Document text
ORIGINAL MSS. OR FIELD NOTES (Check one)
PUB. Living Lore in New England
(New Hampshire)
TITLE Yankee Innkeeper Robert E. Gould
WRITER
DATE IDS. PP. 27
CHECKER DATE
SOURCES GIVEN Interview
COMMENTS
Y.H. Federal Writers, Project -71-
4 1801
What of the hotels since the rise of the automobile
to power? What of their competiti-n with this horde of
low-priced substitutes engendered by the automobile?
An item in the day's news hints at the story. It
records the letting of a contract for demolishing the
million -dollar Ht. Pleasant Hotel, in the :hite Lountains,
including the main building of 165 rooms, the dormitory
of :ore than 100 rooms, and the quarters ot- the help. Two
reasons are alleged --lack of patronage, Lad the necessity
of installing a '4500,000 sprinkler system, if the hotel is
to continue in operation. It is a story of wide signifi-
cance, told in two inches of space. ;4,-..i-s-an-ee-14yeme-of
new vitalit4i.
Is the condition chronic? Is the disease progressive?
Is there such a thing as becoming inured to its presence,
living with it permanently?
Mr. Robert E. Gould, for twenty-three years host
of the Newport House, Newport, N. H., hotel man who has
A
neither lost faith in his first love --the hotel, nor bowed
the knee to Baal, a man of wide acquaintance among hotel
men and of keen understanding of their problems, speaks.
"It can't be denied that the hotel business has
been changed a lot by automobiles, by the tourist rooms
and the cabins following in their smoke and fishing for
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their business. They've got a lot of it, no doubt
scattered it around in little pieces.
"Some kinds of business, on which hotels used to
depend, have almost gone....permanently, probably. But
hotel men aren't taking the threat of this competion lying
down; they'Pe hunting new ways of making hotels pay, and
finding them. Some of these ways are stop -gaps, to bridge
us over this period of low income. For we expect...yes,
that's the word..that, after people have had their fling
with cabins and their like, they will be coming back to
hotels again.
"Cabins are a new thing. They're one of the 'any
things' that the American public will try...once. -Already
there are many people who tell me they don't like them
after they have tried -tem. They say that in these touria
rooms and cabins they miss the little conveniences -the
various gadgets- which hotels provide. They miss the
cozy little nooks, with desks, for writing letters, or
sending post cards, or places for doing a lot of things
travelArs like to do. The'.:'re more for hotels than ever.
"They like the sociability of the lobby, the dining
room, the chance to make new acquaintances. They like the
feel of the crowd around them. I sappose there are some
who like to sleep out in the woods; whose tastes are sat-
isfied by the presence of the cold, fresh dew, and the
little woods -pussies with white backs.
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No, in the long run, the cabins aren't going to
take the place of hotels. They can't do it; they can't
furnish the kind of service people demand...not on the
orices they charge. People like service. They have been
brought up for years to be waited on by hotels. And they
like it if they have money enough to pay for it. If the
cabins attempt to supply hotels services they've got to
charge hotel prices. And then? If people have to pay
hotel prices for cabins, we know which they are going to
chose...most of them.
"Take so simple a thing as hot water. People like
-,lenty of hot water...running from a tap in their rooms,
not a measly cupful or two...but hot water to luxuriate in.
The item of hot .a. -ter is important to the travelling public..
right where and when you want it. Ask the cabin keepers
about hot water...they can't supply it...not as peo-Dle
prefer it.
"If we hotel men can stick out this period of people
fooling around with c -bins, we're going to get a lot of our
old trade back.
"But there's one class of our old trade we'll never
get back one thrt hotels depended on considerably...the
old-time drummer....salesman, to you. Some hotels depended
on it more than others, but it was important everywhere.
"The Hotel Moody, over at Claremont. .probably seventy
per cent of their trade was of that class. Some hotels had
even more Perhaps as high as ninety per cent. at
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here at Newport drummer's represented about thgty per cent
of our business; seventy per cent was non-comqaercial---
tourists, and visitors for various purposes. But that thirty
per cent was important.
"Drummers used to come out from the commercial houses
in Boston, New York, even from more distant points. They came
by train, and lived in the hotels while on the road. They
used to stay out the entire week, going in home, Friday or
Daturday. If they came from far points they might be out
for weeks....ev n months.
