Well, we’ve finally hit the ceiling. We started at the floor
in our Walk with the Historian series, with resort historian Jeff Lane pointing
out some of the hidden significance of features within French Lick Springs
Hotel. First came the mosaic floor tiles in Part 1 of the series, then we
worked up vertically with the scagliola columns in Part 2. This final
installment starts up top with the series of murals adorning the ceiling in the
hotel lobby.
You may have missed them amid all the other gold-trim
embellishments that make French Lick’s lobby a bling-y sight to behold. But enter
the main doors into the lobby, walk in a few steps and wander about 10 steps to
your right and a Roman mythological soap opera of sorts plays out overhead.
We’ll let Jeff take it from here to explain the world of
Pluto (in the blue robe in photo below), who was the unofficial mascot of the
hotel from the early days when Pluto Water was marketed and sold here.
“In mythology, Pluto being the god of the underworld was
looking for a wife, so supposedly he came to the upperworld where we are and there
was a beautiful lady, Persephone, and she is shown in the red dress,” Lane
said. “And basically he tries to trick her into becoming his wife and living
full time with him in the underworld. She ate a fruit, the pomegranate, and
that pretty well sealed the deal.”
With Persephone gone, it saddened her mother, Demeter, the
goddess of plants and crops. That caused Demeter to neglect her plants and
crops and they withered as a result. And it wasn’t long before an intervention
was made on Pluto’s plan to bring Persephone to the underworld.
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| Pluto's likeness on the ceiling murals is more true to form than the devilish figure associated with Pluto water (below). |
“It seemed like some of the higher gods in mythology got
together and said, ‘You just can’t do that,’” Lane explained.
“Pluto agreed that she could spend six months of the year
with her mother and six months of the year with him in the underworld,” Jeff
continued. And as the Romans believed, that explained the transitioning seasons:
“Fall, winter and early spring when things are dying, and then spring would be
when Persephone returns and mother’s happy again, so she begins taking care of
the plants and crops, and so Demeter is happy again until her daughter leaves
in the fall to go back to live with Pluto in the underworld.”
These paintings representing Pluto’s world weren’t an
original feature of the hotel; rather a recent addition during the renovations
of the mid-2000s. Painted by an artist from Conrad Schmitt Studios, the firm
that led the elegant detail work of the interior restoration, the murals were
originally going to be displayed in the Grand Colonnade Restaurant on the hotel’s
lower level.
Then came the decision that an artistic scene so striking
needed a more prominent location. And with nearby West Baden Springs Hotel
boasting its incredible dome, how could French Lick Springs Hotel possibly
compete with that?
The answer: art.
You may be wondering — why is this Pluto on the ceiling so
different than the devilish Pluto that was the hotel’s unofficial mascot back
in the day? Well, Tom Taggart who owned the hotel in the early 20th
Century used the red devil look to advertise the mineral-loaded Pluto Water
back in the day. Turns out, Pluto got a bit of a bad rap. The ceiling painting
is more representative of how the Romans viewed him.
“He does look a lot more pleasant, obviously, than the
devil,” Jeff said. “I guess we all have in our minds, god of the underworld Pluto,
and after you’ve seen the old statues, you just think, ‘Oh my gosh, that Pluto,
I wouldn’t want to come face-to-face with him at all.’”
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| The fireplace on the north wall of lobby was covered for likely more than 50 years until it was discovered in mid-2000s renovation. Now, there's a wing behind the fireplace leading to the retail shops. Compare to historical photos below, when this wall marked the end of the hotel and the veranda wrapped around the outside wall. |
The (reappearing) fireplace
It’s here. It’s gone. It’s back again.
Like so many other areas across the resort that have been
restored true to form as they originally appeared in the early 1900s, the
fireplace on one of the north walls of the lobby is another reclamation story. There
was no fireplace at all, if you visited prior to the mid-2000s.
Sometime around the mid-1940s or early ’50s, the fireplace was
covered by a wall since the rustic-looking adornment didn’t fit with the fresh vibe
that new owners wanted in a renovation. Today, the doorways on both sides of
the fireplace lead up to the Garden Wing, which houses guest rooms and retail
shops.
“For many, many years, this was the end of this building. On
the opposite side of this was a continuation of the veranda as it curved from
the front of the building around the edge of the building,” Lane explained. “At
some point when it became more conducive to not having a fireplace, because you
wanted to be modern, they sealed it up.”
Lane can’t say for sure if the fireplace was ever actually
functional, especially given how shallow it is. It's a Count Rumford fireplace
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| Look closely in this 1907 photo and you can see the fireplace, below the mezzanine. |
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| The entry to the main lobby in the early days of the hotel. The veranda used to wrap around the corner, and the hotel ended here. Today, there is another large wing that extends to the right of this. |
Then, after 50 years or more being out of view, the long-forgotten fireplace came out of hiding. It came as an unexpected discovery during the hotel’s massive renovation in 2005, returning as yet another historic element to feast your eyes upon in the lobby.
“It had been covered for years, and it was just a solid
wall,” said Lane, who grew up in French Lick. “I can recall before that, there
was a grand piano that kind of sat in this area, and a big painting was on the
wall behind it. But you didn’t see a fireplace. I really think that’s nice that
it’s back.”
That’s a wrap on our Walk with the Historian, and now that
we’ve explored French Lick Springs Hotel, we might head over to West Baden
Springs Hotel at a later date to uncover some hidden gems there. Stay tuned!