The Roanoke Times from Roanoke, Virginia • Page 15

THE ROANOKE TIMES ROANOKE VIRGINIA THURSDAY MORNING SEPTEMBER 15 1938 ifteen NEW HOTEL ROANOKE READY OR OPENING TWIST DIAL TelescopicLensGivesStriking Effect of Modern Hostelry STRUCTURE IS BRINGS RESH AIR TO ROOMS Hi 4 AAx 41 The striking effect of Hotel GLORY STATE RELIC OUND ON STARS SPRINKLE Did You Know That TRACED IN OIL HOTEL GROUNDS COURT'S HEAVEN the the stone had ben Managersand Department Heads of New Hotel tv Hi St MW 4 UA4 is tMbmiBi warn hydra headed nozzles also through the pane tell a dif story They are for use in and cool weather periods air is warmed and humidi and for the and the Its diameter was 46 It was about a foot was dug 1230 feet 286 feet below sea water for air con Eighteen thousand The service' even' Astronomers was needed In the decoration of Hie the was de the A guest at Hotel Roanoke the other day confessed to a strange hobby He is a bachelor and travels in many States "I get my biggest kick out of life sitting in hotel he related "I have been on the road more than a quarter of a cen tury and have sat in some of the best lobbies in the world I like to study the people watcli the hustle and bustle meet occa sional friends and acquaintances Strange hobby but the only I one I i rz: Enough telephone wire to reach from here almost to Staunton is part of The extensive telephone system There is nearly 80 miles of telephone wire in the building The telephone facilities include: 10 trunk lines to a two position switchboard Three long distance toll lines with direct connections to the toll room of the Roanoke office of tlie Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia 340 extensions in the hotel ive direct lines to offices such as the managing director and manager Bachelor Guest Prefers Lobbies Improvements Cost More Than $1000 OOO Has 310 Guest Rooms ceiling and its large painted com pass has a reflecting trough for lighting Circled by the trough is a 24 lnch diameter illuminated globe with a painted map of the world suggesting the hemisphere floating under the starry sky On the sky itself are painted in gold the twelve signs of the zodiac An Austrian painter in New York whose hobby Is painting china painted the globe Incidentally the fixture is suspended so that the axis is Inclined 23 degrees as is axis After the globe painted1 it was burned at 1200 grees ahrenheit Roanoke is only spot named on the globe Immediately under the fixture is a specially designed table using winged lions for support On the floor is the largest rug of its kind ever made an oval rug weighing 1600 pounds Sixteen (men were needed to put it in place The rug is green suggest Ing grass with a floral design while the walls with palms painted in an abstract manner suggest an atmospheric green textured with foliage Hotel grounds yielded an old relic when landscaping of the grounds was begun Two or three workmen were dig ging a hole for the planting of a shrub only a few feet from the wall of the old wing when their picks struck a hard object They thought it was a large rock Con tinuing to dig they an old millstone The heavy stone was pulled out by a cable attached to a truck and A A arnham landscape architect measured it 1 2 inches thick How long buried no one knew The workmen pointed out that the stone evidently was from a solid piece of rock con trasting with stone composed of two sections ww solluolll By SHIELDS JOHNSON The butcher has delivered 600 pounds of meat the baker has pre pared some 2000 rolls the candle stick maker has come and gone and the new Hotel Roanoke an ultra modern version of an old English' inn is ready to formally welcome guests 1 Distinctive in the beauty of its design and decoration the new hotel modern in every respect will formally open its doors tomorrow a little over a year from the date of the announcement that the Virginia Holding company had awarded con tracts for its construction Reared on the site on which the original Hotel Roanoke a wooden structure of 38 rooms was built in the year in which Big Lick then a village of 1000 changed its name to the new hotel is nine times the size of its namesake of more than a half century ago The completely fireproof structure increasing the number of guest rooms to 310 including 129 In the east wing which was retained when the new hotel was built cost $1055 000 exclusive of furnishings Nearly 200 persons will be employed on its staff Tlie first hotel in America scien tifically designed for air condition ing guest rooms and public rooms throughout the new hotel are air conditioned Equipment of the guest rooms includes radio specially de signed mahogany furniture indirect lighting tiled baths with tub and shower and ice water Lobby Paneled in Walnut A spacious English lobby paneled with American walnut an oval shaped palm court luxurious lounge rooms a stately main dining room unique private dining rooms and a brilliant the largest in are among the things that make The Roanoke distinctive A kitchen roof garden 100 car capacity garage large parking lot a penthouse and the last word in service rooms also are among the features of the hotel Into its construction went a thou sand tons of structural steel 524003 ('0111)1 brick and 5500 cubic yards of concrete Since concrete weighs 4050 pounds to the cubic yard that Was an aggregate of 22 275000 pounds or 11137 1 2 tons or enough to