"But since they have taken to automobiles some go back
and forth every nizht....home. They don't come in from dis-
tant places any more. It is the practice of the commercial
houses to locate a representative near enough their trade to
_o back and forth every day. The swifter automobiles are
made, and the smoother and straighter the roads, the farther
a salesman can reach out, the fewer salesmen are required to
cover the territory.
"The chain stores have hurt hotels...in the drummer
trade. _hey don't buy of drummers; they have their central
purchasing departments.
"Ano her way drummers helped the hotel...you might
not think of it...was the patronage they brought into the
dining -room. The dining -room in hotels just isn't any more;
it has become a cafeteria..a lunch room. People don't eat
regular meals...full dinners...nQw. But the old drummer used
to eat. and he used to bring in his customers...or those
he as trying to make his customers...and they would eat. He'd
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set them up to good diIiners, with all the fixings, while
he talked business with them.. Tose meals were a big item
in dining room profits.
"A.nd then, their houses allowed all that cost on
drummers' expense accounts. It meant more business, and
::;usiness meant profits....then. To -day business houses
figure on saving postage stamps. They inspect expense
accounts with a microscope.
"There -used to be tree chief things on which hotels
made their profits --rooms, liquor, and: food. The drummer
helped a lot on all three. You never saw a drummer under
the influence of liquor but he was a free spender at the
bar. he liked good liquor and he was free with his treats
to his fellow drummers and to his customers.
"he largely supported the livery stable. The livery
-Jusiness never yielded much profit to us; if we broke
even with it we did well, feeding the horses, keeping sleighs
and buggies in repair, and harnesses. But the drummer
needed the. There are old-timers still on the road who
used to make the trips with the horse out from Newport.
It was a central rendevous for a lot of them. Lrie trip
which they called 'the trip'round the Horn' took from about
half past six in the morning to about six o'clock at night.
It ran fro here to Croyden--to Granthan—To ':!est Spring-
field --to Springfield —To Georges Mills —To Sunapee —to
Guild —back to Hewport. For a horse and buggy, drive
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yourself, we charged $5.00; for a double rig and driver,
more. But that no more than lct 1A8 out even.
"Still there was an offset to that class of trade.
We made a practice of giving drummers commercial rates....
less than regular rates. And they wanted single rooms
didn't like to double up much. Here's what I mean. To-
night we're having two teams come down here to play
Dartmouth teams, fourtecn men, each...hockey and basket
ball. They're going to have rooms and breakfast; they'll
double up and use fifteen or sixteen twin -bed rooms. The
old drummer crowd would have used upwards of twenty-eight
rooms, and room rent is now the chief source of profit for
the hotel.
"T mentioned liquor as one of the chief sources of
profit for hotels, before Prohibition. That source of
income is pretty well shot now.
"Countr-i hotels used to survive on liquor. In many
small hotels the sales of liquor abrbed any deficits
appearing in the other departments.. .brought them out on
top at the end of the year.
"Hotels never made any budgets. They didn't know
what budgets were. They spent whatever was necessary for
running a good hotel, and took in whatever came to them.
They depended on liquor to pay the bills left from the other
epartments.
"We still have our license to sell liquor by the ,:lass,
in the dining room, or to carry it to the rooms. But people
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have differmet habits of drinking today; they acquired
-these habits in The days of Prohibition. They don't
patronize the hotel tap room. People got into the habit
of buying by the bottle. The bootleggers furnished it in
bot_les. They re-olted to some handy place and drank it.
Those habits still persist.
"Hotel guests buy from the state liq_or store, over
,ere. You see, tle state is in he liquor business; we all
have to buy our hard liquors from the state. There isn't
much trade for the hotel tap room.
""-,-o out of those three chief sources of revenue I men-
tioned,only the ro:Aus constitute the biggest business for
us.
'That's happened in the renting of room?
"Years back, when business was flourishing and people
uere making more meeney than they had any reasonable need
for spending, they announced that fact to the world by
building big houses...a dozen, fifteen, twenty rooms.
..any of then, at that ti el were pretty %ell filled by big
families. These big, houses have come down to the second
or third generations; the hi families have ,one; the upkeep
and taxes are an expense; the houses are hard to sell and turn
into money. But they 11,,,ve plenty of unneeded rooms.
"There is a house over on that street which has a lot
of bedrooms for which the people now living there have no
personal use. Sc I made arrangements with them to accommo
date some of my guests at overflow times. They got a
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dollar and a half or two dollars per person.
