Just imagine for a second that you’re living in 1902. You
probably haven’t seen a skyscraper or architectural marvel that knocks your
itchy wool socks off. You hear about this larger-than-life hotel that people
are calling the Eighth Wonder of the World and you have to go see it for
yourself.
You walk up the steps to West Baden Springs Hotel (pictured to the right how it appeared at the time) and get set to feast your eyes on this
breathtaking dome everyone’s been talking about. You open the doors, step into
the lobby and gaze up.
“They might walk in and say, ‘Wow! This is the dome!’ Well,
yeah, for a moment until they walk a little further (into the atrium below the
200-foot diameter dome). And then they’re just in total awe,” says French Lick Resort historian Jeff Lane.
The lobby at West Baden is an appropriate starting point for
our next series of Walk with the Historian blogs, which we did with Jeff a
while back at French
Lick Springs Hotel. The point is to shine a little light on lesser-known
features of the hotels or things you might walk past without realizing the
historical significance or cool story behind it.
And the lobby is a good place to start, because quite
frankly, it doesn’t get the respect or attention it deserves compared to big
brother (aka the atrium).
As Jeff alludes to, the hotel’s original main entrance
brought guests in through the lobby first, as an appetizer of sorts, before
they encountered the atrium which is about four times larger by scale. Today
the main entrance is on the opposite side of the building, so by the time you
walk through the atrium to reach the lobby where the main desk is, the lobby
kind of gets lost in the shuffle.
But there’s so much to see here that’s often overlooked, and
we’ll start with the lobby’s floor and ceiling.
Look up, and you’ll see a series of hand-painted figures at the base of the dome where it meets the ceiling on the second-floor mezzanine. Recognize the birds that are facing each other? Extra credit to you if you recognized they are phoenix birds. It’s a dash of symbolism courtesy of the Conrad Schmitt Studios, who restored the hotel in the mid-2000s and added this discreet touch.
It’s a nod to West Baden Springs Hotel’s history. The
original hotel structure burned to the ground, only to be rebuilt bigger and
better on a grand scale. It rose from the ashes, you might say. Just like a
phoenix.
“I think that’s very clever, very synonymous with the hotel’s
history,” Jeff says. “But I don’t know how many people ever really see it.”
Jeff also sees significance in the plain light bulbs
illuminating the edge of the lobby and the mezzanine area. To guests who first
visited the hotel when it opened in 1902, “the bare light bulbs would prove
this is a very modern hotel, because Lee Sinclair (the hotel’s owner at the
time) produced his own electricity in the power plant using the Dynamo
furnaces.” Sinclair also “shared” his electricity with the town of West Baden
Springs, which was one of the early towns in the area to have electric street
lights.
Keep looking up. See the decorative elements at the top of
the lobby columns? It’s easier to tell in person than through photos, but they
have a textured, three-dimensional look to them.
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| Up close, it's more apparent that the pattern on the columns is one-dimensional instead of the three-dimensional illusion it has from a distance. |
“It’s painted with shadows which give it the impression of a
trompe l’oeil effect, which means ‘trick
of the eye,’” Jeff says. “If you didn’t know better, you might think, ‘Wow if I
could touch that, I could feel that raised relief.’” It was an original feature
of the hotel lobby, and not just something added in restoration.
There’s some notable history underfoot, too.
On the tile floor of the lobby, the alternating patterns
appear to be uniform — until you take a closer look. Each one has a slight variation.
Surely as a way to express the uniqueness of how this floor was created, since
every one of these 1-inch tiles were laid by hand.
Amazingly, this lobby tile floor was laid in 1902 when the hotel first opened and survived all these years, avoiding the same fate as the atrium where much of the tile floor was in far worse shape. It even survived the years it was repurposed as a chapel when the Jesuit seminary occupied the hotel after it closed to guests in the 1930s.
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| A couple of variations on the tile floor patterns are pointed out. Can you spot a few more differences between the two? |
Amazingly, this lobby tile floor was laid in 1902 when the hotel first opened and survived all these years, avoiding the same fate as the atrium where much of the tile floor was in far worse shape. It even survived the years it was repurposed as a chapel when the Jesuit seminary occupied the hotel after it closed to guests in the 1930s.
Even though there were pews and an altar over the tile floor
during the Jesuit years, the fact that it wasn’t falling victim to neglect kept
the floor tiles in good enough shape. When the Jesuits left the building and
Northwood Institute moved in, they repurposed the altar area as a stage for
performing arts.
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| The chapel area was closed off to the mezzanine and atrium during the 30 years the Jesuits operated a seminary here. The area to the left of the altar is where the front desk is situated in the hotel lobby today. |
“When they came in to restore it, the floor beneath it was perfect,” Jeff says. “That’s why I always say if the Jesuits had not been here, we might not be standing here today,” because an extra 30 years of neglect might have damaged it beyond repair.
There’s one more thing to cover in the lobby, but that’ll be
a good starting point for our next Walk with the Historian segment. Check back
next Friday for Round 2 of our three-part series.