Elton Hotel
Encyclopedia
The Elton Hotel is located on West Main Street in downtown Waterbury
, Connecticut, United States. It is an early 20th century building by local architect Wilfred E. Griggs in the Second Renaissance Revival
architectural style
.
It was built to replace a lavish hotel lost in a fire that destroyed much of downtown Waterbury two years earlier. To the surprise of its investors, mainly prominent local businessmen, it turned a profit within a year of its opening. F. Scott Fitzgerald
was a guest, and James Thurber
is said to have written "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
", during a stay of his. On the eve of the 1960 election
, John F. Kennedy
gave an early-morning speech from the hotel that was credited with helping him win Connecticut. It continued to be used as a hotel until the early 1970s.
In the late 1970s, when the Downtown Waterbury Historic District
was created, the hotel building was included as a contributing property
. In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
individually. Since then it has been converted
into professional office space and senior housing.
, with many other buildings dating to the same period and earlier, reflecting contemporary styles.
The building itself is a 100-foot (30.5 m) square six-story seven-bay
steel frame
structure surfaced in buff brick. It is topped with a flat roof. The south (front) facade
projects slightly; within that the central five bays project as well.
limestone
. Round-arched openings, set with opening casement windows muntin
ed in wooden ogee
curves, have scroll keystone
s with carved acanthus
leaves and floral festoon
s. Below them are small basement windows screened by curved bombe grilles. The main entrance is centrally located in a flat-roofed projecting portico
.
A limestone stringcourse
sets off the top of the story. The second-story windows have scrolled keystones as well, but over smaller, rectangular openings. They, and all the other window bays on the upper stories, are filled by eight-over-one sash window
s, in the outer four bays and recessed French doors in the inner three, opening onto a balcony
with wrought iron
railing supported in the middle by the entrance portico and on the sides by large scrolled brackets
. The brickwork
echoes the rustication below and is further quoin
ed at the corners.
Another limestone stringcourse divides the second and third stories. At this level copper-sheathed oriel window
s fill the two bays flanking the center and continue for the next two stories. Quoins set them off as well, and the oriels are decorated with corner pilaster
s, recessed panels below the openings and classical
cornice
s in a different motif on each level: a round pediment
and dentils on the third story, straight with small mutules at the fourth, and large mutules and a cartouche
on the fifth.
The other windows on the third and fourth stories are set within slightly recessed two-story rounded arches. They are topped with keystones supporting carved stone motifs above their lintels. Those on the third story have swags, with wreaths in the arch on the fourth.
Projecting bricks, interrupted by the quoins and oriels, set off the fifth story. The windows there have less decoration, primarily splayed-brick lintels similar to those on the two stories below but with a projecting keystone. At the top of the oriel is another balcony like the one on the second story, with scrolled brackets supporting it in the center as well. On the sixth floor French doors again open onto the balcony from recessed openings; the outer windows are the plainest on the facade, slightly recessed with a projecting brick surround, divided from each other by recessed panels.
At either upper corner of the panels begins the copper roofline treatment. More large scrolled brackets and mutules support projecting eaves create a cornice effect. Atop them is a pattern in which narrow niches alternate with large copper cartouches. Large stylized foot scrolls support a flagpole in the center.
The other side facing a street, the west facade looking out on Prospect Street, has a similar appearance. Its four projecting oriels go up an additional story. On the ground floor the central entrance is round arched, and the flanking windows are rectangular, done in stained glass
with a heraldric
motif on their upper section. The windows alternate between large major openings and smaller minor ones.
The north facade, the building's rear, is its plainest. It is done in red brick with segmental-arched windows having no additional ornament. The east facade, overlooking a narrow alley between the hotel and its lower neighbor, is midway between the north and south in terms of decoration. Here the building is U-shaped, with an airshaft opening in one bay. A copper railing with bulbed balustrade runs along the top of the first story; behind it is the skylight that once lit the dining room.
columns with an unusual pattern of alternating fluted
and smooth drums support a frieze
with alternating triglyph
and patera
e. Behind them similar pilasters form an arched deeply recessed porch. In the walls are marble
niches with a floral carving on top. The porch's soffit
has a large central panel outlined by a wreath of carved fruit and flowers. The doorway itself has sidelights and a transom below a dentilated broken pediment.
