You are here

West Virginia » Northern West Virginia » Harrison County » Clarksburg » Waldo Hotel

Waldo Hotel

-A A +A
1900–1904, Harrison Albright. Northeast corner of W. Pike and N. 4th sts.
  • (West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Financed by Judge Nathan Goff, Jr., who named it for his father, Waldo P. Goff, this large brick and stone structure originally contained a bank and seven shops on its first floor and hotel rooms above. The first floor, with arched openings, is clad with rusticated stone. The vivid orange brick of the walls above was produced by Clarksburg's Glen View Brick Company.

The building defies easy stylistic classification. Classical details are combined with hints of Spanish, even mildly Moorish, components. These are particularly pronounced at the upper levels, where four pyramidal-capped square towers, each containing an open loggia, rise above the six-story mass to provide punctuation marks on the skyline.

When the hotel opened, an enthusiastic patron claimed that it was “not surpassed in its appointments and service by the Waldorf of New York, or Willard's of Washington.” From 1964 to 1969, it housed the Clarksburg branch of Salem College. Various state and federal agencies now maintain offices in the building.

Writing Credits

Author: 
S. Allen Chambers Jr.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,