Thirteen floors of red brick and limestone rise above you, crowned with copper, once the social center of Baltimore and a stage for the most consequential moments in Maryland's political and cultural life. The Belvedere Hotel opened in 1903, designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architects Parker and Thomas, with thirteen floors of red brick and limestone rising to a distinctive copper roof. The name was chosen by the owners to evoke the elegant belvedere towers of Italian Renaissance architecture, meaning beautiful view, and the rooftop view over Baltimore and the harbor below justified the name.
The hotel's ballrooms and banquet rooms hosted presidential visits, political conventions, debutante balls, and the gatherings of Baltimore society for decades. F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed here; so did Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and virtually every major political figure who passed through Baltimore. The Owl Bar in the basement was famous during Prohibition as a speakeasy so elegant that even the police superintendent dined there — owl figurines on the back bar were coded signals indicating whether alcohol was available: if their eyes were lit, the coast was clear.
The hotel declined after World War II as Baltimore's urban core emptied out, and by the 1970s it had fallen into disrepair. A meticulous restoration in the 1990s converted the upper floors to condominiums while preserving the public spaces.