The interior has undergone some changes since its conversion into office space and then its current use as an assisted living
facility. In the lobby, some original features, like the columns and cornice, have been painted and enclosed. The original marble floor and mantels
remain, with the latter now in offices that have been created. Above the east one is a realist 1930s mural
depicint Waterbury's industries.
To the west, the ballroom
has had its barrel vault
ed ceiling with egg and dart molded cornice mostly hidden by a modern ceiling. It can still be seen from a second floor doorway. It is off the west stairway, which retains its original pilasters, archway and plaster ceiling decoration. The east stairway likewise has its original paneled wainscoting. They and the elevator lead to upper floors where corridors with their original door surrounds lead to offices and rooms that have much of their original trim, including deep cornices, paneling and molded baseboard
s.
structures that reflected the city's achievements and aspirations. In 1902, a fire burned a three-acre (1.2 ha) area on the east side of Waterbury Green, destroying 42 buildings in the process.
The city was stricken, but not devastated. The fire had created an opportunity to rebuild and redefine itself, and the money was there. Many of downtown Waterbury
's major buildings, such as Cass Gilbert
's municipal center
, were erected in the years afterwards.
One of the burnt buildings that had mattered a great deal to the city's business community was the Scovill Hotel, the city's finest. To replace it, the Scovills and other families prominent in the brass and other industries pooled their money, a total of $300,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) to build a newer, more sophisticated hotel for visiting business travelers. It was named after J.S. Elton, founder of the Waterbury Brass Company, since he and his son had contributed the greatest portion.
Wilfred E. Griggs, a Waterbury native who had studied at Yale and Columbia, was given the commission. He had already designed two distinctive buildings in the city, the nearby Odd Fellows Hall, a rare use of the Venetian Gothic, and the offices of the Waterbury Clock Company. His design for the hotel featured an elegant exterior, in which many Second Renaissance Revival
features like a flat roof, bracketed
cornice
and quoin
s were augmented by the classically inspired carved stone ornamentation like the flowers, fruits and festoons, and the smaller-scale elements like the ogee
curves in the windows, decoration more common on Beaux-Arts structures of the era. It covered a modern interior that used some of the newest technologies, from its steel frame
structural system
to the elevators, electric lighting and telephones in every room.
The hotel's investors did not expect it to turn a profit, at least for a while, since their primary aim was to provide the city with a hotel equivalent to those found in larger cities, and they could absorb the loss. Nevertheless, it made money in its first year of operation. Its restaurants were popular and its ballroom became the site of all the city's most desirable social events. Almon C. Judd, the manager, made it the starting point for the "Ideal Tour", in which a convoy of motorists would depart from Waterbury to visit major resort hotels in northern New England
, at sites like Crawford Notch
, Sunapee Lake and Poland Spring.
Guests in the early 20th century would include F. Scott Fitzgerald
, Rosalind Russell
and Lefty Gomez
. In the late 1930s, James Thurber
lived in the area and frequently went into town with his wife to run errands. Those trips inspired his short story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
", later published in The New Yorker
, widely reprinted and considered a classic of American literature.
In it, the title character and his wife visit Waterbury to run errands. Thurber describes Mitty as, having completed his errands, returning to a hotel lobby where they have agreed to meet. While sitting in a leather chair, he lapses into one of his daydreams about being a combat air pilot, until his wife returns. It is believed that the hotel described was the Elton.
On October 10, 1922 a group of 15 men, led by Dr. Anthony P. Vastola, met in the basement of the Elton and established Unico National
, an Italian American service organization to engage in charitable works, support higher education, and perform patriotic deeds. The organization now has over 7,000 members in 140 local chapters in 19 states. A plaque commemorating the establishment of the organization is affixed the font of the building.
