My husband had a business meeting in Boston on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, and decided that he and I should turn the opportunity into a mini vacation. I got online, searched for hotels close to where he was meeting, then made reservations at one that had the most reasonable price but also had good ratings. The hotel I chose was the Omni Parker House.
It wasn't until I walked into the sumptuous, well appointed lobby that I realized that I'd accidentally booked our stay in an absolute treasure. The lobby, paneled in dark, polished wood, was lit by candelabras. Soft carpets padded the floor. Sofas and giant wing chairs clustered around marble topped coffee tables. The lobby was a Victorian delight. This was no ordinary hotel!
When Harvey D. Parker (1805–1884) opened the Parker House in 1854, it was considered the first hotel in the United States "on the European Plan," which meant that it charged only for the cost of a room, with meals charged separately. The building, designed by renowned architect William Washburn, was hailed as "an immense establishment of marble." It sood on the corner of School Street and Tremont, on the former site of the Boston Latin School that was attended by Benjamin Franklin. Later, the home of Jacob Wendell, the great-great-grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Parker House hosted a dizzying array of celebrities and politicians over the years.
We checked in at the front desk, then went to the elevators, where a lighted dial indicated on which floor the car stopped. The gilded doors opened and I stepped in. Parker House? Where had I heard that name before? Isn't there a dinner roll called the Parker House roll?
The answer to my question is, yes there is, and it was created by a German baker working at the Parker House Restaurant in the 1860s . The rolls have a distinctive fold and are puffy on the inside and crispy and buttery on the outside. The rolls became so popular that in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt had them served at a White House Dinner.
But those rolls are not the only food made famous by the Parker House. This hotel's restaurant is also the home of the Boston cream pie, which is not a pie at all, but a double layered sponge cake with a vanilla pudding filling and a chocolate glaze. Augustine Sanzian, a French chef that Parker hired in 1856 for the exorbitant salary of $5,000, is said to be the creator of the decadent dessert.
But the Parker House is not just famous for its food. Many famous people have walked through this lobby. During the nineteenth-century, the Saturday Club, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Francis Adams, Francis Parkman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. met on the fourth Saturday of every month, except during July, August, and September.
Charles Dickens kept a suite of apartments in the Parker House for five months in 1867–1868 while he was on a speaking tour of the United States. A decade later, Mark Twain told a reporter that staying at the Parker House was heavenly: "You see for yourself that I'm pretty near heaven—not theologically, of course, but by the hotel standard."
And while my husband and I were eating breakfast in the restaurant, the waitress pointed out the table in the corner where Jack Kennedy proposed to Jackie. (Martin's Tavern in Washington D.C. claims that it happened there, though.)
Charles Dickens kept a suite of apartments in the Parker House for five months in 1867–1868 while he was on a speaking tour of the United States. A decade later, Mark Twain told a reporter that staying at the Parker House was heavenly: "You see for yourself that I'm pretty near heaven—not theologically, of course, but by the hotel standard."
And while my husband and I were eating breakfast in the restaurant, the waitress pointed out the table in the corner where Jack Kennedy proposed to Jackie. (Martin's Tavern in Washington D.C. claims that it happened there, though.)
The Parker House even had some famous employees. Ho Chi Minh, later the President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a baker there in 1913, and Malcolm X, worked as a busboy there in the 1940s. Emeril Lagasse served as sous-chef in the Parker kitchens from 1979 to 1981.
I came to Boston so that I could walk its cobbled streets and see buildings made famous during the American Revolution. How fortunate I was to have stumbled into the Parker House! It added so much to my visit.
Jennifer Bohnhoff, a former educator and the author of a dozen books for middle grade and adult readers hopes that someday her name is listed with Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne's on the list of famous authors who have stayed at the Parker House. You can learn more about her and her books on her website.
