-92 Wainwright Building (standing two blocks east of the Maryland Hotel) demonstrated the potential of terra cotta for architectural decoration. The Maryland Hotel's matte-glazed terra cotta represented a significant technical advance in ceramics of the time, as earlier attempts to achieve a true matte glaze met with little success. On the eve of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the Winkle Terra Cotta Co. was reportedly the third-largest terra cotta plant in the country and the largest west of the Mississippi. The company's thirteen-kiln manufactory covering some six acres annually shipped over one hundred train carloads outside St. Louis while filling numerous local orders.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Cornell-trained Albert B. Groves (1868-1926) became a junior member of the St. Louis firm, Grable, Weber & Groves in 1891; after 1905 he worked alone. The architect's versatile portfolio included prestigious commissions for numerous churches and large houses, in addition to commercial and industrial buildings. He won special recognition for his 1906 design for Brown Shoe Company's corporate headquarters on Washington Avenue (razed), and for his expertise in factory design published in The American Architect in 1918 and given form in eleven shoe factories. Groves' important designs outside Missouri include the First National Bank Building and Taliaferro house in Tampa, Florida, and buildings in Denver, New York, and Oklahoma.

Building Description

The former Maryland Hotel is an eight-story commercial building located at 205 North Ninth Street at the northwest corner of Ninth and Pine Streets in St. Louis, Missouri; it was designed in the Classical Revival style by St. Louis architect Albert B. Groves in 1907. The building has a steel frame with concrete floors and brick walls. Exterior surfaces of its Ninth and Pine Street elevations are richly ornamented above the first floor with apricot-colored brick and lavish cream-colored terra cotta. The first floor extends the full length and breadth of the building; above, a U-shaped floor plan provides light and air to rooms on the inside of the corridor. There are thirty-four rooms and twenty-one baths per floor above the second story. The second story has one (original) larger "common" room or parlor centered on the east elevation, reducing the number of hotel rooms on that floor. The full basement extends additionally out under the sidewalk. Situated on the southeast corner of City Block 274, the hotel occupies just under one-quarter of the block. It has been moderately maintained as a residence hotel for many years. Major alterations are primarily limited to the first-floor commercial spaces, which have had many incarnations over the years; and to the original cornice, which has been removed. Alterations of this nature are common to most historic commercial buildings in the central business district.

The building is located in a densely built section of commercial downtown; the north half of its city block is fully occupied by buildings, while the quarter-block to its west is a surface parking lot. The Maryland Hotel was built without setback on a prime corner lot. An alley separates it from the Frisco Building to the north.

Entrance into the hotel's lobby is gained at the mid-point of the Ninth Street (east) elevation. Other entrances on the building's east and south (Pine Street) elevations provide access to the commercial businesses (mostly restaurants) that lease space on the first floor. Hotel residents attain access to the upper floors by elevators located on the south wall of the lobby or the stairs on the opposite wall. The primary (east) elevation above the first floor is divided into nine bays; the south elevation has twelve bays above the first floor. The brick of the walls on these two elevations is laid in standard running bond, the rich color highlighted by the extensive use of matte-glazed cream-colored terra cotta. At the eighth story, the brick wall is inset with alternating glazed brick diamonds resulting in a checkerboard effect. The walls. of the west elevation and the interior-facing walls of the lightwell are all of painted brown brick topped with plain red terra cotta coping; the north wall, facing the alley, is unpainted brown brick and has a long loading dock opening with a limestone lintel and sill. The hotel has a flat roof covered with standard built-up asphalt.

Each of the two primary elevations features two vertical rows of bay windows from the second through the seventh stories, in each case being the third bay from the corner. Centered between these on each elevation is a bay highlighted from the third through the seventh stories by wide, elaborate, terra cotta surrounds; on the primary elevation, this bay features paired windows, while a single window is featured in this bay on the south elevation. All windows from, the second through the seventh stories on the Ninth and Pine Street elevations are one-over-one with double-hung wood sash and terra cotta surround. The wood sash appears to be in need of paint but otherwise in sound condition; the simple terra cotta surrounds are chipped in places, but largely intact. Windows on the rear (west) and alley (north) elevations and those facing the interior lightwell are also one-over-one with double-hung wood sash, but have triple-rowlock segmental arches and limestone sills. Some of these windows have been blocked up. A row of tiny square windows, formerly hidden between the brackets of the original cornice, runs across the attic story, devoid of ornamentation.

