Interior of the Hotel Lawrence
I have come across a dozen various pictures, postcards, and advertisements showing the outside of the Hotel Oliver (later named the Hotel Lawrence) on Crescent Avenue. The only interior picture I had come across was taken inside the elaborate dining room. Then I had someone share this picture of the interior of the lobby of the Hotel Lawrence and I was very excited to share it with you. This picture gives us a good idea of how elaborate the hotel was in a town that still had unpaved muddy streets.
The wood work and dental molding around the front desk and fireplace is very elaborate and detailed. The trim around the ceiling of the room and the wainscot below the chair railing around the room are also very intricate. In addition to the hard wood floors and pocket doors, you might notice the decorative details on the ceiling and the florals on the lamps hanging also hanging from the ceiling.
The picture from inside the hotel’s dining room shows us that the fine details continued throughout the modern building. The finely uniformed staff is posing around the elaborately decorated banquet table. The table appears to be set for forty guests with fine linens, decorative serving pieces, cutlery, glassware and other ornate table settings. The settings are made complete with high back solid wood chairs and numerous fresh flowers. Other details from around the room include windows that seem to stretch from the hardwood floors to the ten to twelve foot ceiling. Eight foot tall doorways, decorative wood trim including crown molding and electric lights. The Hotel was the first building in town that had electric power provided from the dam on the Connoquenessing Creek.
If you notice something we missed in the pictures or feel that the two large dark colored bowls on the floor by the front desk were something other than spittoons, please leave a comment below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com
Originally Published October 11, 2010
Don’t you think the two dark bowls on the floor were spittoons? Standard furnishings everywhere in those days of chewing tobacco. Kind of disgusting for us to contemplate being in a public dining room but it was standard to have them everywhere. I wish I could find one. They were made of brass and just proved that smokeless tobacco could be as offensive as smoke.