Ladies Writing Room, Hotel Vendome

Ladies Writing Room, Hotel Vendome

Location: 160 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Opened: Built 1871

Hotel Vendome (1910)

Closed: Ceased to exist as a hotel in 1971

The Historic Buildings of Massachusetts site provides this short description of the Hotel Vendome itself:

Built in 1871, the Mansard-roofed French Second Empire style corner building of the Hotel Vendome, on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, was designed by William G. Preston, who had studied in Paris. The western section, designed by J.F. Ober and R. Rand, followed in 1881. Hotel Vendome was for many years the city’s premier hotel, but by the late 1960s attempts were made to demolish the outmoded building. Renovations were almost complete in 1972, when a fire destroyed the southeast section of the original structure. Nine firefighters died when part of the building collapsed after the fire was out. There is a memorial to the nine firefighters on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall at Dartmouth Street. A 1970s addition to the Vendome by Stahl/Bennett in the Brutalist style replaced the destroyed section.

The building was later converted to condominiums, and it is at the condominium's website that we find this wonderful drawing of the Hotel Vendome's Ladies Writing Room. If you care to see more photos and illustrations from the Hotel's glory days, make sure you check it out. But for now, I'm just going to let you imagine that you had the wealth and leisure that would have allowed you to dwell in such a grand Ladies Writing Room, with bountiful supplies of paper and ink at your disposal....

Ladies Writing Room, Hotel Vendome (1872)