Hotel history
The H.B. partners retained the architectural firm of Parker and Thomas of Baltimore and Boston, and the construction firm of W. W. and E. A. Wells of Chicago. Parker and Thomas had also been in the process of designing the new Homewood campus in the northern section of the city along North Charles Street above 30th Street of red brick and white wood-trimmed Georgian architecture/Federal-styled architecture at The Johns Hopkins University when it relocated from its original previous downtown site along North Howard and West Centre, Little Ross and West Monument Streets around the same time and continuing for a few decades later.
When it was completed, the Belvedere, according to early accounts was considered "something of a sensation for Baltimore." Over the years, it has figured prominently in Baltimore's social, political and economic life, especially as it was located in a tiny predominately exclusive residential neighborhood, north of where most of the other downtown hotels were then clustered. In 1912 Woodrow Wilson stayed at the Belvedere Hotel while attending the 1912 Democratic National Convention at the nearby Fifth Regiment Armory.
The Hotel Belvedere was known as the premier lodging in Baltimore during the first half of the twentieth century, hosting American Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Woodrow Wilson, among others, along with such celebrities as Wallis Warfield Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor), (controversial wife, born and raised in Baltimore, of abdicated King Edward VIII of Great Britain in 1936–1937), General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, actor Clark Gable, and many dozens of others.[3]
Sheraton Hotels, a nationwide syndicate/chain purchased the hotel in June 1946 and operated it as the "Sheraton-Belvedere Hotel".[4] Sheraton sold the hotel, along with seventeen other aging properties, to Gotham Hotels in 1968 and it regained its original name.[5]
As "Belvedere Hotel", the building was designated a Baltimore City Landmark on October 14, 1975.[6]
The 2006 death of Rey Rivera was featured on Unsolved Mysteries. On May 24, 2006, the body of Rivera was found inside a conference room of the hotel's galleria annex south of the main building. The Baltimore Police Department ruled Rivera's death a probable suicide due to the hole created from a jump impact, even though the case had numerous inconsistencies.
Conversion
Former owner Victor Frenkil received numerous city loans before selling the hotel in bankruptcy court for 5.5 million in 1990.[7]
The Belvedere was converted to condominiums in 1991, although the building's historic, distinctive grand interior spaces of the ballrooms, restaurants (such as the "John Eager Howard Room" with its large grand murals of pastoral Baltimore scenery, and the "Owl Bar"), and lounges (including the modernistic night club/bistro, "The 13th Floor" and observation level, along with a basement-level shopping arcade) were cleaned, restored and enhanced, remaining open to the general passing public.[8]
