O'Henry Hotel and Greensboro

O'Henry Hotel

On Friday each member of our group chose a historically important thing about Greensboro, from the list that the GHM committee gave us on Wednesday, to research over the weekend and mine was the O'Henry Hotel. The ideas for this hotel were thought of by Dennis and Nancy King Quaintance because they wanted to translate the great things about Greensboro into a hotel for the people of Greensboro. The hotel was built in 1919 but because of its timeless design it looks like it could have been built in 1998 instead. They wanted to design a hotel that blended tradition and innovation all into the same space. They named the hotel O'Henry after the world famous short story writer, William Sidney Porter, who was born in Greensboro in 1862. Some of his work includes "The Gift of the Magi", "The Last Leaf", "Of Cabbages and Kings", and "The Ransom of Red Chief". As a boy he attended his Aunt Lina's school house in Greensboro and his aunt's school house is the one that is displayed in the Gate City exhibit at the Greensboro Historical Museum. They also named the largest banquet hotel the "Caldwell Room" after David Caldwell who was another important figure of Greensboro. The couple used other buildings around Greensboro for different bits of inspiration such as the Aycock school. When they started thinking about having a restaurant in the hotel they decided that it would be better to build a restaurant beside the hotel rather than inside it so the restaurant could have its own identity. They named this restaurant the Green Valley Grill and designed it with a tuscan style and borrowed ideas from the Blandwood Mansion and a little pump house on Benjamin Parkway at Lake Daniel. Below are images of some of the interiors of the O'Henry Hotel. How Dennis and Nancy King Quaintance designed this hotel is really interesting and I think they succeeded as far as making this hotel what they had dreamed.

Common Room

Courtyard

Information Source: http://www.ohenryhotel.com/community.htm