At some point in the late 1950s the Elton was renamed the Roger Smith Hotel. At 3 a.m. on November 6, 1960, John F. Kennedy
spoke to a crowd estimated to be at least 40,000 gathered on the Green from the hotel's balcony, the concluding stop of an election-eve motorcade up the Naugatuck Valley. It was one of his last speeches of that year's election
. The size of the crowd, and the enthusiasm with which they greeted Kennedy both at the speech and when he attended Mass
at Immaculate Conception in the morning, led state Democratic
chairman John Moran Bailey
to predict that the senator from Massachusetts would carry the state, then dominated by Republicans
. Two days later, Connecticut voted by an even larger margin than he had predicted for Kennedy, the first time it had supported a Democrat since 1944.
Pierre Salinger
would later call this the greatest night of the campaign. A commemorative plaque
was later affixed to the railing. In 1980
, Ronald Reagan
spoke on the Green and alluded to Kennedy's speech as a way of identifying himself with Kennedy. By the time of Reagan's visit, the Elton was no longer a hotel and had been converted into offices. Today it is The Elton Residential Care, an assisted living
facility.
Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City...
, Connecticut, United States. It is an early 20th century building by local architect Wilfred E. Griggs in the Second Renaissance Revival
Second Renaissance Revival architecture
Second Renaissance Revival architecture is a category of architecture used in classifying buildings listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It has been applied by the National Register for hundreds of places.-See also:...
architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
.
It was built to replace a lavish hotel lost in a fire that destroyed much of downtown Waterbury two years earlier. To the surprise of its investors, mainly prominent local businessmen, it turned a profit within a year of its opening. F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
was a guest, and James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
is said to have written "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's stories, it first appeared in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and was first collected in his book My World and Welcome to It...
", during a stay of his. On the eve of the 1960 election
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
gave an early-morning speech from the hotel that was credited with helping him win Connecticut. It continued to be used as a hotel until the early 1970s.
In the late 1970s, when the Downtown Waterbury Historic District
Downtown Waterbury Historic District
The Downtown Waterbury Historic District is the core of the city of Waterbury, Connecticut, United States. It is a roughly rectangular area centered around West Main Street and Waterbury Green, the remnant of the original town commons, which has been called "one of the most attractive downtown...
was created, the hotel building was included as a contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
. In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
individually. Since then it has been converted
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
into professional office space and senior housing.
Building
The hotel is located on the north side of West Main, at the east corner with Prospect Street. It occupies a lot of a quarter-acre, about a thousand square feet (1000 square feet (92.9 m²)). On the opposite corner is Immaculate Conception Church, a Baroque Revival Roman Catholic church built in the late 1920s. To the west, on the corner with North Main Street, is another, smaller office building of similar vintage. Across the street is Waterbury Green, the two-acre (2 acres (8,093.7 m²)) downtown park at the center of the city. The surrounding neighborhood is similar high-density urban mixed-use developmentMixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
, with many other buildings dating to the same period and earlier, reflecting contemporary styles.
The building itself is a 100-foot (30.5 m) square six-story seven-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
steel frame
Steel frame
Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...
structure surfaced in buff brick. It is topped with a flat roof. The south (front) facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
projects slightly; within that the central five bays project as well.
Exterior
On the first story the face is rusticatedRustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
. Round-arched openings, set with opening casement windows muntin
Muntin
Muntin or Muntin bar is a strip of wood or metal separating and holding panes of glass in a window. Muntins are also called "glazing bars", "muntin bars", or "sash bars". Muntins can be found in doors, windows and furniture, typically in western styles of architecture...
ed in wooden ogee
Ogee
An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....
curves, have scroll keystone
Keystone (architecture)
A keystone is the wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. This makes a keystone very important structurally...
s with carved acanthus
Acanthus
Acanthus , in its feminine form acantha , is the Latinised form of the ancient Greek word acanthos or akanthos, referring to the Acanthus plant. It can also be used as the prefix acantho-, meaning "thorny"...
leaves and floral festoon
Festoon
Festoon , a wreath or garland, and so in architecture a conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons, either from a decorated knot, or held in the mouths of lions, or suspended across the back of bulls heads as...
s. Below them are small basement windows screened by curved bombe grilles. The main entrance is centrally located in a flat-roofed projecting portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
.