Lavish, decorative elements of cream-colored terra cotta embellish the Maryland's Ninth and Pine Street elevations, some of the most elaborate and beautiful to be found in St. Louis. Terra cotta at the first story was originally limited to corner pillars; recently uncovered, the one at the southeast corner reads "MC MVII" (1907). Some of the higher parts of the raised urn-and-flower design were chipped off to allow the covering material to lie flat. A deep sill course for the second story extends across both the east and south elevations; it consists of a bead-and-reel element topped by a leaf-and-dart course, topped by a wide corrugated band below a band of beading, surmounted by a court of acanthus leaves and topped with a narrow band of egg-and-dart molding. The primary elements of the sill course come next, griffin/swanlike creatures face wreaths and shields draped with garlands. Another egg-and-dart course follows, capped by the plain functional sill course. The entire second story is covered with terra cotta: rusticated blocks feature Greek fretwork designs; window surrounds have bands of guilloche and bead-and-reel ornament. A dentil course extends across both east and south elevations above the second-story windows, topped by a frieze of shells and acanthus leaves. A sill course at the fourth story features running ornament with acanthus leaves, rosettes and pelleting. Terra cotta quoining highlights the three corners of the east and south elevations from the third through the seventh stories, returning at the northeast and southwest corners; at the eighth story, it is replaced with panels of projecting swags and cartouches. The four stacks of bay windows are wonderfully ornamented with cherubim holding shields, inset fleur-de-lis flanked by swags of fruit and flowers, and bountiful urns; their surrounds are compositions of bead-and-reel and variations of egg-and-dart moldings. Between the bays are windows highlighted by the use of terra cotta quoining and voussoirs, each ornamented with fretwork. Within this surround, terra cotta panels of urn and flowers and cherubim with swags of fruit are encased by molding of many types, including egg-and-dart, dentilling, and bead-and-reel. A heavy, scrolled bracket tops each round arch at the top of the seventh story. An unusual terra-cotta sill course at the eight-story is a half-round in an organic, wrapped-bundle form, sporting rosettes at regular intervals. A simple terra cotta lintel course tops the eight-story windows.

The lobby of the Maryland Hotel has been remodeled, covering up original marble floors with carpet, marble and mahogany walls with a laminate, dropping the original 14.5' ceiling to about 8', and partitioning it into smaller spaces. The current owners are in the process of uncovering the original flooring and walls where possible, and removing the acoustical tile ceiling and some partitions; the lobby is and will remain about half its original size. Marble steps in remarkably good condition leading upstairs and down to the basement are still in use, marble baseboards are still in place in the lobby, and brass handrails are still in place on the basement steps. These will all be retained. The basement was clad in painted wood paneling, reportedly birch; this is intact (along with marble baseboards) and will be retained in the plans to return the basement to a restaurant again. Hexagonal floor tile in the basement feature a Greek key border. Part of the basement was originally used as the hotel's kitchen; the original white vitreous brick is still in place. The original floor plan remains the same for floors two through eight, with the exception of the loss of one room per floor when an open stairway was enclosed some decades ago. The current owners are involved at this time in an appeal to the city to allow them to undo this alteration, which was implemented due to fire codes. Fire doors will instead be installed across the corridor near the stairs if the appeal is successful. Upper floors are concrete and walls are plaster; chair rails are largely intact in corridors and will be retained in the renovation. Rooms are simple and most still feature their original single-bead woodwork. About half of the bathrooms were remodeled in the 1960s and 1970s, their original hexagonal tile floors and original fixtures removed. The original decorative and functional elements in the bathrooms that remain will be retained whenever possible.

The most prominent alteration to the Maryland Hotel was the removal of the terra cotta cornice. There are currently no plans to restore it. Balustrades that formerly crowned the bays windows at the eighth story have been removed. At the second story, a small terra cotta balcony in the center of each of the two ornamented elevations has also been removed. The first floor has undergone many renovations and updates over the years. Originally, the hotel entrance at the center of the Ninth Street elevation featured a wood- or iron-railed balcony that extended out over the sidewalk. Two doors allowed access to this balcony; these are still in place, but the balcony is gone, replaced by a marquee not designed to support a live load. The current, unassuming hotel entrance is still centered on the Ninth Street elevation; it is flanked by openings with steps leading directly to the basement restaurant. These openings were covered with red, cream, and blue porcelainized steel, probably in the 1940s; this material is still in excellent condition and plans are to retain it. A series of shops has been located in the storefront spaces around the Ninth and Pine Street perimeters of the hotel's first floor. Work currently underway will restore the exterior of the southeast corner to something close to its original configuration, based on historic photos. The building has been maintained in a fair-to-good condition, with primary maintenance having been kept up.