lay 59400 linear feet of sidewalk six Inches thick in a Roa noke residential district! The number of new guest rooms is 181 with a number of other public rooms but if each enclosed space to which a door or aperture leads is counted as a room there are nearly 1000 rooms About 900 doors were hung in tlie building In the rooms an aggregate of 30 railroad carloads of furniture went much of its either reproductions of antiques or designed along 18th cen tury English lines Pigeon Blood Bed Curtains rom throughout tlie world have come many of the things to con tribute to the breath taking beauty of interiors from Czechoslovakia crystal for chandeliers from Italy gold curtains for the lobby pigeon blood red curtains for the ballroom and black and gold marble pilasters in the lobby: from Austria bent wood chairs for the ballroom On the walls and floors chiefly of the kitchen and of baths in the guest rooms are 25000 square feet of wall and floor tile On the floors of the lobby dining room gallery palm room and other rooms are 20000 square feet of terrazzo China acces sories in the baths are in colors matching the tile While the black of an Old English inn appears in this view of its broad expanse which was built in 1931 on the east down town building to get this picture Note the Tudor between trees which are a frame for a landscape program designed to make the hotel an amidst business and Roanoke the modern version English design in the new hotel on the west and the wing Using a telescopic lens the photographer stood atop a The terraces are flagged with stone The forecourt appears Drinking water in the ice water faucets at Hotel Roanoke is not as cold as the water used to cool air in the air conditioning system? There are 10000 separate panes in the windows of Hotel Roanoke? If you should traverse all the corridors in the new hotel from top to bottom you would walk nearly a third of a 1613 linear not counting the distance you walked ddwn? z' A water softening plant provides water of zero softness for the barber shop and beauty parlor? The Roanoke's peacock the gallery outside the is one of the few peacock alleys that use the picture as a decoration? Cushions in the hotel's sofas contain light springs Instead of being just padded? The main dining room has 5000 square feet of floor space? The penthouse on the seventh floor is a house atop a hotel and Includes a kitchen dining room living room two bedrooms with baths and a hall plus large closets? Chairs in the private dining room handsome bent wood appear but actually are'the chairs that were in the' main dining room of the old hotel? (They used to be black and gold were sand papered and given new leather) Wire rings you see sticking from the slate roof near the eaves are snow to prevent huge gobs of snow from sliding from the steep roof? (The snow will be held and allowed to melt) Italian rye grass planted temporarily around the reflecting pool in the hotel's forecourt sprang up in three days? Or that the perma nent planting in the circle will be periwinkle in keeping with the rest of the evergreen planting in front of the hotel? Telephone booths are equipped with swivel and they're and have a switch by which a fan can be turned on or off to suit the fancy of tlie occupant of the booth? Nine hundred doors were hung in the new hotel? And more than 1000 lighting fixtures keep the hotel aglow? inally that tower rooms can be turned into three four room apartments? i nJ I new Hotel give the oval palm court tlie complete effect of a colonnade in the open air The of this court sprinkled with stars preserve a con stellation linked with the history of the Magic City a constellation which probably no one here remembers It Is that which lighted the heavens November 1 1852 the day the first train entered the village of Big Lick predecessor 'of Roanoke To obtain an authentic layout of the stars astronomers at the plana tarium in New York were consulted The deep blue sky on which tlie stars appear was achieved only after 18 coats of paint had been applied Plans called for only three but it was necessary to apply six times that many to get the desired effect Everything from a brush to a spray gun and even a sponge was used In applying the paint! Palm Motif Carried Out ifty four feet long and 41 feet wide the huge oval is surrounded by Doric columns and entablature (entablature Is the architecturally treated portion of the walls resting upon the capitals of the columns) suggesting a circular Georgian col onnade decorated in soft ecru color The palm motif is carried out not only in wall murals but also in light ing fixtures and in 10 palms placed about the room Tlie center lighting fixture with its large chromium star near the ana goia maroie was imporiea irom Italy domestic black marble camefrom Arkansas A railroad carload of chinaware of a new dogwood pattern Included 1663 2 3 dozen assorted dishes Seventeen boxes of silverware aver aging 400 to 500 pounds to the box er nearly four tons of have arrived Modern makers" pre pared about 1000 lighting fixtures especially for The Roanoke rom the five arched Tudor porti cos to the tip top of the slate roofed I towers the exterior shows the Eng lish influence The same design is carried out within not only in the lobby with its quiet air but also in other rooms Murals eature Dining Rooms The ballroom and private dining rooms with a