Manufacturer: Scammell China
User: Landlords' Inn
Distributor: Mitchell Woodbury Company, Boston
Date of plate: 1928
Notes: What would become the Landlords' Inn opened in 1900 as a four-story clapboard hotel with 40 rooms as the Templeton Inn of Templeton, Mass., originally built by Moses W. Richardson in 1900. The name was later changed to Cumberland. By 1928, it had been enlarged to 100 rooms.
Around this time a group of 25 men who owned or operated hotels in the New England area decided to purchase the inn. The discovery of a report on the founding and operation of the Landlords Inn by someone familiar with what took place indicates that there was no plan for a chain of additional Landlords' Inns.
The founding was a rather casual arrangement with each of the 25 partners putting up 1/25th of the cost of purchasing the Templeton Inn. Apparently each of the owners got to select colors and decorations for one of the guest rooms.
On June 15, 1928, the newly redecorated and renamed Landlords' Inn opened for business. The plan was for each of the owners to promote the newly renamed Landlords' Inn to guests in the other hotels that they owned or operated. According to this report, "The idea was a flop and the inn was a flop."
Lauris G. Treadway finally realized that the Landlords' Inn was not going to be the success the consortium had imagined, so he bought out the other owners and the Landlords' Inn then became part of the Treadway Inn chain.
Shown on this page are an example of Scammell China's service plate (probably designed by Emil Schnepf, the company's head designer at the time) and also the main china service. The border on the service plate features photographs of each of the men who were part of the consortium, and selected portraits – seemingly random – were used to decorate the main china service.
The decal border on the service plate is composed of green, black and coin gold, while the center-of-the-well design is done in green, brown and black, with shades of gray. The portraits are not arranged in alphabetical order, but appear to be in a random arrangement.
The several known examples of this plate have a different portrait in the 12 o'clock position above the center illustration, so there seemed to be no attempt to place a particular portrait at the top.
Because L. G. Treadway's arms are crossed and he is dressed in a light-color suit, he is easy to locate in the border. For that reason he was selected to be the first image used to describe the 25 landlords. The numbering system progresses clockwise around the border.
1. Lauris Goldsmith Treadway – 1917 and 1928, operated the 70-room Williams Inn, Williamstown, Mass.; 1923 and 1949, president of L. G. Treadway Service Corp.
2. Frank A. Cantwell – 1917 to 1923 manager, and 1927, lessee of the 525-room Stratfield Hotel, Bridgeport, Conn.
3. Henry Nelson Teague – 1911 and 1937, lessee and manager of the 200-room Greylock Hotel, Williamstown, Mass.; year unknown, New Weston Hotel, New York City; 1937, manager of the Venetian Hotel, Miami, Fla.; 1937, manager of the Mt. Kineo Hotel, Kineo, Maine; 1930, purchased the Mt. Washington Cog Railroad, Mt. Washington, NH.
4. Edward D. Parsons – 1920, manager of the Bellevue Hotel, Boston, Mass.; 1923 and 1937, manager of the 200-room Moorland Hotel, Gloucester, Mass.
5. William O. Dixon – 1908 and 1915, manager of the Vernon Court Hotel, Newton, Mass.; 1921 and 1931, owner of the 100-room Laconia Tavern, Laconia, NH.; 1931, owner of the Green Moods Inn, Kittery, Maine.
6. Walter Hull Berry – 1891 and 1941, proprietor of the 50-room Walloomsac Inn, Bennington, Vt.; 1925-1927 Vermont State Senator.
7. J. Stuart Maher – 1927 and 1928, manager of the 250-room Lafayette Hotel, Portland, Maine.
8. Fred Moses Carter – 1923 and 1928, assistant manager of the 100-room Eagle Hotel, Concord, NH.
9. Herman Luther Wood – 1921 and 1931, lessee of the 125-room Mansion House, Greenfield, Mass. (started working there in 1896); 1935, on the board of directors of the First National Bank of Greenfield.
10. Herbert G. Summers – 1918 and 1930, managing director of the 300-room Charlesgate Hotel, Boston, Mass.; 1923, manager, and 1926 and 1928, owner of the 150-room Cliff House, North Scituate Beach, Mass. Summers also owned or operated the Mitchell House, Oakland House, Eagle Rock Hotel, Hotel Thorndyke, and Hotel Montfort.
11. William M. Kimball – 1917 and 1923, lessee of the Draper Hotel, Northampton, Mass.; 1927, general manager of the Hollywood Hotel, Hollywood, Fl.; 1927 and 1931, manager and president of the 200-room Preston Hotel, Beach Bluff, Mass.; 1931, manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, Calif. Kimball also owned or operated the Worthy Hotel, Hotel Kimball, Massasoit House, all in Springfield, Mass.
12. Bradbury F. Cushing – 1927, manager of the 1,300-room Statler Hotel, Boston, Mass. Cushing also owned or operated the Lake Spofford Club, University Club of Boston, Vendome Hotel, Poland Spring House, Raymond Hotel, Hotel Green, and Litchfield Hotel.
