Editor's
note: In 2008, the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable moved
its meeting site from the Cleveland Playhouse Club to Judson
Manor at University Circle. Judson Manor is a beautiful facility with a long
history dating back 85 years to its original incarnation as the
Wade Park Manor residential hotel that we thought members might find
interesting. Map to Judson Manor
The Gilded Age of the early 20th
century gave way to World War I and then returned even more gilded
during the Roaring 20s - a decade of seemingly never ending fun,
ever-growing riches and ever flowing illegal booze.
Cleveland was the nation’s fifth
largest city at that time. Its influence, through its financiers,
politicians and industrialists, was felt around the world. It was a
city of great wealth with some of the finest hotels in the world,
including The Statler, Hollenden, Cleveland, Colonial and Winton.
Investors in 1921 thought the city
needed at least one more luxury hotel. Work then began on what would
become Wade Park Manor. They selected land which overlooked Wade
Park with its beautiful pond in University Circle. The park and the
manor named after Jeptha Homer Wade – railroader, banker, and
industrialist – who helped found Case and Western Reserve
Universities. He donated the land for the park and Western Reserve
University.
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Wade Park Manor Cleveland, Ohio in
1923
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The investors hired noted
architects, George B. Post & Sons and Charles Schneider, to design their
luxury residential hotel. Post & Sons were well known as the designers of the New York
Stock Exchange building, the New York Times Building, the Wisconsin
state capital and other landmarks around the country including the
Cleveland Trust Company building.
Schneider, a native Clevelander, along with Post & Sons, also designed the
Hotel Statler, Fenn Tower and Stan Hywet Hall in Akron. Schneider on his own,
designed Plymouth Church (where he was also a member), City Hall in Shaker Heights
as well as many elegant residences in and around Cleveland. Wade
Park
Manor’s 143 suites were designed by designer and hotelier, Albert
Pick (Pick-Carter Hotels).
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The
entrance lobby of Wade Park Manor about 1923, looking very
much the same then
as it does today
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Wade Park Manor opened in January
of 1923, one of three new hotels to open that year in the University
Circle area alone. (The Park Lane Villa still standing right next
door being one of the other two.) With its grand lobby, marble floors, fine woodwork,
designer ceilings, luxurious suites and magnificent dinning and
meeting rooms, Wade Park Manor was soon considered to be the finest hotel between
Chicago and New York. A great success, it hosted a “who’s who” of
its era, including for example, Gertrude Stein, Walt Disney, Eleanor
Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Babe Ruth and the Yankees also
stayed there when they played the Indians at League Park.
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The Palm
Room of Wade Park Manor
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The stock market crash of 1929 and
the depression that followed ended the gilded lives of many and
brought down many places that catered to luxury. Wade Park Manor
survived, but only as an ever declining hotel until it became a
retirement facility in 1964, operated by The Christian Residences
Foundation until purchased by The Judson Retirement Community in
1983. Remodeled, it reopened as Judson Manor – an upscale retirement
residence. Judson itself is historic, dating back to its founding in
1906 as the Baptist Home of Northern Ohio. With matching funds from
John D. Rockefeller, it opened its first residence on Prospect in
1907.
Most of the facility’s original
fine features survived its declining years and with the millions
invested by Judson have now been restored. To walk into its lobby is
to step back into the 20s and to meet in its rooms is to experience
those days. Living there, meeting there or just visiting is a
special experience.
The first time I gave a talk there
last year, I could not help but think how neat it would be for The
Cleveland Civil War Roundtable to gather there each month - as do
The Sons of the American Revolution and The Daughters of the
American Revolution. My thanks to Jon Thompson and the executive
committee for their support in making it happen this season. We will
see you there. |
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Jeptha Homer
Wade
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