seating capacity of about 1000 form a large and beauti ful convention area The dining room Itself oyster white in color is Georgian in design Dogwood the State flower has been used as the decorative motif for the lighting fix tures as well as for the china The room has a large bay to the north Connected with the main dining room is the Virginia dining room deriving its name from a collection of old maps of early Virginia The grand ballroom 55 by 108 feet is striking in green gold and red colors Murals are the features of four pri vate dining rooms George Post and Sons of New York nationally known architects specializing in hotel designing were architects with Knut Lind a partner of the firm directly in charge of The Roanoke's design A Jones Construction company of Charlotte was the general contractor and Virginia Bridge coin oanv here furnished the structural! steel A great deal of material was! I furnished by local firms and local I labor was emnloved wherever jw i sible The many gables and the half timber treatment carry out the entrance portico flanked by two towers and by bowed terraces and came here in 1929 after serving as Chamberlin Vanderbilt at Old Point Comfort In the group picture are shown deft to right): ront James A Harvey garage manager Mrs Alice Ladd housekeeper: Virginia I Wingo secretary to the general manager Lee Griffith steward Middle Hunt laundry superintendent Miss Majessie Miles secretary to the resident manager Chlora Kessler manager cigar counter Weaver chief engineer Back Charles Hofer maitre Neighbors assistant manager and Popper auditor BUILDING HAS MILES WIRE The glory of the Old Dominion of yesterday and today is traced in oil from the brushes of muralists in the new Hotel Roanoke Virginia's early history is depicted in a series of nine murals rich in tones of gold red and blue placed in a frieze in the sub lobby or lobby while murals in the private dining rooms show a pan orama of the varied activities and attractions in the State today Three feet high the lobby murals extend for 66 feet around three sides of the sub lobby They were paint ed by Hugo Ohlms and depict from left to right: The landing of the colonists at Jamestown in 1607 the baptism of Pocahontas the marriage of Poca hontas to John Rolfe the initial meeting of the House of Burgesses first representative governing body in America in 1619 sur render to Washington 1781 tlie founding of the College of William and Mary 1693 Patrick or speech before the House of Burgesses 1775 the arrival of women at Jamestown to become wives of the settlers 1619 and a scene representative of Virginia hospitality Scenes in the private dining room done in three rich brown tones by Alfred Tulk conform to the pri vate dining the railroad in dustrial scenic and agricultural rooms in order from west to east Tlie railroad room is highlighted by a large mural means wall showing three stages in the development of the Norfolk and Western railway beginning with the early engine "Roanoke" Powerful steam and electric locomotives are done in oils together with a rail road yard turntable and a train in transit Scenes from coal steel and shipping industries feature the in dustrial room The beauty of Moun tain Lake the Skyline Drive Natural Bridge was captured the scenic room as well as wonders of the caverns waterfalls while the walls of agriculture room suggest the variety of the State's many products and livestock Other decorative murals are those on the palm court walls where the design is borrowed from nature and palm leaves are nainted in an ab stract manner Roanoke stands out in a spotlight in a muralTiver the fireplace in the lounge and in the same room with its knotty pine walls eight Curry an( Ives prints are hung The prints range from 24 by 24 Inches to 12 by 12 inches Heads of departments of the new Hotel Roanoke are shown in the group picture above with Kenneth Hyde general manager and George Denison resident manager pictured in the insets (Hyde left Denison right) Hyde was manager of Hotel Roanoke for six years prior to going to Hotel John Marshall Richmond in 1935 as manager Since his appointment as general manager of Hotel Roanoke Hyde has been elected president of the Southern Hotel Association His first hotel job was as a night clerk in a Hagerstown Md hotel Denison who succeeded Hyde when the latter went to Richmond began his hotel career as clerk in the Palmerin hotel Tampa la Series of Murals Depict His toric Scenes DIERENT' IN BEAUTY DESIGN Refrigeration System Could Make 200 Tons of Ice Every Day Millstone Unearthed While Landscaping Telephone acilities Include 10 "Trunks" Penthouse Is Built To Overlook City Picture a room a story and a half high with high studio windows in a gable a fireplace opposite the win dows which are equipped with Ve netian blinds and artistic decora tions and you get some idea of the living room in the penthouse on the seventh floor of the new Hotel Roanoke Hotel's Open Air Colonnade Is Beauty Spot assistant manager of the 1st MM Good Use Is ound or Maligned 8 BalI In the Hotel Roanoke baw nent a whole" barrel of About the size of a' soft ball thev I are round balls of chemicals which III Have you imagination? Can you picture 200 tons of ice melting every 24 hours to keep you cool during sweltering weather? If you can you have imagination and you get some idea of the effect of the warm weather