13. Clifford D. Perkins – 1912, manager Elm Tree Inn Farmington, Conn.; 1916 and 1937, manager of the 100-room Heublein Hotel, Hartford, Conn. Perkins also owned or operated the Stevens House, Hotel Garde, Grenoble Hotel, Mohican Hotel, Thorndike Hotel, and Highland Court Hotel.
14. Harry S. Morehouse – 1917 and 1931, 125-room Davenport, Hotel, Stamford, Conn. Morehouse also owned or operated Young's Parker House, New York Athletic Club, and Prince George Hotel.
15. James W. Ricker – 1909 and 1939, 180-room Poland Spring House, South Portland, Maine. (Hiram Ricker & Sons, Inc., owners.)
16. Edward Clinton Fogg – 1915 and 1922, Breslin Hotel, New York City; 1917 and 1923, managing director of the Copley Plaza, Boston; 1927 and 1929, managing director of the 1,100-room The New Roosevelt Hotel, New York City. Fogg also operated the Plaza Hotel, New York City, the Old Savoy, Boston, Mass., Lincoln House, Swampscott, Mass.; Murray Hill, Gotham, and Belmont Hotel, New York City.
17. Arthur Libby Race – 1895, night clerk, Squirrel Inn, Squirrel Island, Maine; 1915-1917, Masconomo Hotel, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass.; 1908-1922, manager, and in 1923, lessee, of Brandon Hall, Brookline, Mass.; 1917 and 1939, managing director, 1926, resident manager, of the 500-room The Copley Plaza, Boston, Mass. Race also owned or operated Preble House and Congress Square Hotel, Portland, Maine; Madockawando Hotel, Herron Island, Maine; Woodland Park Hotel, Auburndale, Mass.; and Ocean House, Swampscott, Mass. In 1926, Race was on the Editorial Advisory Staff of Hotel Management magazine.
18. James T. Brown – 1903, bell boy at the Colonnade Hotel, Daytona, Fla.; 1920, manager, Worthy Inn, Manchester, Vt.; 1922 and 1937, manager of the 252-room Hotel Worthy, Springfield, Mass.. Brown also operated Clarendon Hotel, Adirondack Inn, Parker House, Hotel Essex, Holland House, Hotel Belmont, and Hotel Kimball.
19. Frederick Wilkey – 1904 and 1906, manager, Woodland Park Hotel, Newton, Mass.; 1904 and 1947, lessee then in 1907 owner, of the 118-room Mattaquason, South Chatham, Mass.
20. Herbert Alonzo Brooks – 1929 and 1933, manager of the 125-room Landlords Inn, Templeton, Mass.
21. Alfred Leroy Race – 1915-1935, manager of the 150-room Brandon Hall, Brookline, Mass.; 1942 and 1943, Sprucewold Lodge, Boothbay, Maine; 1947 to 1957, owner Spruce Point Inn, Boothbay, Maine. Race also managed the Preston Hotel and Hawthorne Inn.
22. Frank Lawton Furness – 1891, served on the kitchen staff of Stafford Springs House, Stafford Springs, Conn.; 1904, as a clerk at the Berkshire Hotel, North Adams, Mass.; 1917, manager of the The Rhode Island, Westerly, R.I.; 1920 and 1939, proprietor of the 55-room Elm Tree Inn, Westerly, R.I. Furness also worked in or operated the Wellington Hotel, Narragansett Hotel, Henking Hotel, Harry Bond's (Bond Hotel), Heubleins Hotel, and the original Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
23. Atherton Darling Converse – 1913 and 1937, 60-room Toy Town Tavern, Winchendon, Mass.; 1907, Massachusetts State Legislature, trustee of Winchendon Savings Bank; 1926, served on the Editorial Advisory Staff of Hotel Management Magazine.
24. Andrew E. Martin – 1883 and 1928, manager of the 300-room Equinox House, Manchester, Vt. Martin also operated Bon Air-Vanderbilt (as manager), Putnam House, Windsor Hotel and Hotel Cordova.
25. Arthur Perry Fairfield – 1909 and 1935, manager of the 100-room Hanover Inn, Hanover, N.H.
Above, the main china service pattern used Emil Schnepf's border design patented in 1926 as #70,195. The rust and gray green border band, as well as the green rim and verge lines, were done underglaze. After the glaze firing, the china was sent back to the decorating department where the coin gold-framed portraits were applied before the final firing and buffing. These ovals were not cut from the service plate decal but were produced as a separate set of decals.
Sources:
Robert Chesebro, great-nephew of the hotel men Arthur Libby Race and A. Leroy Race;
Sarah Currie, Historic Williamstown Historical Museum, Williamstown, Mass.;
Carl Faulkner, retired innkeeper, New England and New York;
Jeanne Gamble, Historic New England, Boston, Mass.;
Naragansett Historical Society, Templeton, Mass.;
Barbara Rumsey, Boothbay Harbor Historical Society, Boothbay Harbor, Maine; and
Rebecca Stockbridge, New Hampshire State Library.
For related info:
Templeton Inn by Royal Worchester Porcelain
Landlords' Inn 2
Exhaustive ID, research and photos contributed by:
dbstoneware, trish, L Paul, and apPaul