The Lord Baltimore Hotel is located at 20

West Baltimore Street West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

, on the northeast corner of the intersection with North Hanover Street, and one block west of the main downtown thoroughfare of North Charles Street, in the downtown area of

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Description

The hotel was designed by

William Lee Stoddart William Lee Stoddart (1868–1940) was an architect who designed urban hotels in the Eastern United States. Although he was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, most of his commissions were in the South. He maintained offices in Atlanta and New York C ...

and opened on December 30, 1928. The 22 story hotel, designed in the

French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...

style, has a dark red brick veneer with limestone trim over a steel frame. The building, which is 289 feet tall, is topped with a tower featuring a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

of copper, now aged with a green patina. It replaced the smaller but substantial Hotel Carswell, built shortly after the

Great Baltimore Fire The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland from Sunday, February 7, to Monday, February 8, 1904. More than 1,500 buildings were completely leveled, and some 1,000 severely damaged, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimate ...

of 1904. In 1958, after the

Baltimore City Council The Baltimore City Council is the legislative branch that governs the City of Baltimore and its more than 600,000 citizens. It has 14 members elected by district and a president elected at-large; all serve four-year terms. The Council holds reg ...

considered but failed to pass an ordinance prohibiting

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

in public accommodations, the Lord Baltimore Hotel voluntarily ended its restrictive guest policies. Following the redevelopment of the downtown area in the 1990s, the hotel is within walking distance of many Baltimore attractions such as the

Inner Harbor The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The ...

Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early ...

, and the National Aquarium. The Lord Baltimore Hotel closed in 1982, needing a major renovation. It was bought by a partnership headed by local developer Saul Perlmutter in 1983 and was renovated in 1985. The partnership filed for bankruptcy in 1987 and the hotel was then taken over from its defunct creditor by the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures cred ...

(FDIC) during the savings and loan crisis of the mid-1980s. The hotel was managed by

Radisson Hotels Radisson Hotels is an international hotel chain headquartered in the United States. A division of the Radisson Hotel Group, it operates the brands Radisson Blu, Radisson RED, Radisson Collection, Country Inn & Suites, and Park Inn by Radisso ...

through much of the 1990s as the Radission Plaza Lord Baltimore. The FDIC sold the hotel to Universal Equities, a Washington, D.C. group, in 1992 for $8.5 million. Universal, in turn, sold the hotel in January 1997 for $30 million. The new owners, Davidson Hotels, ended the association with Radisson. The hotel became, for a time the Hilton Baltimore & Towers. The hotel was sold again in 2001 to Carlson, the owners of the

franchise, regaining its previous name as the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore. The hotel was sold to Rubell Hotels of

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

for $10 million (US) in August 2013. It dropped the Radisson flag and reopened in 2014 as an independent hotel, after undergoing a total remodeling of guest rooms, and restoration of the building's public spaces. The hotel was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1982. Lord Baltimore Hotel is a member of

Historic Hotels of America Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels that have maintained their authenticity, sense of pla ...

, the official program of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...

References

External links

Official website
*, including photo from 1985, at Maryland Historical Trust {{Authority control Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore Renaissance Revival architecture in Maryland Hotel buildings completed in 1928 Downtown Baltimore William Lee Stoddart buildings Skyscraper hotels in Baltimore Historic Hotels of America