Hotel E Render Gallery

Hotel E, the southernmost building on the West Range, served as a dining room and architectural classroom space until the 1880s. Four recorded hotelkeepers, John Gray, Sarah Gray, James Watson, and Mary Ross, kept the hotel's operations running from 1825 to 1878. The annex on the south side of the building that now contains the West Range Cafe (not pictured) was built in 1846. Like a few other buildings in the Academical Village, the hotel was originally designed and constructed with a flat roof and a furrow/ridge system, yet due to water problems it was upgraded to a hipped roof by 1840. The yard of the hotel contains Mrs. Gray's Kitchen by 1830, the same Mrs. Gray that oversaw the hotel from 1828-1845. This building is critical because it is the only outbuilding on Grounds of which a plan survives, which gives insight into how the vast majority of non-Jefferson accessory buildings were constructed. 

One of the most curious details regarding this hotel is the lack of a student room on the south face of the building. Hotel F (the southernmost building on the East Range) was built with a wing of student rooms on the north and a single room on the south, yet in many documentations of Hotel E, there is no evidence that the single room existed to the south. Reasons for this are unknown, but since the south face now contains the annex, it is difficult to do any archeological work. The Maverick Plan shows Hotel E with what appears to be an erased student room to the south, perhaps redacted after a second visit.

See also: Hotel E Photograph Gallery