A limestone stringcourse
Course (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
sets off the top of the story. The second-story windows have scrolled keystones as well, but over smaller, rectangular openings. They, and all the other window bays on the upper stories, are filled by eight-over-one sash window
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
s, in the outer four bays and recessed French doors in the inner three, opening onto a balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
with wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
railing supported in the middle by the entrance portico and on the sides by large scrolled brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
. The brickwork
Brickwork
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar to build up brick structures such as walls. Brickwork is also used to finish corners, door, and window openings, etc...
echoes the rustication below and is further quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
ed at the corners.
Another limestone stringcourse divides the second and third stories. At this level copper-sheathed oriel window
Oriel window
Oriel windows are a form of bay window commonly found in Gothic architecture, which project from the main wall of the building but do not reach to the ground. Corbels or brackets are often used to support this kind of window. They are seen in combination with the Tudor arch. This type of window was...
s fill the two bays flanking the center and continue for the next two stories. Quoins set them off as well, and the oriels are decorated with corner pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s, recessed panels below the openings and classical
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
s in a different motif on each level: a round pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
and dentils on the third story, straight with small mutules at the fourth, and large mutules and a cartouche
Cartouche
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an ellipse with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu, replacing the earlier serekh...
on the fifth.
The other windows on the third and fourth stories are set within slightly recessed two-story rounded arches. They are topped with keystones supporting carved stone motifs above their lintels. Those on the third story have swags, with wreaths in the arch on the fourth.
Projecting bricks, interrupted by the quoins and oriels, set off the fifth story. The windows there have less decoration, primarily splayed-brick lintels similar to those on the two stories below but with a projecting keystone. At the top of the oriel is another balcony like the one on the second story, with scrolled brackets supporting it in the center as well. On the sixth floor French doors again open onto the balcony from recessed openings; the outer windows are the plainest on the facade, slightly recessed with a projecting brick surround, divided from each other by recessed panels.
At either upper corner of the panels begins the copper roofline treatment. More large scrolled brackets and mutules support projecting eaves create a cornice effect. Atop them is a pattern in which narrow niches alternate with large copper cartouches. Large stylized foot scrolls support a flagpole in the center.
The other side facing a street, the west facade looking out on Prospect Street, has a similar appearance. Its four projecting oriels go up an additional story. On the ground floor the central entrance is round arched, and the flanking windows are rectangular, done in stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
with a heraldric
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
motif on their upper section. The windows alternate between large major openings and smaller minor ones.
The north facade, the building's rear, is its plainest. It is done in red brick with segmental-arched windows having no additional ornament. The east facade, overlooking a narrow alley between the hotel and its lower neighbor, is midway between the north and south in terms of decoration. Here the building is U-shaped, with an airshaft opening in one bay. A copper railing with bulbed balustrade runs along the top of the first story; behind it is the skylight that once lit the dining room.
Interior
IonicIonic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
columns with an unusual pattern of alternating fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
and smooth drums support a frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
with alternating triglyph
Triglyph
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze, so called because of the angular channels in them, two perfect and one divided, the two chamfered angles or hemiglyphs being reckoned as one. The square recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric...
and patera
Patera
A patera was a broad, shallow dish used for drinking, primarily in a ritual context such as a libation. These paterae were often used in Rome....
e. Behind them similar pilasters form an arched deeply recessed porch. In the walls are marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
niches with a floral carving on top. The porch's soffit
Soffit
Soffit , in architecture, describes the underside of any construction element...
has a large central panel outlined by a wreath of carved fruit and flowers. The doorway itself has sidelights and a transom below a dentilated broken pediment.