"They caught the idea...why not go into the rooming
business for themselves They did. The first season they
took in some three hundred dollars.
"They confided to a neighbor, it looked good to the
Deighbor. Next season the original three hundred dollars
was split up between them. Then more caught the idea..
tourist rooms increased and the profit for each of them
giew less. And so the business went on) scattering into
smaller and smaller pieces and bleeding the hotels of their
legitimate trade.
"Rent from tourNt rooms is clear velvet to the owners.
There is no overhead --no service... Oh) they have a few
sheets and towels to wash) but the expense of that is neg-
ligible. It's another case where the hotel can't compete
on their ground.
"I suppose you can't blame people) in these pinching
times, for doing anything which falls to hand to make a
dollar 000 but it is unfair competition, from the hotel man's
angle.
"That isn't the only unfair competition the hotel is
up against in these times when cents count for more than
dollars used to do. All the churches are competing with the
hotel dining r or... They give suppers...dinners SOO tO raise
money. They sell them at less than the hotel can buy the
food for. The food is donated, the selling price is clear
profit.
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it, without the bother of a tent of your own. Dollar a
night, everywhere, and all the pleasures of roughing it.
"But people began to tire of the pioneer stuff. It
was all right for a thrill...but they hadn't forgotten the
comforts of the old hotel. But the price! They sighed,
but the old-line hotel man was stubborn. He had his ideas
about what a hotel ought to be and ought to charge to main-
tain the American standard, and he stuck to it. In a few
isolated cases maybe he tried to compete with dollar -a
night rooms but he couldn't do that and offer the old
service.
"Cabins responded to this homesick longing of their
trade for the old hotel life and became more luxurious,
put in toilets, running water, heat, etc.. Then their
prices began to rise...are still rising. And when they level
off with hotel rates our old trade is coming back to us.
We hotel men figure that when people's income get back
nearer to where they were before 1929 they are going to
spend more freely, they're coming back to hotels.
"Tourist rooms and cabins are no more than stop -gaps
between periods of normal income. People haven't forgotten
hotel life, they have had to take up with living conditions
on the road just as they have had to in their own homes...
not what they like, but what they can afford.
"The second main reason for people taking up with cabins
is..clothes. And that's really price, too. It used to cost
a lot of money for a wardrobe with whidh to spend a summer
at a resort hotels. For a vacation in cabins, three or
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four cotton shirts, a pair of Blacks, and a bathing suit
make an ample clothes supply for either man or woman.
"They're even beginning to dress that way in the
hotels, now; and it is O.K. with us.
"The defenses which hotels can put up against these
inroads of the cabin on their business are limited. They
can't adapt themselves to changing conditions as agilely
as the more nimble cabins. They can't reduce their ex-
penditures to any great extent without ceasing to be true
hotels and failing to give the public the service they hale
always given. The overhead goes steadily on; costs are
ever with them. So, but few have attempted any price re-
ductions to meet the prices of the cabins. That part of the
competition will take care of itself as time goes on. What
hotels are seeking for, is new and steady income to take
care of the outlay.
-The old dining room has gone; profits from liquor
have largely faded away; renting of rooms, night by night
has become chancy. To -night our rooms may be full, to-
morrow, nothing doing. Dependable ,:usiness is the thing
that counts.
"I remember what Joe Elliott) up the Pemigewasset, said
to me once.
"'A young hotel man came up here to see me2' said he)
'and he turned up his nose pretty high when he saw all these
elderly people I've got boarding at this hotel.
"What do you have all these old fossils hanging around
for) Joe? Why don't you get rid of them) and get in some
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young folks...have some life around the place. Don't
make it an old ladies home.'
"'Young fellow,' s'd I, 'there's just three reasons:
'these folks' clecks are always good --I know that d --n well;
inother thing, they don't eat much...don't cost much t4
keep 'em, I know that d ---n well; and they don't have t'
hurry back to school, the first of September.'
"The old drummer trade represented a steady income...
one you could plan on. Each of those drummers had his regular
route, and he stuck to it like clockwork...same-day, same
train, week in, week out, barring accfaents. We could
placn our food ahead, know how many rooms would be taken.
"To -day there may be a crowd here, to -morrow, a
handful. I may have a telephone message this afternoon...
dinner for fifty people. Ever catch us short? Oh) yes,
but we do the best we can. That's where our local markets
serve us; we're better fixed than many country hotels.
