From the main entrance on South Main Street, one enters the hotel lobby. The floor is Italian mosaic tile, white with a rust and green flower and vine border followed with a line of black on either side. A stained glass window announcing "The Millikin Hotel" hangs above the second set of double doors through the entryway. This glass had been stored upstairs for many years and was only recently found, restored, and re-hung by Dick Brown, co-owner of Hotel Lobby Donuts.

The woodwork is done entirely in oak, with paneling extending about five feet up the wall in the lobby. The registration desk sits in its original position at the rear of the lobby, just past the open, oak stairway to the second floor. The Browns have the room key board hanging behind the desk with a few of the original keys hanging from it. At present, the lobby is furnished with tables and chairs. The tables had once been night stands in the upstairs rooms. Likewise, the donut cases are wardrobes from upstairs that were altered to suit their new function. Brown said he would like to have refinished them, but as time did not permit, painted them a teal green. The Browns have also restored the original light fixtures to working order. The ceiling in the rear of the lobby is beamed, supported by Doric columns bracketed on two sides. The ceiling and the upper three feet of the walls are decorated with modified Anthemion friezes in plaster. There are four windows in the hallway of the lobby, and five at the rear, spaced evenly on either side. There are two larger windows in the rear. All the windows are presently covered with mirrors, but as windows, they had once been useful for ventilation.

There are 58 guest rooms on the second and third floors. Two have full baths in the rooms, six (three on each floor) rooms overlooking Main Street have fireplaces. Two of the fireplaces are ornamented with stained oak and tile, the other four are painted wood and tile. The oak fireplaces are extremely water damaged. There is a full bath on each hall for guest use; each room has its own sink. All the baths are finished in marble. Water for the baths came from a cistern. Drinking water for the kitchen came from an artesian well drilled on the lot before the building was completed ("It's Bowling Green's Pride). The walls and ceilings of each room are papered and there is a window for ventilation over each door. The rooms were planned on what was called the "Communicative System"; the rooms have doors into one another as well as an entrance on the hall, This allowed for several rooms to be rented by one family or group as a suite ("It's Bowling Green's Pride"). The corner room overlooking both South Main and East Wooster Streets on the second floor was a small dining room and lounge. To the south of this room, in the front center of both second and third floor hallways there is a small inlet which functioned as meeting place and lounge. On the third floor at the top of the stairs and in the center of the front hall, a rectangular section has been cut from the floor, surrounded by an oak balustrade with turned spindles, so that the stained glass skylight in the third floor ceiling may be viewed from, and shed light on, the second floor as well as the third.

Contributed by Emily Pettigrew American Culture Studies "Crystal City Project," Spring, 1996.

Return to the Southeast Section of the Crystal City Tour.