phase of Hotel air conditioning Of course there is no ice actually ipelted to keep guests of the new hotel comfortable but if the re frigerating 1 system which cools the air were making ice it would turn out about 200 tons a day The guest who by the twist of a dial can control the in his room does not realize it per haps but in the basement of the building compressors with the power of 200 horses are harnessing freon gas to chill water for the units Nor docs he realize that water from a well whose bottom is 286 feet below sea think of helps condense the freon to a liquid state A guest does not see tons of metal ducts conveying conditioned air throughout the building Nor does he see the water that is extracted from the air to make him com fortable He know that the well in the rear of the hotel an integral part of the system is 1230 feet deep probably the deepest well in the city Hotel Roanoke is the first hotel in America scientifically designed and built for air conditioning hence it has one of the most modern sys tems in the nation No Need to Open Windows No longer is it necessary for win dows to be opened The size of crowds does not af fect the temperature which is held at 10 degrees less man the outdoor summer temperature Transoms have become passe be cause of the system' although they" have been succeeded by grilles with sound baffles Through the grilles a portion of the air is exhausted from the rooms and recirculated It is a fact that water which cools the air is colder than the water that circulates to rooms for drinking water! The drinking water is cir culated at a temperature of 58 de grees 20 above freezing the water in the coils of the air condition units is chilled to 44 de grees Behind the hotel on Wells ave nue is a small brick structure It sits just off the hotel driveway' Be neath it a well deep its bottom level to supply ditioning only gallons of water are used from the well evry hour or as much as th average' family would use in five or six months! The well water helps to refrigerate' other water But first step into one of the fresh air intakes of the and hold your hat I There are two such intakes in the basement one serving public rooms except the ball room and dining room the other for the main dining room There is another over the private dining room to serve the ballroom and a fourth on top of the hotel to serve the largest conditioning unit of all As you step into a fresh air in take via an aperture ordinarily closed by a steel door you have to hold your hat because of the breeze The intake actually is a room larger than most pantries and its "win dows" on three sides are filters made of cellulose cloth Air rushes into the intake because it is being pulled by an enormous fan in the condi tioning unit nearby Dirt is held by the cloth which are replaced when they carry all the dirt they will and then the air passes over coils containing cold water That is the air passes over cold coils if the weather is warm If the weather is cold the air passes over a separate set of coils filled with steam The air conditioning unit is as big as a truck On one side is a small glass pane When air is being cooled it also is being dehumidified through the jiane you can watch moisture of the air condense on the cold tubes The drips from the pipes and runs on Two visibleferent winter where fied Moisture is added to the air through the nozzles the amount added being determined by the tem perature of the water smee air will not absorb as much cold water as hot water Sounds simple doesn't it? With each unit is a wall panel that controls the in the unit Beneath a knob is inscribed and Turn Ice Output 4800 Pounds Daily Ten thousand pounds of Ice made in the new Hotel Roanoke's ice plant were stored for the opening of tlie hotel tomorrow The ice plant located in tlie basement is capable of turning out 4800 pounds of ice a day Crystal Spring water in cans is submerged in brine at a temperature of 12 to 16 degrees and presto! ice soon' is formed The cans then are hauled out and tilted and the icc slides down a trough into a trap door in the storage bin where 10000 pounds can be stored the knob and the kind of weather attracted the attention of early changes visitors to the building Someone The principle of cooling city called them balls" and the water for use in the units is that name stuck of heat transfer After freon is The chemicals said to include condensed to a liquid by means of sodium alumnite are used to pre the vell atcr tlie freon is made ent corrosion in pipes carrying to boil by coming in contact with water from the well to the pipes containing water for the unite i air conditioning refrigeration plant The water gives up its heat to the The well water is used only in the freon and consequently gets colderair conditioning system warn A SO 1 XAYJA Naa A A A 'X A aa Jks A 4x Li 4 it a 4 lx A' rxs XA5 f' sswXX 4W 4' A 2 rUs xAVJfAl 'i 'v A A AX XA 4 4 W4VXAV kAAW XV Ax' AaXx X'ViY XAX xT Wz Sx 'x'x "xx 'X xx xXX 'J SV A AV 'XSSX XX WV A A 1 XX LVAV'XV A ax wvzx'' xvawax av 'c xs ox' vaxxwx 'x vvs ax 'xv za xx om x'xxx' 'xxvaa'" 7' A' OXA A' 1 XX A frAx xs kYAx' JA 'X xXaxX I AAxxx A'wixx x'xcxWvv''W rx va ysvs 'a xrz rwwy i ik ix'i''''zx'x xxL 'A'sxAx: k' '''b X' v1 A' xXxCx' Xxlx xlbN1 1 Sx v'X XX XX say 'xy xN 'AYY4XO: Xx ww assxy 'x U' A 'xA? 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