As one drives the I-85/I-75 ditch through midtown Atlanta there, highly visible on the side of the interstates, are two old radio masts carrying the name
Biltmore. They stand on the roof of what was one of the grandest hotels from the 1920s ever to have been built in Atlanta - the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel.
Alas, it is no more. The shell remains but the insides were gutted and turned into office space in the 1990s Nowadays one walks through the blandest of bland beige lobbies and then turns left or right to all that remains of the old interior, the Biltmore Ballrooms. And, stunningly unexpectedly beautiful they are in their 1920 Adam Brothers redux styling. These, the only two remaining historic rooms are used for events.
If you live here or are visiting put these on your itinerary. They are worth a trip, and really so unexpected after that awfully characterless lobby.
As one drives the I-85/I-75 ditch through midtown Atlanta there, highly visible on the side of the interstates, are two old radio masts carrying the name Biltmore. They stand on the roof of what was one of the grandest hotels from the 1920s ever to have been built in Atlanta - the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel.
Alas, it is no more. The shell remains but the insides were gutted and turned into office space in the 1990s Nowadays one walks through the blandest of bland beige lobbies and then turns left or right to all that remains of the old interior, the Biltmore Ballrooms. And, stunningly unexpectedly beautiful they are in their 1920 Adam Brothers redux styling. These, the only two remaining historic rooms are used for events. 
If you live here or are visiting put these on your itinerary. They are worth a trip, and really so unexpected after that awfully characterless lobby.
wow, it makes me want to get married -how beautiful! It makes me so mad thinking of everything else they must have torn out!
ReplyDeleteAt least they had the sense to keep these two rooms. Even so, enertering these handsome rooms from others done in generic corporate style must be a shock, although maybe not as much as coming upon the real thing--a splendid, beautifully restored 1750S interior from Robert Adam's Bowood--suspended like a fly in amber, on an upper floor of Richard Rogers' high-8Os Lloyds of London building.
ReplyDeleteVery good of you to post these pictures. Rooms like these need to be known and used.
ReplyDeleteI went to an Agnes Scott dance in the Biltmore's Georgia Ballroom, about 1971. I was paying more attention to the girls than the decor at the time but I think it looks better now than it did then. At the time the hotel and the neighborhood were near the end of it's prime. The Cheetah was a Plymouth car dealership at time.