That Mr. Dimmick Who Thinks He Knows So Much joins Etiquetteer in today's column to share some personal reminiscences.
June 17 marked the 50th anniversary of one of the great Boston tragedies, the Hotel Vendome fire that took the lives of nine firemen. The Vendome had been a Boston Brahmin institution since it opened in 1871. After its expansion to its current size ten years later, it became known as "the most perfect and superb hotel in the world." You can learn more about the history of the building at BackBayHouses.org.
A rare interior image of the Vendome. From Etiquetteer’s collection.
A magnet both for Boston Brahmins and visiting celebrities, Sarah Bernhardt famously stayed there on her first American tour in the winter of 1880-1881. "More than comfortable, it was filled with works of art, rare porcelains, and masses of carpets sent by welcoming Brahmins who left invitations along with their calling cards."* Imagine something like that happening now! Tradition has it that Bernhardt’s suite was the second floor front exactly at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Dartmouth Street, and I remember the people who lived there saying that they had heard of Bernhardt being seen at the large window over the Dartmouth Street entrance watching the snow swirl down the street. Other guests, at different times, included Oscar Wilde and former President and Mrs. U.S. Grant.
Intended principally as a residential hotel — as fashionable a design for living then as microunits are now — its decline began after World War II, when suburbia became more fashionable. Which leads me to a story.
From Etiquetteer’s collection.
One night on the desk I saw a man of about 40 years of age wandering slowly through the lobby. We were taught to discourage loiterers with no clear business in the building, and I approached him. "May I help you?" I asked. "Oh no, I used to shack up here when I was at [Insert Name of Local University Here] in the Sixties, and I just wanted to see the place." I withered inside hearing this man use the term "shack up" to describe a place to which I'd attached so many Beautiful Illusions. "Yeah," he continued, shredding any such Beautiful Illusions I might have had left, "I know a lot of guys who lost their virginity here." Oh dear.
Years after the fire, when the Vendome had become a condominium and I was in college, I worked there as a concierge. So the building and its history have always had a special place in my heart. I arrived there in the summer of 1984 knowing very little of the building's history, but ready to fulfill my Upstairs, Downstairs dreams of domestic service with the added benefit of concentrated time to read coursework (mostly Jacobean revenge tragedies). My two years there taught something important: everyone should both have a servant and be one. Being "in service," in whatever role, teaches you not just how to do a job well and why it should be done well, but also a great deal about how people should -- and should not -- treat each other.
From Etiquetteer’s collection.
In its heyday, It was said that you weren’t a Brahmin if you didn't have either your wedding or your reception at the Vendome. It was the first building to sport electric lights (three 150-bulb chandeliers in its ballroom), and the first Boston nightspot in the 1930s (where the restaurant is on the lower level now) that featured telephones at every table. One resident told me that his aunt, a New England dealer in antiques, would come to Boston annually for an antiques show held at the newer Copley Plaza — but would stay at the Vendome.
Besides its main entrance on Commonwealth Avenue, the Dartmouth Street front of the hotel included a ladies entrance. Why on earth should the ladies have to be segregated so? Etiquetteer always understood that it was because a lady, particularly an unaccompanied lady, might not actually be considered respectable were she to be seen entering a hotel**. In this century, that seems absurd in the extreme. Kiki Volkert, writing about ladies’ entrances to Philadelphia barrooms at Hidden City, suggests “It is also true that these entrances protected women from the gaze of judgmental neighbors.” Etiquetteer agrees, but isn’t Dartmouth Street just as exposed as Commonwealth Avenue?
The Vendome featured five dining rooms, including a children's dining room. Possibly children under a certain age ate there (with their families) until they were old enough that their table manners wouldn’t disturb other diners. This is a feature Etiquetteer thinks many adults would welcome with enthusiasm now.
Residential hotels also became known for those rarefied beings, “hotel children,” children whose families chose to live in hotel suites instead of in houses, and for whom home life involved room service waiters and doormen. Eloise must be the most famous hotel child, the fictional character created by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight, who lived at the Plaza.*** Real life hotel child Margaret Case Harriman began her memoir Blessed Are the Debonair with memories of growing up at New York’s Algonquin Hotel, owned and operated by her father Frank Case.
Several children lived at the Vendome, but my most endearing memory is of a shy young girl who took the elevator down to the lobby one evening just to talk. New to the Vendome with her parents, I think she was apprehensive about living in such a large building. It wasn’t until months later that her mother told me how much my chats with her daughter helped her to feel better about their new home. And that made me very happy -- and how thoughtful of her mother to mention it quietly to me. That’s another talent to being “in service:” knowing how to listen, especially to the very young.
The Hotel Vendome in 2022, as seen from the firefighter’s memorial on Commonwealth Avenue.
*The Divine Sarah, by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, 1991.
**A lady accompanied by her husband, father, or brother, could not have her reputation so questioned.
***Most people forget that Patrick Dennis, before he went to live with his Auntie Mame, lived at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago with his father and Norah Muldoon, his nanny.