Column: The history of Hamilton’s Anthony Wayne building

Civic pride initiated a campaign to provide first-class lodging, on par with larger cities, for the hundreds of salesmen, customers and executives doing business with Hamilton’s many industries. In December 1924, the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce named a committee to select a consultant to study Hamilton’s hotel needs and evaluate possible sites. The March 1925 report by the Hockenbury System of Harrisburg, Penn. recommended 100 to 150 rooms.

The estimated cost of the proposed hotel was between $700,000 to $750,000. The anticipated redevelopment today in 2023 envisions the property as a 54-room boutique hotel with an attached restaurant at an estimated renovation cost of $16.4 million.

The site and name of the Anthony Wayne property, nearly opposite the Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument off of High Street, were chosen in late 1925. The Monument Avenue site which cost about $71,000 to acquire, extended some 200 feet along South Monument Avenue and 85 feet on High and Court streets. The name Anthony Wayne was suggested by the John Reilly Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in honor of General Anthony Wayne.

The hotel was built on a portion of the site of Fort Hamilton, which Wayne had ordered enlarged after he assumed command in 1792.

The property was financed by a sale of $500,000 of stock sold to citizens of Hamilton and vicinity. It took only three days during November 1925 for some 746 persons and organizations to oversubscribe to $537,600 worth of shares of the new venture. The stock was of preferred nature paying a fixed 7% dividend per year and touted in the offering prospectus as being a safe and sound investment.

Incorporation as the Hamilton Community Hotel Corporation followed on Dec. 3, the first stockholders meeting and election of officers was held Dec. 9. Officers of the Hamilton Community Hotel Corporation were notable local executives including G.A. Rentschler (General Machinery Corporation), E.G. Ruder (First National Bank), Darrell Joyce (superintendent of Hamilton City Schools) and David Kahn (Estate Stove Company), among others. Demolition of the existing buildings on the site began May 4, 1926.

The hotel was designed by George B. Post & Sons of New York and Frederick G. Mueller of Hamilton. The Post & Sons firm was one of the most experienced hotel planners at the time. George B. Post is also known for designing the New York Stock Exchange. Local architect Frederick G. Mueller, whose office was located on the 7th floor of the Rentschler Building, had previously designed the Ford Motor Company plant in Hamilton as well as the Champion Paper office building.

The F.K. Vaughn Building Company was selected as the general contractor to construct the hotel.

The opening ceremonies can only be described as unique. According to newspaper accounts of the time, it was a three-day event.

The celebrations started on Oct. 25, 1927 with the placement of the cornerstone, fireworks, flag ceremony and gifting of a painted portrait of General Wayne donated by the local chapter of the D.A.R. Later that day, activities were topped off with a “stag” banquet attended by 150 hotel employees, builders, stockholders and members of the press. On the 26th, a more muted affair involving a buffet dinner for the hundreds of stockholders and family members complete with a tour of the hotel facilities took place. On Oct. 27 some 50 Blackfoot Indians from Glacier National Park in Montana were honored at the property.

They were brought to Hamilton by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on a special train of two cars led by the wood burning locomotive the “Wm. Crook”. The Blackfoot contingent was led by Chief Two Guns White Calf and his interpreter Chief Little Dog. The Chief and his contingent were greeted by E.G. Ruder, Vice President of the Hamilton Community Hotel Corporation. Thousands of public and parochial school children had been dismissed early that day to see the real live “blanket Indians” according to the Hamilton Daily News account.

The event was broadcast on Hamilton radio station WRK. The Anthony Wayne Hotel was finally opened for business on Oct. 28, 1927 at a final cost of $549,849. The hotel was managed by American Hotels Corporation, with Ralph Witmer assigned as its first hotel manager.

The hotel had early success, the first month of operation in November 1927 showed a profit of $732. However, opening just before the stock market crash of 1929, the hotel would struggle first through the Great Depression with the burden of a required 7% dividend to stockholders. The hotel was sold in 1948 to local investors doing business as the Anthony Wayne Hotel Corporation. The decline of locally owned Hamilton industry in the 1950s accelerated the decline in downtown hotel occupancy. As a result, in December 1961 the Anthony Wayne Hotel Corporation leased the property with an option to buy to LaMarr Bittinger of Bozeman, Montana.

LaMarr Bittinger began his career in the hotel business, rather ironically, as a room clerk at the Anthony Wayne from 1936 to 1939 before moving on to other properties and becoming a national figure in hotel management. Bittinger formed a new company, Bee Hotel Management Inc. to run the Anthony Wayne. Named as manager of the hotel was Robert Bittinger, LaMarr’s 23 year-old son. Bittinger invested in substantial improvements including a direct dial telephone system, new carpeting, television sets in every room and a transformation of the former hotel ballroom into the “Gay Belle” restaurant and night club. In the process, Bittinger would take on an unsupportable amount of debt on the property.

In the fall of 1963 unpaid creditors of the hotel filed an involuntary bankruptcy action against Bee Hotel Management and a receiver was appointed. The property would remain open into the spring of 1964 until the receiver concluded the hotel was no longer a viable business. The Anthony Wayne would cease operations as a hotel on May 10, 1964.

The first attempt at a Sheriff’s auction for the Anthony Wayne property on June 26 of that year failed for lack of bidders. However, the second auction on Aug. 18 resulted in a sale of the property to Dayton, Ohio City Commissioner David Hall for $166,667. Hall immediately announced the building would be converted into 54 residential apartments.

In March 1989, the Anthony Wayne was acquired by the Star Bank of Butler County, which announced plans to build a $9 million, eight-story riverfront office center after demolition of the then 62-year-old hotel. The office plans never materialized, and the unoccupied Anthony Wayne appeared doomed until late 1994. Then Star Bank donated the hotel to the Ohio Preservation Alliance. OPA’s then-president was former Hamilton Mayor Ann Antenen, also leader of Citizens for Historic Preservation Services.

In July 1995 the Anthony Wayne was among Hamilton buildings added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Hamilton Historic Civic Center Historic District. The building reopened in January 2000 after a $3.6 million renovation that converted it into 50 apartments for people age 55 and older. The property had multiple transfers of ownership since 2000, the most recent in July 2021 by Jeannie Hiatt, of California who owned it for a little over a year before the sale in September 2022 to AWH LLC.

On June 30 of this year it was announced that project developer, Vision AWH LLC was awarded $1,645,000 in Ohio historic tax credits. That announcement was one of the last pieces of a complex financing structure needed to start the transformation to a Tapestry Collection by Hilton Hotels branded property.

The now former Anthony Wayne property will be renamed the Well House Hotel with a completion deadline of July 2024.

Staff Writer Michael D. Pitman contributed information to this report.

The building’s name

Anthony Wayne was a founding father of the United States and an American soldier, officer and statesman. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army by President George Washington. He was nicknamed “Mad Anthony” when a spy who reported to him called him “mad” because he was punished by a lashing for disorderly conduct and desertion.

According to the Butler Co. Historical Society: “Fort Hamilton was a frontier outpost built in 1791 to move supplies and horses for the United States Army into the American frontier. Named for Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s Secretary of Treasury, the original fortifications were built under the leadership of General Arthur St. Clair. In 1792 the fort was enlarged with a stable area by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne.”