Hotel Ramapo Explained

Hotel Ramapo
Designated Other1 Name:Portland Historic Landmark[1]
Designated Other1 Color:lightgreen
Map Width:235
Coordinates:45.5225°N -122.685°W
Location:1337 SW Washington Street
Portland, Oregon
Built:1906
Architect:Edgar M. Lazarus
Added:October 31, 1985
Refnum:85003474

The Hotel Ramapo, now known as Taft Hotel, was previously known as Nortonia Hotel, Danmoore Hotel, and (erroneously) Franklin Hotel. It is a historic residential hotel in Portland, Oregon, United States. Built in 1906, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[2]

Designed as a residential hotel by Edgar M. Lazarus in 1906, the building was owned by Lazarus until his death in 1939. He first leased it to Mrs. A. B. Norton, and the hotel's first name was Nortonia Hotel. Mrs. Norton gave up her lease and used the name Nortonia for the next hotel she managed, now known as the Mark Spencer Hotel. In 1908, Lazarus leased the building to Dan Moore, who renamed the structure the Danmoore Hotel.[3] Moore closed the hotel in 1909 when he could not make rent payments. Lazarus, refurnished the building and in June 1909 reopened it with the name Hotel Ramapo, with M. E. Foley as proprietor. In 1955, the Ramapo Hotel became the Taft Hotel,[4] and the name Taft has been employed in the building's subsequent uses. The building is now the Taft Home,[5] a facility for senior and disabled adults.

Franklin Hotel was the erroneous historic name assigned to the building when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The actual Franklin Hotel, located at 515 SW 13th Avenue, was built in 1907. How the author of the National Register nomination confused, by name, the Franklin Hotel[6] (1907) with the historic Hotel Ramapo designed by Lazarus is not clear. The original National Register nomination makes no reference to Hotel Ramapo, the name by which the building was known for almost fifty years.[7] The historic name was corrected on the National Register in January 2013.

See also

Notes and References

  1. .
  2. Web site: National Park Service . National Park Service . National Register of Historic Places Weekly List, January 11, 2013 . January 11, 2013 . 9 February 2013 .
  3. Taft Hotel, as the Danmoore Hotel, in Building Oregon, http://boundless.uoregon.edu/u?/archpnw,20632
  4. "Name of Hotel Becomes Taft" (August 2, 1955). The Oregonian, p. 8.
  5. The Taft Home, http://tafthome.org/
  6. Franklin Hotel, Oregon Historic Sites Database, http://heritagedata.prd.state.or.us/historic/index.cfm?do=v.dsp_siteSummary&resultDisplay=50467
  7. Franklin Hotel, National Register of Historic Places Nomination -- Continuation Sheet, https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/11403