LB2010.9.120313

LB2010.9.120313

Unidentified interior at the Belvedere Inn. Image shows a windowless, den-like room centered on a large stone fireplace. The fireplace and the animal skins and other objects, such as a set of steer horns mounted above the mantel evoke a hunting lodge. One surmises this was probably a smoking room for male guests. Plywood has been used to cut forms to shape the space in Art Deco steps and curves. There are two leather-covered Art Deco block seating units. The room is decorated with a whimsical collection of disparate objects: a 1920s radio cabinet, glass gazing balls on pedestals, animal skins and ice skates hung on the walls, squirrel figures squatting at the edges of the floor. One can imagine inn guests smoking, lounging and laughing here late into the evenings with a fire raging on the hearth, feeling very much "away" from the grind of ordinary life. The Belvedere and other large hotels, including the Elmwood Hotel, and The Martha Washington, served by the railroad stops at Readfield Depot and Maranacook, sprang up around scenic Lake Maranacook beginnning in the 1880s and flourished until the 1950s, when automobile vacations allowed more options for travel. Located on the western shore of the lake three miles from Winthrop, the Belvedere and its housekeeping cabins and cottages offered "commanding views of picturesque Lake Maranacook", according to a 1950s brochure. By then, the establishment advertised itself as a "resort" with a "swimming pool and diving board, woods trails, boating, canoeing, fishing (the lake was stocked with salmon), tennis, ping pong, shuffleboard, badminton," and "bowling and riding and golf...in Augusta," 12 miles away. In the 1930s the hotel was a favorite of Maine Governor Lewis O. Barrows.