The interior has undergone some changes since its conversion into office space and then its current use as an assisted living
Assisted living
Assisted living residences or assisted living facilities provide supervision or assistance with activities of daily living ; coordination of services by outside health care providers; and monitoring of resident activities to help to ensure their health, safety, and well-being.Assistance may...
facility. In the lobby, some original features, like the columns and cornice, have been painted and enclosed. The original marble floor and mantels
Fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...
remain, with the latter now in offices that have been created. Above the east one is a realist 1930s mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
depicint Waterbury's industries.
To the west, the ballroom
Ballroom
A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...
has had its barrel vault
Barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design...
ed ceiling with egg and dart molded cornice mostly hidden by a modern ceiling. It can still be seen from a second floor doorway. It is off the west stairway, which retains its original pilasters, archway and plaster ceiling decoration. The east stairway likewise has its original paneled wainscoting. They and the elevator lead to upper floors where corridors with their original door surrounds lead to offices and rooms that have much of their original trim, including deep cornices, paneling and molded baseboard
Baseboard
In architecture, a baseboard is a board covering the lowest part of an interior wall...
s.
History
By 1900 Waterbury had carved a niche for itself in American industry. With two of the country's major brassmakers headquartered there, it was "The Brass City". The buildings of downtown were primarily sophisticated ItalianateItalianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
structures that reflected the city's achievements and aspirations. In 1902, a fire burned a three-acre (1.2 ha) area on the east side of Waterbury Green, destroying 42 buildings in the process.
The city was stricken, but not devastated. The fire had created an opportunity to rebuild and redefine itself, and the money was there. Many of downtown Waterbury
Downtown Waterbury Historic District
The Downtown Waterbury Historic District is the core of the city of Waterbury, Connecticut, United States. It is a roughly rectangular area centered around West Main Street and Waterbury Green, the remnant of the original town commons, which has been called "one of the most attractive downtown...
's major buildings, such as Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert
- Historical impact :Gilbert is considered a skyscraper pioneer; when designing the Woolworth Building he moved into unproven ground — though he certainly was aware of the ground-breaking work done by Chicago architects on skyscrapers and once discussed merging firms with the legendary Daniel...
's municipal center
Waterbury Municipal Center Complex
The Waterbury Municipal Center Complex, also known as the Cass Gilbert National Register District, is a group of five buildings, including City Hall, on Field and Grand streets in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States...
, were erected in the years afterwards.
One of the burnt buildings that had mattered a great deal to the city's business community was the Scovill Hotel, the city's finest. To replace it, the Scovills and other families prominent in the brass and other industries pooled their money, a total of $300,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) to build a newer, more sophisticated hotel for visiting business travelers. It was named after J.S. Elton, founder of the Waterbury Brass Company, since he and his son had contributed the greatest portion.
Wilfred E. Griggs, a Waterbury native who had studied at Yale and Columbia, was given the commission. He had already designed two distinctive buildings in the city, the nearby Odd Fellows Hall, a rare use of the Venetian Gothic, and the offices of the Waterbury Clock Company. His design for the hotel featured an elegant exterior, in which many Second Renaissance Revival
Second Renaissance Revival architecture
Second Renaissance Revival architecture is a category of architecture used in classifying buildings listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It has been applied by the National Register for hundreds of places.-See also:...
features like a flat roof, bracketed
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
and quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s were augmented by the classically inspired carved stone ornamentation like the flowers, fruits and festoons, and the smaller-scale elements like the ogee
Ogee
An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....
curves in the windows, decoration more common on Beaux-Arts structures of the era. It covered a modern interior that used some of the newest technologies, from its steel frame
Steel frame
Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...
structural system
Structural system
The term structural system or structural frame in structural engineering refers to load-resisting sub-system of a structure. The structural system transfers loads through interconnected structural components or members.-High-rise buildings:...
to the elevators, electric lighting and telephones in every room.
