The Hotel Vendome, built in 1872 for Colonel J.W. Walcott, was the first large commercial structure to
be constructed in the Back Bay for the staggering sum of $1,000,000.
In 1882, three years after Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb; it had the additional
distinction of being the first commercial building in Boston to install electric lighting and one of only
three hotels in the United States to be lighted electrically.
In its heyday, the hotel attracted the elite citizens of the world who included:
Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth President of the United States
Grover Cleveland, the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States
Sarah Bernhardt, the French actress
John Singer Sargent, whose first U.S. exhibition was held in a neighboring building, The Saint Botolph
Club, where his painting of the Boit Children was first seen on American soil
William Morris Hunt, artist
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Honorable Sackville-West, the English Ambassador, who was the owner of Knole House
and father of the author Vita Sackville-West
John D. Rockefeller, whose $900,000,000 made him the richest man in the world by 1900
Sir Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame
P.T. Barnum, of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame
Thomas Edison, the inventor
Louis C. Tiffany, known for his stained glass window designs
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