Historic suites
Five suites, five different rooms
No two of them share a plan
Five named suites in the original 1889 structure, each furnished differently.
That is a consequence of the building rather than a design decision. The 2002 to 2006 renovation traded roughly 104 rooms for 82 larger ones, and the suites are where that trade shows most.
Guests ask for these by name, which is the only real test of whether naming a room was worth doing.
The suites
The JFK
John F. Kennedy stayed here twice in May 1960, campaigning through West Virginia in a primary that decided the nomination. His brothers Ted and Bobby came with him, and the hotel put on a banquet luncheon in his honour. Kennedy took suite 216, the largest in the house at the time, on the second floor facing Fourth Street.
The Blennerhassett
One of only two rooms in the building with a whirlpool tub, alongside a walk-in tiled shower and a four-poster bed high enough to need its own wooden steps.
The William Chancellor
Named for the man who built the place: twice mayor of Parkersburg, president of the First National Bank, and the reason the restaurant downstairs is called Chancellor’s.
The William Morris
Room 215 sits in the hotel's Romanesque Revival turret, with a seven-head shower, custom carpeting and draperies, and a four-poster king you climb into on a wooden step. Deep mustard walls, a Tiffany-style lamp on the writing desk, and books and artwork by the designer it's named for.
The Marie Antoinette
Room 415, on the fourth floor of the turret, is the only room in the building with a canopy bed — an oversized king under custom draperies and carpeting, with Italian furnishings and a seven-head shower beneath a colored crystal chandelier. Decorated in the French style since the 2006 renovation.
the rest of the building has a story too
Chancellor’s
A downtown restaurant that happens to have a hotel above it. Dinner is the reason to walk in, whether or not you are staying the night.