Beaux-Arts Subtly

The opulent and stunning wrought-iron and glass awnings...

The Wrought-iron and Glass Embellishment

When George C. Boldt envisioned his breath-taking masterpiece, he envisioned the most opulent of entrances, and grandest of interiors. The height alone of the Hotel was something to marvel at! It was truly the exterior and interior decorations which made the Bellevue-Stratford during her time and era, one of the most beautiful and opulent hotels in the world!

Sparing no expense for the exterior and interior decorations, George Boldt's masterpiece took shape in many forms... The tall facades were of delicate and heavy bas-relief terracotta stone in a pale tan with the great mansard roofs in blue-green copper sheeting. Some of the most beautiful decoration and artisan-work was in the form of the entrances to the Hotel itself...

Facing on Broad Street were erected three portico awnings. These were made of green wrought-iron and symmetrical panes of tinted glass. carriages, motor-cars and horse-and-buggy would pull up to the Broad Street entrance originally. There would be red carpet as well! Accents of Beaux-Arts ball lighting were mounted on either side of the large main carriage entrance portico or marquee, and two smaller entrances of wrought-iron and glass had semi-circular awnings with glass and wrought-iron enclosures. These had the Hotel's full name "BELLEVUE-STRATFORD" engraved across the wide curved cornice of the awning. During service, there would also be curtains or some sort of drapery that enclosed the entrance portico. More wrought-iron and tinted glass awnings ran the length of Chancellor Court which faced the south facade of the Hotel, and went in-between the Philadelphia Art Club and the Bellevue-Stratford. This length of awning extended and wrapped around to nearly all of the facade facing the Bellevue Court. Several awnings in the same fashion and style/decoration were mounted to the Walnut Street entrances in the form of porticoes and canopies.

These unique and spectacular porticoes and awnings lasted past the Great War (1914-1918) or World War I, on through the Great Depression when times were hard for the Hotel and its business. They even lasted right on through the late 1940's! The horrible advent of modernization during the mid-1950's brought a premature death to these stunning exterior fittings. They were dismantled and gutted and replaced by cantilevered marquees!

These marquees that took over marred the elegant Beaux-Arts terracotta entrance portico and the beauty of the Hotel in general. Thankfully, the Broad Street marquee was fully dismantled, and the portico of terracotta columns and balustrade balconies was restored, but not completely as it was...

Today the only remnants of the original awning canopy and porticoes are marks and scraping along what used to be a wrought-iron awning and where they were fixed, one can see holes in the terracotta wall!!! One of the box-like marquee entrance porticoes still exists and flanks the Walnut Street entrance doors...

If only these could be brought back, how much of a boost in tourism alone would the Hotel bring! Another piece of grandeur wrongfully taken from her, brought back again!