The song “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” was written in 1951 by Meredith Wilson, who is best known for creating ‘The Music Man.’ The song mentions the five-and-dime, as well as the Grand Hotel.
In 1951, Plymouth had a Woolworths, one of the most recognized five-and-dime stores, but what of a grand hotel? Wilson didn’t identify any city or town, but Plymouth has a proud legacy of three grand hotels, all with fascinating histories and sad endings.
The oldest was the Samoset House, which was built in 1846 by the Old Colony Railroad (OCR) when the firm established the Boston to Plymouth line. Capitalizing on a captive audience and knowing visitors to Plymouth would require lodging, OCR built the hotel the year after the Plymouth terminus station was constructed. The hotel sat on the northwest corner of Samoset Street and Court Street on land originally owned by Continental Army surgeon Dr. James Thacher. (The KKatie’s Burger Bar is now located there.)
The Samoset House was an impressive three-and-a-half story building built in the Greek revival style. It featured a long porch providing views to the bay. The hotel boasted hot baths, a dining room, and carriage rides to historic sites, ponds, and the beach. Jim Baker’s Vanished Plymouth website provides a glimpse inside the hotel and gives us a view of Samoset House’s music room, dining room, and ladies parlor. (Jim is Plymouth’s unofficial historian and a gentleman I revere.)
By 1875 the hotel had changed hands and operations were directed by its owner, P.C. Chandler, who ran the hotel until the turn of the century. At that point, Mrs. E.E.Green became the proprietor. A hotel advertisement from 1908 boasts of electric lights, steam heat, and long-distance telephone service for the hotel’s 100 guests. It prospered in the 1920s, expanding into a new building that featured its full-service restaurant. (Today, that space is occupied by a parking lot north of the Levis & Sons Gulf station.)
But in the 1930s, facing hard times and competition from new hotels closer to the beaches, the Samoset House did not survive the Great Depression. It closed in 1937 and in 1938 fire reduced the building to ashes. After 92 years of hosting dignitaries such as Daniel Webster and presidents Grant, Hayes, and Harding, the Samoset House was gone.
In 1857, the Clifford House became the second grand hotel to open in Plymouth, 11 years after the Samoset House was built. Located on the bluff high above Plymouth Beach, where several homes now sit, the hotel was also three-and-a-half stories tall and was designed in the Victorian Second Empire style with 110 rooms. It was constructed by the Chilton Manufacturing Company and featured horse stables, dining rooms, tennis courts, a golf course, and separate cottages.
In 1891, the Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway Company purchased the hotel and renamed the edifice the Hotel Pilgrim. Established in 1889, the company slowly expanded its lines from Plymouth to Brockton, eventually reaching as far south as Manomet. The streetcar line reached the hotel by 1893.
In 1903, the hotel underwent a major remodel, which included a Colonial Revival facade and remodeled porches. Shortly after World War I, the hotel’s owners leased a corner of the property to the Howard Johnson company, which built a small sandwich and ice cream shop there.
Let me pause a moment for a personal digression: When I was designing several of the homes on the bluff, my dad mentioned that he was concerned about who owned the mineral rights to the bluff and land below the houses. Intrigued, I asked him what this was about. He told me that at one time the Sandwich Glass Company had the rights to mine sand from the bluff. I don’t know whether Chilton Manufacturing was the parent company or subsidiary of Sandwich Glass, but I asked him how he knew this to be true. Dad revealed he had been employed by the Hotel Pilgrim as a dishwasher. His employment tenure lasted all of one day. He was properly dismissed after breaking a stack of newly cleaned dishes.
The hotel continued to operate until 1957. Perhaps the lure of beachfront hotels elsewhere and widespread ownership of cars – which opened Cape Cod to many more tourists- were the final blows. It was unceremoniously torn down, burned, and thrown over the cliff. A 100-year-old history was casually discarded.
The last of Plymouth’s grand hotels, the Mayflower Inn, opened in June 1917 on Highland Avenue in Manomet. The 170-room, three-story Gambrel Shingle Style building was designed by architect J. Williams Beal (most likely Beal Jr.).
The Beals’ firm (both father and son) was mostly known for designing schools and banks, but the Keith Hotel Company chose it for their grand hotel. The design was curiously like the Chatham Bars Inn that had opened in 1914. The Mayflower was an enormous success; its future expansion included cottages along Taylor Avenue and a pavilion that included direct ocean front rooms, changing facilities and a restaurant. Several generations of Plymouth residents held their wedding receptions at the hotel and in the 1960s the hotel was a popular prom event venue.
Of the three grand dames, the Mayflower had the shortest life. In 1973 a fire ripped through the inn. It reopened without the damaged section, but as renovations were underway the hotel was destroyed by another fire in 1977. The era of the grand hotels in Plymouth was over.
I like to imagine Christmas celebrations in all these properties. I can envision flappers from the 1920s sipping illegal holiday hooch in the Samoset Hotel dining room, veterans swapping stories at post-World War II parties at the Hotel Pilgrim, and events at the Mayflower Inn with ‘60s pop music. I’m sure all three had Christmas trees for the season but I have yet to see any interior photos of the hotels decorated for the holidays. Perhaps you can share some with me.
This column marks the end of my first year of writing for the Plymouth Independent (which celebrated its anniversary on Nov. 21). I want to thank you for your kind notes, shared memories, and details that rounded out my articles. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many long-time residents for coffee to hear your old stories. I’ve also met with more recent migrants to Plymouth who are eager to learn more about their new hometown. You have given me numerous ideas for articles that I’m looking forward to pursuing and sharing here.
And now, even without a tree to grace a grand hotel, it is once again beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Plymouth. I’m excited for the new year.
Architect Bill Fornaciari is a lifelong resident of Plymouth (except for a three-year adventure going West as a young man) and is the owner of BF Architects in Plymouth. His firm specializes in residential work and historic preservation. Have a question or idea for this column? Email Bill at billfornaciari@gmail.com.