Ellis Hotel

The Ellis Hotel, formerly known as the Winecoff Hotel, is located at 176 Peachtree Street NW, in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.[1][2] Designed by William Lee Stoddart, the 15-story building opened in 1913.[3] It is located next to 200 Peachtree, which was built as the flagship Davison's. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 2009. The Ellis Hotel is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died.

The Ellis Hotel
Ellis Hotel in 2020
General information
Location176 Peachtree Street NW,
Atlanta
Opening1913
ManagementColwen Hotels
Technical details
Floor count15
Design and construction
ArchitectWilliam Lee Stoddart
Other information
Number of rooms127
Website
Ellis Hotel
The Ellis Hotel
Coordinates 33.7583°N 84.3878°W / 33.7583; -84.3878
NRHP reference No.09000185
Added to NRHPMarch 31, 2009

Fire
Main article: Winecoff Hotel fire

The Ellis Hotel (previously The Winecoff) is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history,[4] and prompted many changes in building codes. Guests at the hotel that night included teenagers attending a Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y Youth-in-Government conference (Youth Assembly) sponsored by the State YMCA of Georgia, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 24-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography for his snapshot of a woman in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire.[5] The jumper, who survived, Daisy B. McCumber, was born October 9, 1905 and died in Florida on August 12, 1992 at the age of 86. From her jump she sustained a broken back, pelvis and both legs. Over a ten-year period of time she underwent seven surgeries and lost a leg. Under these circumstances, she still worked until her retirement.

Reopenings
Ellis Hotel

In April 1951, the hotel reopened as the Peachtree Hotel on Peachtree, and was now equipped with both fire alarms and automated sprinkler systems. In 1967, it was donated to the Georgia Baptist Convention for housing the elderly, and then repeatedly sold to a series of potential developers.

The gutted lobby served as a souvenir shop during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

After over two decades of vacancy, a $23 million renovation project began in April 2006. The project restored the building into a boutique luxury hotel, called the Ellis Hotel after the street that runs along the north side of the building. It was reopened on October 1, 2007.

See also

References
  1. Darwin Porter; Danforth Prince (March 11, 2009). Frommer's The Carolinas and Georgia. John Wiley & Sons. p. 366. ISBN 978-0-470-47782-3.
  2. Hilary Howard (March 2, 2009). "Hotel Review: The Ellis in Atlanta". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  3. Peachtree Burning
  4. "Historic Fires". University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2010.
  5. "1947 Pulitzer Prize for Photography"
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