DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997                TAG: 9704110812

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: George Tucker 

                                            LENGTH:   75 lines

PROPOSED HILTON WOULD FOLLOW GRAND TRADITION OF HOSTELRIES

The proposed erection of a $25 million Hilton Suites Hotel on lower Granby Street between City Hall Avenue and Plume Street will not only be another step toward the rehabilitation of downtown Norfolk, it also will continue a local hostelry tradition extending back over 300 years.

To take a giant step backward, in 1693 - only 13 years after the establishment of ``Norfolk Towne'' in 1680 - John Redwood, who also used the alias John Pierce, opened a tavern on Main Street. By 1717, public houses were being run in Norfolk by two women, Mrs. Ann Coverley and Grace Powell, and six men: Peter Malbone, John Loftland, Thomas Cretcher, John Gay, Richard Josslin and Thomas Walter.

In that year, all of them were hauled before the Norfolk County Court (Norfolk was not incorporated as an independent borough until 1736) and accused of using false measures, a charge that eventually was proven untrue.

Other than the court records concerning these persons, information on pre-Revolutionary Norfolk taverns and tavern keepers is scarce. Even so, it is known that George Washington put up at a hostelry run by one John Reinsburg when he was in Norfolk in May 1763, while the Norfolk Royal Exchange Masonic Lodge took its name from its meeting place, the Royal Exchange Tavern.

After the Revolutionary fire of 1776, Norfolk had two well-known hostelries, the old Borough Tavern on East Main Street and the New Borough Tavern, also on Main, west of Church Street. Norfolk's first hotel, the Exchange Hotel and Coffee House, opened in 1789. Matthew Glenn, its proprietor, was a famous host in his day, and Thomas Jefferson, Stephen Decatur, Lafayette, John Randolph of Roanoke and Indian Chief Black Hawk were entertained at his table.

Other hotels of the period were the Eagle House and Carr's Hotel on Main Street and the Indian Queen and Stephen Tankard's hotels near Norfolk's second Custom House at Wide Water and Church streets. French's Hotel, at the southeast corner of Main and Church, opened in 1837 with Prince Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III) as its first guest. It was later called the National Hotel and still later Purcell House, and it numbered Stephen A. Douglas, Mark Twain and President Grover Cleveland among its guests.

Contemporary with French's Hotel were the Gladstone, St. James's and Mansion House, the latter being the popular rendezvous for theatrical troupes that played at Norfolk's bawdy variety theaters of that era.

But the top two Norfolk hotels of the middle and the late 19th century were the first two Atlantic Hotels.

The first, at Main and Corey streets, opened in 1859 and burned eight years later. Plans to rebuild the hotel at Main and Granby streets were made immediately, and the cornerstone of the second Atlantic - a fantastic structure of brick and carpenter's wooden scrollwork - was laid with elaborate ceremonies in October 1867. At that time, S.R. Borum, a well-known Norfolk liquor dealer, placed ``one bottle of pale Hennessy brandy and one bottle of London Dock brandy - vintage 1858'' in the new hotel cornerstone.

The second Atlantic Hotel was Norfolk's posh hostelry until it also burned, in 1902. Although it was rebuilt and continued to operate until the middle years of this century, it soon lost its top rating when several fancier hotels were erected farther up Granby Street.

Leading the list was the Monticello Hotel, dating from 1898. It contained the most luxurious bar in the city - adorned with life-sized, oil-painted female nudes in gilded frames. These and the Monticello's other luxurious appointments were destroyed Jan. 1, 1918, when the hotel was gutted in one of Norfolk's most spectacular fires, which took place during a severe freeze at which time water from the fire hoses froze before it could reach the flames.

After the fire the Monticello was rebuilt in a less-lavish style, after which it remained the city's finest downtown hotel until it was demolished to make room for the present Federal Building.

Other Norfolk hotels contemporary with the Monticello were the Victoria on East Main, the Fairfax on City Hall and the Loraine and Lynnhaven hotels on Granby, both of which still operate under other names.

Finally, to bring Norfolk's long roll of public houses up to date, there is the Omni on the Elizabeth River waterfront and the Marriott, which only recently has made its cosmopolitan presence notable on Main Street - the very thoroughfare where John Redwood, alias John Pierce, opened Norfolk's first known hostelry in 1693.

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