Providence's Historic Biltmore Hotel
Guilded Age Opulence for Today's Traveler in the Heart of Downtown
Feb 13, 2009
Designed by the same architects responsible for New York's Grand Central Station, The Providence Biltmore Hotel, a 600-room neo-Federal Beaux-arts and Italian Renaissance hotel opened to the public on June 6, 1922. Recreating the high standards of living enjoyed at North Carolina’s Vanderbilt Biltmore Estate, an 18 story steel frame was erected with sheathed brick and stone while the interior was appointed with state-of-the-art luxury. Its V-shaped layout afforded all guests an outside view. In addition to six different restaurants at ground level, 3 sub floors beneath the lobby contained a drugstore, print, carpentry and upholstery shops, and photo lab. Enhancing the property’s self-sufficiency, a rooftop vegetable garden and chicken coops were added in 1925. Two years later, the aerial poultry farm and garden was enlarged to accommodate a menagerie of ducks, rabbits, monkeys, alligators, and even a bear.
The Biltmore continued to be Providence's “Grand Dame” throughout the Big Band era of the 1930s and 40s. The Garden Room’s dance floor swung to the sounds of Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey. Sometimes, the Garden Room was retrofitted for special performances like an aquarium complete with live fish for Esther Williams and a skating rink for Sonia Henie’s ice show. In the dimly lit mirror-walled Bacchante Room, waitresses known as the Bacchante Girls walked over a glass floor under lit with pink lighting while serving drinks. The lighting excentuated the girls’ beauty along with short skirts layered to the floor with diaphanous netting.
The Biltmore survived numerous hurricanes, including the infamous storms of 1938 and 1954. A plaque, high up on a lobby column, commemorates the nearly 7-foot-high water mark of the villainous 1938 hurricane. Hurricane Carol in 1954 was particularly hard hitting when it flooded the lobby under 8 feet of water pouring down into the elevator shafts. Couches floated through the Falstaff Room, drifted out into the lobby and stopped just short of the revolving doors.
The Biltmore closed its doors on January 14, 1975 due to economic difficulties. Soon after, a group of local businesses known as the Business Development Company of Rhode Island bought the property and leveraged Federal tax credits for a complete rehabilitation, reopening it in 1979 with a glass elevator spanning all 18 floors. Since that pivotal period, the hotel has undergone several additional major renovations, fully restoring it to its original 1922 grandeur. In 2006, the hotel underwent a $14 million renovation adding two new floors of luxury suites and elegant boardrooms. 44 key access club floor rooms, including a presidential suite, were added to the third and fourth floors featuring original artwork, French doors, and individualized doorbells. The terrace, a rooftop patio overlooking Kennedy Park, was also constructed.
The Biltmore is now on the National Register of Historic Places and maintains prominence on the city skyline with its signature rooftop red-lit sign. A grand staircase beneath the lobby’s stunning Art Deco bronze ceiling leads to the dramatic glass elevator and the 17th floor Grand Ballroom accommodates up to 750 people with panoramic vistas of downtown and the historic East Side through its double-story, round-arched windows. Starbucks, McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant, the Red Door Spa by Elizabeth Arden, and Golden Gate Florist anchor the ground floor surrounding the lobby reinforcing the hotel’s presence on the entire block. 100 restaurants, Providence Place Mall, and the riverfront are all within just 4 blocks. Providence Biltmore Hotel, 11 Dorance St., 800 294 7709
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