The hotel's investors did not expect it to turn a profit, at least for a while, since their primary aim was to provide the city with a hotel equivalent to those found in larger cities, and they could absorb the loss. Nevertheless, it made money in its first year of operation. Its restaurants were popular and its ballroom became the site of all the city's most desirable social events. Almon C. Judd, the manager, made it the starting point for the "Ideal Tour", in which a convoy of motorists would depart from Waterbury to visit major resort hotels in northern New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, at sites like Crawford Notch
Crawford Notch
Crawford Notch is the steep and narrow gorge of the Saco River in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, located almost entirely within the town of Hart's Location...
, Sunapee Lake and Poland Spring.
Guests in the early 20th century would include F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
and Lefty Gomez
Lefty Gómez
Vernon Louis "Lefty" Gomez was an American left-handed major league pitcher who played in the American League for the New York Yankees between 1930 and 1942. Considered one of the great pitchers of the day, Gomez was a seven-time All-Star and a five-time World Series Champion with the Yankees...
. In the late 1930s, James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
lived in the area and frequently went into town with his wife to run errands. Those trips inspired his short story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's stories, it first appeared in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and was first collected in his book My World and Welcome to It...
", later published in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, widely reprinted and considered a classic of American literature.
In it, the title character and his wife visit Waterbury to run errands. Thurber describes Mitty as, having completed his errands, returning to a hotel lobby where they have agreed to meet. While sitting in a leather chair, he lapses into one of his daydreams about being a combat air pilot, until his wife returns. It is believed that the hotel described was the Elton.
On October 10, 1922 a group of 15 men, led by Dr. Anthony P. Vastola, met in the basement of the Elton and established Unico National
Unico National
Unico National is a service organization of Italian Americans established in Waterbury, CT in 1922 to "engage in charitable works, support higher education, and perform patriotic deeds". At that time, the trial of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti was in the news, and many stories fostered a belief...
, an Italian American service organization to engage in charitable works, support higher education, and perform patriotic deeds. The organization now has over 7,000 members in 140 local chapters in 19 states. A plaque commemorating the establishment of the organization is affixed the font of the building.
At some point in the late 1950s the Elton was renamed the Roger Smith Hotel. At 3 a.m. on November 6, 1960, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
spoke to a crowd estimated to be at least 40,000 gathered on the Green from the hotel's balcony, the concluding stop of an election-eve motorcade up the Naugatuck Valley. It was one of his last speeches of that year's election
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
. The size of the crowd, and the enthusiasm with which they greeted Kennedy both at the speech and when he attended Mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
at Immaculate Conception in the morning, led state Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
chairman John Moran Bailey
John Moran Bailey
John Moran Bailey was a U.S. political figure.He dominated Connecticut Democratic politics as a party boss for many years. He served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1961 until 1968, and was generally seen as one of the main behind-the-scenes backers of John F...
to predict that the senator from Massachusetts would carry the state, then dominated by Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. Two days later, Connecticut voted by an even larger margin than he had predicted for Kennedy, the first time it had supported a Democrat since 1944.
Pierre Salinger
Pierre Salinger
Pierre Emil George Salinger was a White House Press Secretary to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson...
would later call this the greatest night of the campaign. A commemorative plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
was later affixed to the railing. In 1980
United States presidential election, 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent...
, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
spoke on the Green and alluded to Kennedy's speech as a way of identifying himself with Kennedy. By the time of Reagan's visit, the Elton was no longer a hotel and had been converted into offices. Today it is The Elton Residential Care, an assisted living
Assisted living
Assisted living residences or assisted living facilities provide supervision or assistance with activities of daily living ; coordination of services by outside health care providers; and monitoring of resident activities to help to ensure their health, safety, and well-being.Assistance may...
facility.