Tremont House (Boston)

This article is about the hotel in Boston. For other uses, see Tremont House (disambiguation).

Tremont House (1829 – c.1895), sometimes called the Tremont Hotel, was a hotel designed in 1829 by Isaiah Rogers in Boston, Massachusetts. Notable guests included Davy Crockett and Charles Dickens.

Tremont House in 1834 rendering

History

Tremont House was a first-class hotel in Boston designed by Isaiah Rogers. Located on Tremont Street, construction began on July 4, 1828 and the hotel opened on October 16, 1829. For the grand opening, the hotel hosted a banquet for important local guests, charging just $1 per person. The architecture of Tremont House established a reputation for Rogers, who later accepted commissions for many other first-class hotels, including Astor House in New York, Battle House in Mobile, Alabama, Burnet House in Cincinnati, the Charleston Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky, and the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans.

Description

The Tremont House was a four-story, granite-faced, neoclassical building, located at the corner of Tremont and Beacon Streets, with its main entrance on Tremont. It incorporated many hotel "firsts":

• Indoor plumbing
• Indoor toilets and baths
• Reception area
• Locked rooms for the guest
• Free soap
• Remote call bell system

Among this long list of innovations, it is probably best known as the first hotel with indoor plumbing and running water. The hotel's water was raised by steam-powered pump to a storage tank on its roof, where it fed by gravity to the taps. Eight water closets (toilets) were provided on the ground floor. Bathrooms for bathing were located in the basement, and served by cold running water. Bathtubs were copper or tin, with local gas heating for the tub's water. Running water was also provided to the kitchen and laundry. A simple system removed the waste water to the sewage system.

Tremont House in the mid-1800s

During the 19th century it was socially unacceptable for women to dine alone in the public rooms of hotels. The hotel was among the first urban establishments to open a women-only dining room, referred to as a 'Ladies' ordinary'.

The Tremont House set the standard for luxury accommodations and was the model for many hotels built in major cities at this time. One of the most notable, also designed by Isaiah Rogers, was the Astor House (1836) in New York City.

Notable guests

• Daniel Webster

Bibliography

• Berger, Molly W. (2011). Hotel Dreams: Luxury, Technology, and Urban Ambition in America, 1829−1929. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-9987-4.
• Klimasmith, Betsy. At Home in the City: Urban Domesticity in American Literature and Culture, 1850−1930. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press. ISBN 1-58465-497-X.
• Sandoval-Strausz, A. K. (2007). Hotel: An American Story. New Haven: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14202-0.
• Williamson, Jefferson (1930). The American Hotel: An Anecdotal History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Images

• 
  Painting by James Bennett, c. 1830s
• 
  Tremont Street, 1860s; Tremont House at right, Park St. Church in distance
• 
  19th-century photo by John P. Soule
• 
  Room No.29, occupied by Charles Dickens and others.
• 
  Interior, 1894
• 
  Tremont House menu on June 21, 1857

Further reading

• Stevens, Benjamin F. (1895). "Tremont House: The Exit of an Old Landmark". The Bostonian. 1 (4).
• "Tremont House, June 21, 1857". 1850s and 1860s Hotel and Restaurant Menus. University of Houston, Digital Collections. Retrieved November 19, 2024.