Manufacturer: Buffalo China
User: The Mayflower Hotel – Washington, DC
Pattern/Body: Lune Lamelle
Date of platter: 1930s
Notes: The Mayflower Hotel, known locally as The Mayflower, is a historic hotel located at 1129 Connecticut Avenue at L Street, Washington, D.C. Designed by Warren & Westport, the ten-story, 1,000-room hotel opened February 18, 1925. It is the largest luxury hotel in the United States capital and a rival of the nearby Willard Hotel and Hay-Adams Hotel.
The Mayflower was built by Allen E. Walker, the land developer behind Brookland and other residential neighborhoods of Washington. Nicknamed the "Grande Dame of Washington" at its opening in 1925, the hotel was said to contain more gold trim than any other building except the Library of Congress. An extensive renovation completed in 1988 uncovered decorative effects, including a skylight, which had been covered up to mask the hotel's opulence during the Great Depression.
Shortly after opening, the Mayflower hosted a ball for the presidential inauguration of Calvin Coolidge. Although Coolidge himself never arrived, the hotel has sponsored a ball every Inauguration Day since. Franklin D. Roosevelt worked on his famous "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" inaugural address while a guest. His successor Harry S. Truman resided there for the first 90 days of his presidential term while the White House was undergoing renovations, and declared his intention to run for the presidency in 1948 at a dinner there.
The hotel came into the media spotlight several times in relation to political-sex scandals. Judith Campbell Exner, President John F. Kennedy's mistress in the early 1960s, was established in the hotel. Monica Lewinsky stayed at the hotel when her affair with President Bill Clinton was in the news in the late 1990s. On March 10, 2008, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer spent an evening in Room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel with a prostitute from the Emperors Club VIP, resulting in a scandal that caused him to resign.
Sources:
Wikipedia: Mayflower Hotel
Larry Paul's 20th Century Hotel Research Database
Lune Lamelle body in perwinkle blue and ivory with a black pin line inner-rim border. Topmarked by the Mayflower ship with the initials "MF" in the sails.
For related info:
Lune Lamelle by Buffalo China
Mayflower Hotel – Washington, DC 2 by Shenango China
Mayflower Hotel – Washington, DC 3 by Fraunfelter China
Add'l ID information contributed by dbstoneware