Hotel Fowler
(Fowler Apartments)
| Dates: | 1914-1915 |
| Location: | 407 Ferry Street, Lafayette, Indiana |
| Architect: | H. Ziegler Dietz, of St. Louis & Springfield Missouri with Charles W. Nicol, of Lafayette, Indiana |
| Contractor: | Caldwell & Drake Co., Columbus, Indiana |
| Cost: | $525,000 |
The Hotel Fowler was designed by H. Ziegler Dietz, of St. Louis & Springfield Missouri during the period when he seems to have worked as a partner with young Charles W. Nicol in Lafayette. The hotel's grand opening on April 20, 1915, was an extravagant event, with an estimated attendance of nearly 1,000 people. Electric lights illuminated the building from basement to rooftop. Dinner was served to 920 guests while orchestras provided live music. Over $1,200 worth of floral decorations were provided. A grand ball was held with 500 couples taking part. A grand march was directed by Pearl Allen of the Allen School of Dancing. Prominent citizens from all over the state flocked to the event. The Lafayette Daily Courier called it a "society event of the first magnitude" and "one of the most brilliant social events in the history of Lafayette."
The building contained 217 guest rooms, over 75% of which had private bath rooms (unusual at the time). Public rooms included the sky-lit lobby with a cathedral glass ceiling and carved caenstone decorations. A mural (approximately 50' long) of the Battle of Tippecanoe by noted artist Robert Grafton hung above the hotel desk. The main dining room, known as the Walnut Room, was decorated entirely in natural-finished walnut. The College Inn cafe in the basement could accommodate 250 and featured light fixtures and ceiling decoration in Purdue's gold and black. The seventh-floor Banquet Hall and Ballroom had huge French casement windows on two sides and could seat 650 guests at tables.
After the hotel closed in the 1970s it was converted to apartments. The main cornice was torn off and the storefronts filled in with tile. All of the windows were replaced with smaller windows and the space filled in with pink panels. The grand lobby was gutted and became a concrete-floored "outdoor plaza." The banquet hall & ballroom was divided up into apartments. The building stands today a shadow of what it once was, but is a prime candidate for re-use.
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| Hotel Fowler, c.1915 (apparently from the architectural rendering) | Hotel Fowler, 1917 |
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| North Elevation, 2004 | Looking south on Fourth Street with Hotel Fowler at left, 1954 (Image courtesy of the Herman Berry Collection) |
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| North entrance, 2004 | Detail of limestone balcony over west entrance |
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| Detail of original storefronts and windows, 1954 (Image courtesy of the Herman Berry Collection) | Original marquee over west entrance (with neon added later), 1954 (Image courtesy of the Herman Berry Collection) |
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| Detail at northwest corner, note filled-in window openings | Detail of limestone trim above storefronts |
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| View from the dome of the courthouse, 2001, note light well (the three large openings were windows of the Banquet Hall & Ballroom) |