As published in the Charlottesville Daily Progress:

  With the sound of hissing steam and the yowl from braking wheels, the Southern Railway passenger train jolted to a stop at the Union Station in Charlottesville. In the pre-dawn darkness, sure-handed porters helped groggy travelers onto step boxes and down onto the platform. Train travel in 1926 wasn't what it is today.  After the long trip from New York City 16 year old, Mary Cabell felt grimy. But a few minutes later, after her father had hailed a taxi, the Cabells were on their way to "a place of beauty and a shrine of hospitality."

  Their destination was the newly opened Monticello Hotel on East Jefferson and Fifth streets.

  On April 8, 1926, just a few weeks before the Cabell family arrived, the hotel had registered its first guests. There never had been a hotel of such grace, size and elegance in Charlottesville before.

  "My father owned the Edgewood Estate in Nelson County, and we would come here from New York for vacation every spring and fall," said Mary Cabell Somerville. "When we arrived at the hotel we were all thrilled.

  "It was splendid, and if we wouldn't have known better, we might have thought we were back in New York City," she said. "We registered and went up to our  rooms and took a long, hot bath.

  "Then we came down to the dining room and had a marvelous breakfast of batter bread, bacon, sausage, eggs-just wonderful food," she said. "When we were in Charlottesville, we wouldn't have thought to stay anywhere but the Monticello Hotel."

  Although the driving force behind the construction of the hotel had been local businessman Fred W. Twyman, more than 1,100 Charlottesville citizens could take personal pride in the many compliments. They bought more than $500,000 worth of stock in the hotel, ensuring its construction.

  Originally the name of the hotel was to be the James Monroe. But it was changed to the Monticello Hotel, because it was shorter and many felt the new name would be favorably linked to the publicity that the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation was generating at the time.

  Lynchburg architects Stanhope Johnson and Ray O. Branham designed the nine-story skyscraper in the neo-classical revival style. After removing a row of 19th century merchant stores from the Court Square site, all was in readiness.

  At 7a.m. March 9, 1925, a giant steam shovel took its first bite out of the red soil, and the actual building of the hotel began. For days, a steady parade of dump trucks moved from the growing hole to dump sites on the west side of town.

  At 11a.m. March 19, the steam shovel, its job finished, crawled out of the 21-foot-deep pit to the applause of a crowd of spectators. With a farewell blast from its whistle, the machine steamed down Fifth Street towards its next job.

  The excavation, blessed by good weather and near around-the-clock work, had gone off without a hitch. No one was more pleased than Lawrence Cranston, construction superintendent for Consolidated Engineering Co. Inc., the Baltimore firm that had the general contract for the project.

  In spite of record-breaking heat waves, snowstorms and bone-numbing cold, the construction continued more or less on schedule. Everyone was satisfied with the progress, and happy that Cranston had kept his promise to make every effort to hire labor and skilled-trades workers from the area.

  Then, just a little more than a year after it began, the lavishly appointed hotel was finished. It had cost about $800,000, but almost everyone felt it was well worth it.

  A Daily Progress editorial of the day proclaimed, "No longer will the community be rendered self-conscious by the repetition of the plaintive wail: 'if there were only a real hotel in Charlottesville.'"

  From its revolving front doors to its cornice-crowned roof, the hotel was spectacular. Inside the prevailing colors were blue and gold, accented by the rich beauty of solid mahogany furniture.

  There were 165 rooms, each with a telephone and radio and breath-taking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. For those who could afford to pay a little more money, there were luxury suites with canopy beds and glazed chintz curtains. There also were 130 bathrooms with showers and bathtubs.

  In the huge dining room, glimmering silverware complemented specially marked china and crystal. The ballroom, named the Thomas Jefferson Rose Room, could accommodate hundreds of dancers on its hardwood floor beneath crystal chandeliers.

  And, of course, there was the mezzanine above the lobby where one could relax and look out through the high-arched front windows. Much attention was given to this area, which showcased some of the most beautiful furnishings in the hotel.

  Always ready to serve the guests and see to their comfort was a staff of 60 people. From 1928 until 1982, Elwood "Ike" Jones was one of them.

  "I first worked at the hotel shining shoes in the barbershop," Jones recalled. "I liked it there, and one day I talked to the bell captain about getting a job as a bellhop. He gave me the job, and after that, I worked every job at the hotel except firing the furnace and being a cook.

  "When I was a bellhop a very good tip was 50 cents," he said. ('The average was 15 cents to a quarter, but a lot of them didn't give but a dime - we called them squirrels."

  While working at the hotel, Jones said he met several movie stars such as Patricia Neal, and two presidents, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and FDR's wife Eleanor.

  "Mr. Truman didn't stay with us at the hotel, but he visited it once," Jones said. "But Mr. Roosevelt and his wife stayed with us while he was the governor of New York. They were wealthy people, but you wouldn't have known it. They just acted like ordinary folks and were very nice to everyone.

  When the hotel was remodeled into condominiums in 1974, Jones stayed on as a security man until his retirement.

  "I still go down there to visit from time to time," Jones said. "I've always said it was like my second home. When I'm down there, it's like being with an old friend.

  "I had worked in some very nice hotels before going to work at the Monticello Hotel, but I never saw one that could compare. It really was a special place. I've always liked being around people; so when I was working there it never was like working to me."

  Since 1982, Mary Cabell Somerville has lived at the Monticello Hotel. Although there have been many changes, Mrs. Somerville said the hotel still looks pretty much the way it did when she first saw it in 1928.

  The register's desk is gone, as is the switchboard that was behind it. And, the law offices of Michie Hamlett Lowry Rasmussen & Tweel PLLC., have replaced the dining room and kitchen.

  But when the group of attorneys created the offices a few years ago, they tried to retain as much of the old character and ambience of the building as they could. They kept the same chandeliers and molding, and many of the old rooms are still intact.

  A ceiling now closes off the open space where the people used to look down into the lobby from the mezzanine.

  The hotel, however, still evokes many happy memories for Mrs. Somerville.

  "Back in the old days this was where they checked the hats and coats," Mrs. Somerville said, pointing out a closed-off room near the stairs on the west side of the building. "There was a little hat check boy, and I remember my father once gave him a quarter tip.

  "A big smile came to his face and his eyes got as big as saucers. He was so thrilled. Yes, it was a wonderful hotel and always had a homey feeling. It still does."

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Copyright 1992. The Daily Progress. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduced with permission.
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