WASHINGTON, D.C., - Who says trivia only belongs on board games? Living trivia can be a lot more fun, especially when it involves a visit to one of America's legendary hotels. Now you can travel back in time and experience America's past from the comfort of your favorite easy chair with the 2004 edition of the National Trust Historic Hotels of America membership directory.

The guide features a selection of 203 historically significant hotels, resorts and inns. Each is depicted in a half-page photo, with a second full-color image showing an alternate view of the property. In addition, each entry provides travelers with a brief description and history of the hotel, rates, a new three-page fold-out national map and an easy-to-read reference chart of hotel and resort amenities and meeting room facilities.

Try livening up your next cocktail party conversation or friendly parlor game with some of these interesting factoids:

Signs of the Times

  • In 1900, guests checking into the central building of Baltimore's Admiral Fell Inn had to be de-loused. The inn was a safe haven for merchant seamen entering the port of Fell's Point which, at the time, was a rough bustling waterfront neighborhood filled with warehouses, saloons and brothels.
  • What to pack? The question continues to plague female travelers the world over. In the mid-19th century, ladies often packed for stays of a month or more, especially when traveling to a destination such as Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The Gideon Putnam Hotel recalls that the fashion of the day necessitated the invention of the Saratoga trunk, a high-domed piece of luggage that could accommodate a well-dressed lady's hoop skirts.

Celebrity Sightings

  • Since its opening in 1925, the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Mass., has been host to many well-known luminaries but it was the classic television sitcom Bewitched that brought the hotel its most notoriety. For several weeks in 1970 the cast and crew took up residence at the hotel while filming a two-part episode in Salem called "Salem Saga." In honor of the visit, the hotel's restaurant developed a special menu called, "when witches get together" featuring such delicacies as eye of newt ambrosia, green ghoulish stew and evil-eye purple onion.
  • In 1948, presidential candidate Thomas Dewey attended the Governors Conference at Wentworth-by-the-Sea in Portsmouth, N.H.-but almost didn't stay because he didn't like his room. To protect the association with the man then popularly thought to be a shoo-in for president, hotel owner and operator, Jim Smith quickly switched room assignments with Strom Thurmond who hadn't yet checked in. When all of the governors and their wives assembled on the shore for a clambake, the skies opened drenching everyone and the food. The governors ended up toasting hot dogs in the hotel kitchen because Smith had released the hotel staff for the night.
  • Where better to hear some authentic country and western tunes that at the historic Wort Hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyo. The famed Silver Dollar Bar has hosted many headliners, including Roy Clark, Hank Thompson and Willie Nelson.
  • According to Mrs. Post, of the Post cereal family, who lives next door to the El Encanto Hotel & Garden Villas in Santa Barbara, Calif., the hotel was the inspiration for the song "There's A Small Hotel," written by the team of Rodgers & Hart.

Literary Landmarks

  • Antrim 1844 Inn in Taneytown, Md., plays a central role in the new historical novel, Gettysburg, A Novel of The Civil War by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In the story, a fictionalized "what if" tale, General Robert E. Lee uses the inn as his strategic headquarters to prevail in the War Between the States.
  • James Fenimore Cooper's legendary Leatherstocking Tales lives on in the area surrounding Lake Otsego and Cooperstown, N.Y. At the Otesaga Hotel, the golf course is aptly named The Leatherstocking and the Hawkeye Bar & Grill bears homage to one of the author's most enduring heroes. The theme continues throughout the hotel, including the Natty Bumpo and Pathfinder meeting rooms.
  • The Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans has been immortalized by countless literary greats, such as Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. It is one of three hotels in the United States to be named a Literary Landmark. One of the others is fellow HHA member The Plaza in New York.

More Than Just a Building

  • The Raphael in Kansas City, Mo., was designed in two symmetrical wings, in part due to a sense of proportion and also to a sense of mistrust between the two brothers who developed the property in the 1920s. Originally, a wall divided the two wings in half so that if the brothers had a "falling out," one half of the property could be sold without affecting the other half.
  • The Hotel Monaco in Washington, D.C., is housed in the original General Post Office Building and was the site of the first telegraph transmission and where the concepts of zip codes, home delivery and the Pony Express were conceived.
  • Hotel Lombardy in Washington, D.C., retains its old-world charm by housing the city's only manually-operated hotel elevator.
  • The stately Henley Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., was originally built in 1918 as a fashionable apartment building that was home to many prominent Washingtonians. The hotel's façade boasts 118 stone gargoyles, two of which depict the faces of the building's architect and his wife. According to tradition, gargoyles help ward off evil forces and protect the inhabitants from harm.
  • In 1923 the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen Club offered lodging for servicemen for 75 cents a night. Since the 1983 the building has been the Morrison-Clark Inn.
  • Built during the peak of the California coastal expansion in the 1920s and 1930s, the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., was the vision of Rosmond Borde. She was a pioneer in an industry dominated by men as well as a progressive marketer. The hotel developed a large following among Hollywood's legendary studio heads and European film stars.
  • Located just ½ mile upstream from the Redstone Inn in Redstone, Colo., sits historic Redstone Castle. In April 2003, the property was seized by the Department of Homeland Security as part of an alleged $20 million ponzi scheme. The Redstone Inn, acting as local caretaker of the property is joining with state and local groups to help keep the landmark structure in the public domain.

Marvels of Mother Nature

  • Each summer, the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Mass., is adorned with an abundance of red, white and pink impatiens. More than 11,500 flowers are transplanted into planters, window boxes and hanging baskets.
  • The world-renowned Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., uses more than one ton of grass seed and 10 tons of fertilizer annually to keep the grounds looking lush.
  • Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., plants one ton of bulbs every year to produce the gorgeous tulips, daffodils and other colorful flowers that herald the arrival of spring.

Unsolved Mysteries

  • In the 1970s, a guest at La Fonda in Santa Fe, N.M., called the front desk to complain that someone was walking up and down the hallway in front of his room, employee Lalo Ortega was sent to investigate. Ortega saw a tall man in a long, black coat disappear into a stairwell. Ortega could find no trace of the mysterious visitor and the legend still haunts the hotel.
  • On January 17, 1947, a beautiful young starlet named Elizabeth Ann Short was last seen inside the lobby of The Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Short, also known as the "Black Dahlia," is the central figure in one of the city's most infamous murder mysteries and the case remains unsolved to this day.

To receive a copy of the 256-page National Trust Historic Hotels of America membership directory, send a $4.00 check or money order to National Trust Historic Hotels of America, P.O. Box 320, Washington, D.C. 20055-0320. Or, request a directory online at www.historichotels.org. Rooms at any of the member hotels can be reserved by calling 800-678-8946. Gift cards can also be ordered online or by calling 866-684-6835.

National Trust Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Historic Hotels has identified 203 hotels in 41 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada that have faithfully maintained their historic integrity, architecture and ambience. To be selected for this program, a hotel must be at least 50 year old, listed on or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places or recognized locally as having historic significance.

Mary Billingsley
202-588-6061