Manufacturer: Scammell China
User: Twenty Four Hundred Hotel / Hotel 2400
Date of service plate: 1928 – 1930
Notes: Located at 2400 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C., the seven-story building opened in late 1917, as the Meridian Mansions with 112 small and 78 large apartments. At that time, the building was managed by William Duff.
From The Federal Reporter: Vol. 287, page 974:
"The construction of the MERIDIAN MANSIONS began in July, 1916, and was completed in October, 1917."
From The Congressional Directory, 65th congress, 2nd Session, December 3, 1917:
"Representative John Charles Linthicum, of Maryland, resides at Meridian Mansions."
The 1925 Hotel Red Book (HRB) lists: MERIDIAN MANSIONS. [500 rooms]. 2400 16th St. (E.P.) By 1933, the hotel was renamed the Twenty Four Hundred Sixteenth Street Hotel with 500 rooms.
The 1940 HRB truncates the name to the Twenty Four Hundred Hotel: "Attractive appointed transient accommodations, from single rooms to large apartment suites, furnished and unfurnished. Lounge Riviera – Washington's smartest rendezvous for the Elite of the Nation's Capital. Supper dancing 9:00 PM to 2:00 AM."
In 1964, the hotel was renamed The Envoy Towers, which closed by 1977. The building was gutted and rebuilt with 303 condo-apartments in 1979.
In 2010, the building is a National Historic Landmark known as The Envoy Apartments with 300 studio and 1 bedroom apartments.
Sources:
Larry Paul's 20th Century Hotel Research Database
Hotel Red Books, 1925 and 1940
The Federal Reporter, Volume 287, West Publishing Co., 1923
The Congressional Directory
Lamberton white body service plate with a wide band border of gold with an overlay of black flowers, leaves and swirls between rim and verge coin gold bands. Center-marked with a blue shield logo of a rampant lion beneath the number 2400 in blue — all edged in coin gold. There is a blue banner beneath the shield outlined in coin gold that says: "Washington, D.C."
ID and photos contributed by dbstoneware