×

Athenaeum Hotel — The Grande Dame of Chautauqua Institution

Did you know that the Athenaeum Hotel was completed and opened during the 1881 summer season, seven years after the first Methodist Sunday School Assembly at Fair Point? It is one of just two large hotels dating back to the resort hotel and steamboat era on Chautauqua Lake that remain today — the other being the Hotel Lenhart in Bemus Point. The Athenaeum filled the need to serve those visitors to Fair Point who preferred something more luxurious than the campground-type accommodations provided by the Palace Hotel – a combination of tents and framed structures that had been transported to Chautauqua Lake from Philadelphia following the city’s Centennial Exposition in 1876. In 1924, the Athenaeum was expanded with an attached Annex, increasing the number of guest rooms to meet the growing demand for fine hotel lodging and dining during the summer season. Beautifully designed in the French Second Empire style by architect William Worth Carlin, the hotel remains today, owned and operated by Chautauqua Institution.

Reference Credit:

Three Taps of the Gavel: Pledge to the Future, The Chautauqua Story,

Alfreda L. Irwin;

Photo courtesy of the Chautauqua Institution Archives.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today