"Rents are looming large in present hotel economy as
sources of income. In the past hotels didn't consider
them; in the future, they will become of more and more
importance to hotels. New hotels will definitely be built
to have as much space for permanent rental as is consistent
with the plant for hotel use.
"One type of permanent rental --a thing which city
hotels once would'never have done --is renting rooms,
singly or en suite, for the winter, or by the week, or
month. There are people who live back in the country who
like to enjoy the city conveniences for the winter, if they
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can afford it. These people like the service of the hotels,
rather than to do their own housekeeping. So hotels are
considering that form of rental, now.
"Other forms of permanent rentals are the letting of
rooms to doctors or other professional people, whose
business can be accommodated by such space. In the rear of
this hotel is a garage which stands on ground leased to it
by the hotel, and a filling station in whose business we
have an interest.
'More and more hotels are endeavoring to give up their
whole ground floor for rental purposes. New hotels will
plan for this; old hotels are remodelling to clear out
their ground floor for stores, and the like.
"The old Eagle Hotel, in Keene, has done that, as
well as converting itself into a type of self-service/inn.
The proprietor runs a restaurant on the ground floor. His
patrons may, or may not, as suits them, use it for their
meals. The rest of this floor is used for stores. Outside
the building is old, not prepossessing in appearance.
But inside, upstairs, the rooms are excellent, the same as
those of the Ellis Hotel, just across the street.
"You enter by a hallway leading to the second floor;
you engage your room at a cashier's window, and are assigned
your room, and given a key. When you leave you pay at the
cashier's window. That is all there is to it. No service
goes with the room beyond keeping it scrupulously clean and
making the beds. You pay for no bell -hop nor other servants
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The cut in overhead is your saving.
"Rentals of various sorts will constitute a substantial
part of the future hotels' income.
"Hotels are also meeting competition of these hotel
substitutes on their own ground taking the bull by the
horns. If people really want to vacation in cabins rather
than hotels, why not furnish them? Naturally city hotels,
unless they own land in favorable places, are out on this.
But one of the White Mountain hotels is building cabins for
guests, I understand; The Eastland, ill Portland, Maine,
runs a lot of cabins. A Concord hotel man, not being
situated to operate cabins of his own, builds portable
cabins for those who do have space to operate them. He
does this in slack seasons of the year. Follow the cabins
out..meet 'em on their own Lround..that's the idea.
"PeODle have taken to diners for their eats. All right.
give 'em diners. I kn:w of a hotel that has a diner, in-
geniously backed up toa con ecting door, cut in the rear
of he hotel, which serves food that people won't come
into the hotel dining room to get; trimomet-the-d-inur...the
same food from the hotel kitchen, that is served on its
own tables...at diner prices. It can do this because it
has to add no overhead to the proceeds of the diner.
"For example, other diners in town have to pay rent
for the land they occupy...$50 in one case. They have to
pay for their heat, and for their hot water...perhaps
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$400 or $500 a year. All that, the hotel furnishes its
diner at no extra cost. I believe, by the way, that
this hotel has not publicized its method.
"Some cabin men defend the cabin as being necessary
to accommodate the great increases in our summer trade
which have occurred, late years; that there are not enough
hotel rooms to house all the people who need lodgings.
Rarely that may be true, on holidays and week ends. But
I don't see this great increase in summer trade people
talk about. It isn't what it used to be, a dozen or fifteen
years ago. Yes, perhaps there may be a greater number of
people trave4ing about in low-priced cars, but I'm talking
,bout the volume of trade...the amount of money spent in
the state. Even about the numbers of people, I'm not so
sure. Week ends, especially if they include a holiday,
make a big show of crowds travel4ing around...but how about
the middle of the week. .every week?
"And people don't bring the money with them they used
to. I know that they don't have it to spend, as formerly.
To get a vacation at all many people have to budget for it
a long time in advance.
"You see those two girlswouttbeere in the lobby,"
indicating tgig young people, dressed in appropriate winter
sports suits, quite evidently up for a glimpse of the north
country in snow time; "they're from down Providence way, and
they're getting a week's vacation on a budget planned al-
most to a cent. They know their fare up and back on the
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bus...they've saved out the return money; they know their
exact hotel bill; they know, to a cent how much they can
spend for incidentals. That's the way people are now..if
they pay their bills at all...lot of people don't. Honesty
is vanishing...I've had more bad bills since 1929 than in
all the years before....a good many more. Why7 People are
different....they're going to get a living any way at all.
