FDR Slept Here

Meetings & Conventions: Short Cuts August 2002 Current Issue
August 2002
Short Cuts:
FDR Slept Here

Cozy in Cooperstown: The Otesaga Resort Hotel

Don’t know much about history? Several venerable properties, all members of the Washington, D.C.-based Historic Hotels of America (www.historichotels.org), want to change that. At the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Mass. (www.redlioninn.com), which dates to 1773, offerings include lively 45-minute lectures on 19th-century American literature, Colonial New England and the early women’s rights movement.

Wonderfully landscaped gardens and a serene lily pond are highlights at El Encanto Hotel & Garden Villas (www.elencantohotel.com) in Santa Barbara, Calif. A frequent haunt of luminaries such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Clarke Gable since 1915, the hotel sits on 10 acres overlooking the Channel Islands. A team of longtime gardeners conducts private group tours of the hotel’s famed flora.

At the Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown, N.Y. (www.otesaga.com), groups can brush up on their baseball history. The resort works with the nearby Baseball Hall of Fame to offer talks on the sport’s historic moments. Events can be capped off with a game on landmark Abner Doubleday Field.

Want to know about the dent in the fireplace mantel in the Eisenhower Suite at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver (www.brownpalace.com)? Ask on-site historian Julie Kanellos, who leads private tours for groups while highlighting the hotel’s 109-year-old history. Not only did Dwight Eisenhower vacation there, so did William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding and Harry Truman. By the way, that dent was a parting shot from Ike, who enjoyed practicing his golf swing in his room.

• C.A.S.