83 Years ago today the Eastland Hotel opened its doors for business and has been the grand dame of Portland hotels ever since.
This is a brief history of the Hotel.
Construction plans for Portland’s newest high-rise hotel were announced in 1925. The hotel was conceived and built by Portland’s visionary hotelier, Henry P. Rines, who also owned and operated the Congress Square Hotel. The new hotel, which cost $2 million, was connected to the Congress Square Hotel, forming the largest hotel north of New York.
The Hotel was designed by local architect Herbert Rhodes and included 241 guest rooms and apartments. Construction of the twelve-story hotel was completed in 15 months and featured a brick, limestone and plaster exterior with steel casement windows.
A name-the-new-hotel contest was held, with $100 in gold awarded to Portland resident C.E. Weeks for his entry, The Eastland.
The Eastland Hotel opened its doors with lavish ceremonies on June 15, 1927, just one day after Charles Lindburgh flew solo across the Atlantic. Flying over Portland’s State Pier, radio personality Graham McNamee and governor Ralph O. Brewster dropped the keys to the hotel’s front door into Portland’s Harbor, signifying that the Eastland would never close.
Henry P. Rines and his wife, Adeline (the first woman to practice law in Cumberland County) were frequent travelers to Europe and the Middle East. Their travels impressed them and the lobby and restaurants of their new hotel were fashioned after their favorite locations abroad.
The hotel entrance was designed to resemble an old Spanish patio with stone benches, a colorful red and yellow striped awning, slate floor, and red tiled roofs for balcony effects.
The steps beside the front door led downstairs to the grill, (then called the Sunrise Gateway Room) and a barbershop. This room was later renovated to become the popular post-war Polynesian lounge, the Hawaiian Hut and in 1990 became the Sonesta’s state-of-the-art function room, Cumberland Hall (now known as the Eastland Park Hotel’s Longfellow Hall).
The Eastland lobby featured a beamed ceiling supported by massive pillars. The wrought iron candelabras were copied from old fixtures in a Madrid café. Several wall sconces in the lobby cleverly simulated old Spanish flowerpots with trailing vines.
The street-level shopping arcade included a beauty shop, “Ask Mr. Foster” travel information service, the Chisholm newsstand, and the House of Conant Tailor and Valet Service. A Delicatessen was later established to provide bakery products and coffee to the hotel apartment tenants.
The Danish Tea Room (now the Greenhouse, a private function room) was an authentic reproduction of an 18th century tavern, which was located in the marketplace of Ribe, the capitol of medieval Denmark. The tavern had not been remodeled in over 150 years, and the Rines family used it as the model for their new restaurant.
Old pieces of Baroque-style furniture were imported from Denmark to furnish “The Skenkstuen” (the room where patrons are served). These pieces included pine tables worn smooth by years of use, corner cupboards, an antique clock and a billegerovn heating chamber that drew hot air from the chimney in the adjacent room.
The Spanish Baronial Dining Room, later named the State of Maine Ballroom featured an oak floor, carved adornments on the entranceway and balcony, and antique Spanish lanterns. The beam supports were decorated with sculpted armor.
Charles Lindburgh himself visited the Eastland in July 1927. “The Lone Eagle” flew into Old Orchard Beach, spoke to crowds at Deering Oaks Park, returned to the Eastland to rest and was honored at a banquet attended by 700 people in this room (now called the Eastland Ballroom).
The Egyptian Dining Room (now known as Adeline’s Grille at the Eastland Park) featured marble steps, stately columns, and richly painted murals. The Egyptian Dining Room served elegant meals nightly. The cost of a four-course steak dinner in 1927 was $1.95.
Located on the top floor of the Eastland, Hotel postcards described the Sun Parlor as “more than 300 feet above sea level, high above all the surrounding buildings, affording guests beautiful views of the harbor, ocean, the suburbs of Portland and distant White Mountains”. After the repeal of prohibition laws, the Sun Parlor became a popular cocktail lounge, still known as the Top of the East.
The guest rooms and apartments offered the utmost in luxury and convenience, including private baths, telephones, daily maid service, spinet desks an the latest modern amenity, “disappearing beds” that fold into the wall.
Each hotel room was also equipped with a cone loud speaker allowing guests to tune in WCSH radio programs. Maine’s premiere commercial broadcasting company, WCSH, was named for the adjoining Congress Square Hotel, which housed the radio station.