"You don't see many hotels being built to -day. A lot
of them have pretty well gone to the wall; many h9ve burned;
many have been torn down. There's got to be more trade than
mow appears to warrant building new hotels...regular,
dependable trade.
"Much of this touring you see on the roads is people
going through the state; much of it is people swinging
through the mountains on a two -three hundred mile day's
run...bringing their lunches with them. That trade doesn't
leave much money in the state...little gas, perhaps...nothing
to build hotels on.
"It doesn't cost much to build a cabin. It can be built.
..a luxurious one...for $400 or $500, perhaps less. It can
be built, as wanted, from last year's profits.
"But not a hotel, .there's a capital investment. It
can't be put up, one room at a time) according to the de-
mands of the trade. It has to take future business on
trust.
"To build a very ordinary hotel, of wooden construction,
of thirty rooms, will require $25,000 or $30,000. The heat,
-8?
plumbing, electric service, gas, or whatever you have,
have to be installed at the time the building is put up.
And it has to be provided with decent devices for the
safety of the patrons. The interest on the investment
constitutes a heavy burden of overhead; before you can
reckon any profits, taxes, services of all kinds have to
be figured in.
"And after it is all done a simple shift in the location
of a trunkline road, the building of a cut-off around or
between towns may wash it up high and dry. And you canq,
carry it around as you can cabins or filling stations.
"Location means everything to a hotel; it may Make
or break a hotel. People don't visit a hotel for its
own sake; they come because it's a handy place to stop while
they're doing other things. It's the nearness to those
other things which count.
"Location in the capital of the state, for sessions of
the legislature and other state business; location in the
county seat for court sessions and like business. I've known
an extra eight days of trial in our own court, here, to
be worth a thousand 'dollars to this hotel.
"The Boston Garden makes the Hotel Manger; the Christian
Science Church is the main support for a couple of other
hotels in Boston. For adherents of the Catholic Church near-
ness of a hotel to a church of their faith makes all the
difference in the world in a week end stop, or over Sunday.
Proximity of colleges, schools, in these days, closeness of
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boys and girls' camps, secures for properly situated hotels
a lot of patronage from the friends and parents of the young
people there.
"Stores and professional business call in a lot of
guests to nearby hotels. But perhaps more generally im-
pvrtant than all is location on main automobile routes.
Automobiles determine the roads; they follow the highways
which give them the easiest and the quickest travelling for
their purposes.
"An illustration of that is what has happened on Route
10, between Greenfitd, Mass, and Hanover, N.H. during the
last few years. The stream of traffic used to run on this
route through Newport, and a good many of the travellers
patronized this hotel. But it was a ra her narrow, winding
road, although the beat at that time. When Vermont con-
structed a good cement highway on the west side of the
Connecticut River it drew away much of our traffic, and much
of our trade.
"Lately New Hampshire has been expending considerable
money on Route 10 --straightening and widening curves, re-
surfacing, building a cut-off straight over Winchester moun-
tain to the Northfield, Massachusetts line, thereby shorten-
ing the distance between Greenfield and Hanover by five
miles, --and traffic is beginning to cone back onto Route 10.
There are bad curves on the Vermont side of the river that
the state finds /t very difficult to eliminate.
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"I don't think our townspeople realize what a hotel
means to a town, a good hotel. People on the outside
don't appreciate what they stand for.
"The hotel is an essential part of the social structure
of the community in which it stands. From ancient times .1.1"
has served the public as no other institution has. It/is,
to be sure, a privately -owned, profit -making enterprise, but
it is more. It is the traveller's home and shelter and in-
surance against untoward happenings while he is on the road.
"It doesn't attmept to be a moral or religious influence)
like the church, nor a purveyor of education. It occupies just
as important a position in its community. It is a center
for all the innumerable) unspecialized social services to
the public, that nothing else provides for. It is the
representative to outsiders of that complex thing known as
'the town'; it is a sort of contact agent between strangers
coming into the town, and the town itself.
"A man comes into town looking for a place to locate
a business...professional, merchant, manufacturerA Naturally,
the first place he heads for is the hotel, if there is nne.
he finds, say, a right -up-to-the-minute place..the kind that
treats him right, welcomes him) serves him the way he likes
to be served. Chances are good that he'll give the town a
second thought.
