A jester from the Marie Antoinette gallery frieze Photo : Melville Holmes
in strength , so did the city — for its anima had come back to it and downtown was slowly reblossoming .
The Davenport ’ s first glory days had endured the Great Depression and World War II , at which time the Lobby ’ s art glass skylights were blacked out for fear of air raids . By war ’ s end the hotel had fallen into disrepair , and the aging Louis Davenport sold it in 1947 . Through a string of often less than ideal owners , the hotel fell into further decline ; by the 1970s the Grand Lady was subjected to that national trend of “ aesthetic dementia ” wherein was forgotten all manner of decoration appropriate to the setting : e . g ., bright red shag carpets nailed to the Lobby ’ s stone floor , red-flocked wallpaper spanning the arches of the Hall of the Doges , and more . Little wonder that the Davenport ’ s doors closed in 1985 . Things had gotten so out of hand that at one point the potential cost of the property ’ s demolition was being calculated .
Throughout the intervening years the Davenport Hotel remained in many ways an inaccessible sanctuary of venerated memories . It had been the place of friendships , families , high school proms , wedding nights , and a wondrous place just to visit . However , a light glimmered when , in the spring of 2000 , a front page headline read , “ Hope for the Davenport .” The new owners were Walt and Karen Worthy — he a self-made and successful visionary developer and she a retired school teacher .
Little did I know what would arise when I asked permission to come inside and do some oil paintings of the public rooms before the hotel reopened . I finished one painting of the Isabella room , assuming it would pretty much remain as it was then . ( It didn ’ t .) Concerning the Marie Antoinette Room , nobody expected its paint treatment from the 1990s ( all white walls with salmon red ceilings ) would remain . The puzzle of what colors to use for the painting I started was resolved when the owners asked me to create a sample from floor to ceiling in one of the bays .
Instead of finishing that painting , I wound up painting the room itself with a light peach-tinted primer , on top of which various oil glazes were applied . Gilding with metal leaf was carried out by my crew of two , while my multi-layer glazing technique for the ceiling beams was put into production by regular commercial painters . Hopefully , the Marie Antoinette Ballroom again glitters “ like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy ,” as Burke said of the woman who inspired it .
Strictly speaking , this was not a “ restoration .” No attempt was made to take the colors of the public rooms back to 1914 , since it wasn ’ t possible to find the original colors . The project should properly be termed a “ renovation .” All the old guest rooms were demolished so they could be brought up to current standards , with one exception , the Circus Room .
The Hall of the Doges presented a special problem . The building that housed the original Davenport ’ s Restaurant was dilapidated and crumbling . Saving it would not only be highly expensive , but the hotel really needed a loading dock , a porte-cochère , and a large event room . The Doges was preserved by taking its lower half apart , piece by piece , for reassembly in the new location . The upper part was “ put in a box ,” lifted out by two cranes one freezing night in February , 2001 , then loaded onto dollies and wheeled to a lot across the street . There it waited until the hotel ’ s new wing was built and it could be lifted into its new home adjoining the large event space that became the Grand Pennington Ballroom . The carpet design is new , as of 2019 .
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