"If he finds a shabby, down -at -the -heel hotel, where
they don't step around to look after his interests. .poor
rooms...second class food...what then? The first impression
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a hotel makes on a stranger is the feeling he carries
away with him, about the town.
"It costs good money to run the kind of a hotel which
advertises the town favorably. We get our money from the
same source as any other business...we have no private gold
mine. We aren't a philanthropy...can't afford to be; we
have to be a going, profit -making concern.
"Suppose these tourist rooms and cabins should take
away enough business from the hotels to drive them out of
business; suppose all there were for travellers, winter as
well as summer, and for the people of the town, were tourist
rooms and cabins..., what then? Every community needs a
dignified place in which to hold non-sectarian meetings of
all sorts ---the Woman's Club, entertaining guests to hear
some lecturer of note, or musician; the Rotary Club, for its
weekly luncheon; a manufacturer of high grade products, as
Westinghouse or General Motors, for demonstration of their
lines; a salesmen's convention. Where does every drive for
raising money for public service start? The hotel. The
hotel is the answer or all questions like these.
"Yet the public seem to think the hotel equal to all
the favors asked of it. For example, some local organization
wants to put on a lunch...small banquet, perhaps. They come
in;
*'Can't you get us up a feed...nothing elaborate..just
a good) plain little feed...cost around 60--65 cants a plate?'
"If I look a little dubious, they hasten to assure me,
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"'You know we want a good crowd, and we can't get
'em out if they have to pay more than that.'
"Well...we can't get up any sort of a bnncluet for
that...not and pay ourselves anything; they :now it, too,
if they stop to think a minute. Neither can we afford to
put any feed on that will hurt our reputation.
"Of course this is just thoughtless. But we do ask
a fair break...we want them to consider us as much en-
titled to an honest profit on our business as in any other
concern in town.
"A hotel is one of the town's going businesses, one they
should take an interest in protecting. If this town had a
small factory or comaercial business which employed ten or
a dozen people, and it was in danger of losing it, people
would bestir themselves to keep it. .offer it inducements to
stay...tax abatement, or some equivalent.
"This hotel has fifteen or sixteen help the year round;
in summer we employ twenty, or more. They are mostly local
people, and they receive comparatively high wages, counliflg
in board, room, gratuities, etc. with the cash wages.
"Vie expend $29,000 for food) on much of which is a
mighty narrow margin of profit. Two-thirds of this money is
spent locally. It that a good business for the town?
"A thousand services we do for everybody carry no
charge with them...no profit; they are all in the day's
work. It would make's. book all in itself...the record of
all those things in the course of a year.
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*The hotel is an information bureau. We are supposed
to know everything that anyone -wants to know about..more
about the town...all about everything they want to know
while on a journey.
"We're open twenty-four hours a day. They come here
at night, out of gas...or have a break -down. People are
taken ill on a journey...or they have an accident, sometimes
fatalities with it. They want a doctor, at once...or the
police. The hotel is on duty, wide awake.
"I remember an instance of a woman running into a child
while touring through here. A perfect stranger, she knew of
but one place to go for help...the hotel. She brought the
child along with her for first aid. She couldn't delay on
her trip, if it was possible to avoid it..she was afraid for
the child..she was in real distress. We helped her with
the child...a doctor, I knew the judge, well, and I took
her to him. She arranged with the court for appearance
whenever necessary, arranged for the child's care...was on
her way with very little delay.
'Another couple came in here, in a rushlb be mnrried.
They wanted to have a five-day law waived. I helped them
arrange matters with the court...all O.K.
"Just instances of the variety of assistance a hotel
gives people on the road. They come in here to take a nap.
tired out on a journey. Deaths have occurred here...and
births. Everything, eventually. Can you tell me what in
the world would take the place of hotels?
-93
"This lack of appreciation, on the part of the
general public, for the hotel is all a part of the
general decline in civic pride which has been going on
for same time. The old -timers --men who had the interests
of their town at heart, have been dropping out. The
chain stores are partly to blame for it. The old native
merchants were among the stauncheat supporters of any
civic improvements. They worked foraothem,gave liberally
toward them, took pride in them. The chain stores?
They're out -of -towns. The personel or these stores
changes oftener. People, as a rulejdon't stay with them
long enough to Let an interest in the town.
"In the past4men of means used to think that erecting
hotels in their respective towns was a worthy way of
perpetuating their memories among their townsfolk. What
better thing could they do for their old home towns than to
give them first class hotels, and name them after them-
selves. Usually they would give the principal part of
the money themselves and interest others to take shares.
A lot of the b.-_st present-day hotels were built that way.
"But we haven't the old element any longer with us..
the men who took that much pride in their public schools,
their churches, their public buildings, their hotels, the
town's social quality.
"But there's a hope. There's a new, younger set of
men coming up...new citizens who bear new names...Finnish,
Greek, Polish, Italian...but they're beginning to take the
same pride pride in their adopted town's institutions as did
the old-time natives before them.
"The hotels of the present day are a lot different
from those of the past in the methods of organizing their
business for profits.
"The hotel of the past offered its patrons cleanlinesq
good beds, good food, a bar, barber shop, and very little
entertainment. This last the guests provided for them-
selves, or went without.
"The hotel of the present offers ,cleanliness, good
beds, rooms with much color and many new gadgets, liquors,
many forms of entertainment. We have to have, now2connections
for such things as electric shavers near room mirrors, and
connections and properties for moving pictures in our
convention room. Today the hotels makes much of their
profits from side lines, commissions, and rents.
"Present day hotels have been classified, by some
leading hotel men, into resort, transient) and apartment
types. I would add another type which I think has establish-
ed itself the convention hotel.
"The Iltel of the future is going to be a combination
of all these types, or at least of more than one, in those
places not large enough to support a specialized form. It
will seek income from as many money -making side lines as
is consistent with its operation as a hotel. It will seek
as large and steady an income as possible from rents, both
of space and of rooms.
-95-
0A new hotel) built to -day for future trade, will
devote its entire ground floor to rent bo, stores; its hotel
business will be done on its second floor) up. It will
make much of color, in its interior decorations. It will
have offices to rent beauty parlor, barber shop, news
stand, and the lobby will have space for auto display. It
will have a bridge room, a convention and a banquet room)
or both in a double purpose room. It will have much space
for display.
"Let me sketch out here) roughly,, my idea of a hotel
such as I would build. I'd find a good location --a little
out from the town center, probably, with plenty of room
around it. I'd build the main part of brick, or some
permanent, fireproof material. On either side would be
two wings, of less expensive material —wood, likely. The
61eral ground plan would be like this:
BACK
KITCHEN
Rooms
and
temporary
apartments
Main
hotel
Lobby
Banquet
Convention
and
display
Two or three floors high.
FRONT
Golf Links and Ski Grounds
r-1
Gas
Station
"There you get a general idea. The main hotel would
contain all portions of the hotel used for year round pur-
poses. (a) is the year round dining room, (b) i1 the tap
room. The wings are to open up for the rush seasons and
for conventions and in some locations apartments for year
round business. A gas station would be located convenient-
ly at one side. Also, in some desirable location on the grounds
would be cabins, for those who wished them, and a store,
through which the hotel would sell articles and supplies
to its guests and to the public.
"The emphasis on money making side lines will be greater
and greater. The color note in the rooms is more and more
demanded, even now, uch color. More and more electric
fixtures and gadgets will find their places in the rooms.
For example, the personal electric instruments carried by
travellers, as the electric shaver, demand convenient sockets
near mirrors, to connect with current.
"To -day we hotel men are making much of sidelines. In
this hotel about 12% of our revenue now comes from rents
outside ground space and inside office rooms and apartments
commissions, sale of post cards, candy, magazines, maple syrup
vending machines, weighing machines, guests, laundry, dry
cleaning, five -cent toilets) etc.. Sale of locally made
goods, either in the hotel store or from some room connected
with the lobby, will become more and more the order of the day.
"Most hotels have abandoned operation on the so-called
-98
in the past, have made just that mistake. City and country,
each have their own excellencies, but one is not the other;
and hotels, to be successful have to recognize that fact.
"Winter business among hotel man has not developed
as we might have wished. People have not yet become winter
minded; they haven't become convinced that winter touring
in New Hampshire is as good, or even better, than much of
the time in summer.
"Snow trains are of no help to hotels. Week -end
ski parties are somewhat more profitable; any thing that
means renting rooms, is helpful. People have not shed
old habits of long standing --hibernation in winter."