I'm sure many have seen pictures of these spaces before but I recently was able to go on a tour of both the Greenbrier Suite and the English Oak Room.  Enjoy!

 

 

Don't mind the awkward people... :-P But I thought it was so interesting that the 12th floor looks just like a normal floor of offices, except for the large old door at the end of the hall.  You would never guess what is behind it.

 

 

The dining room is very light and bright, a big contrast to the rest of the suite, but a result of the 1950's remodel by Betty Draper.  The wallpaper is all hand painted and the woodwork, originally dark like the rest of the suite, was painted white.

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the dark wood has an almost plasticy look to it, and this is a result of the bleaching of ALL the wood in the 1950s renovation.  In the 1970's the wood was stained dark again but it wasn't really done properly and now the wood looks the way it does.

 

The board room

 

 

Another small room

 

 

Kitchen which was added around the 1940s

 

 

 

 

 

View out of the window of a side hallway leading to the Great Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought this was fascinating!  This staircase leads two flights down and into a hallway in the Renaissance Hotel.  It was used originally for food service, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

View out of the Great Room.  Interestingly, all the glass is frosted so you can't see outside unless you open the inner windows.

 

 

 

 

Now the English Oak Room.  I had never really seen a picture of this before and didn't realize the strong Art Deco theme it had, nor that it used to be an actual restaurant back during the Union Terminal days.  The room is AMAZING but difficult to photograph because the lighting is so dim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Nice. Thanks!

Cool! They should open it up for tours.  Call it the mansion in the sky. That would get people interested.

 

My son's 1st grade class had a tour of the suite a couple years ago (although not as comprehensive as your tour, apparently. We never saw some of those rooms or the kitchen). It's fascinating how this space is nestled in the tower like that. Immediately to the right, outside of the window above, is where the Peregrine falcon nests. When we were there, she had just had her chicks, and flew up to the ledge right outside of that window to look at us. I got some pretty fun pics of her looking at us. I'll have to see if I can find them.

Nice photos, thanks. This part of the Terminal Tower always intrigued me.

 

Alan Bradley

Thanks for the great photos!

 

FYI, this was part of the in-town apartment for the Cleveland Union Terminal Group's developers, the Van Sweringen brothers. Until the 1980s, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad's headquarters were based in the Terminal Group (as was the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad and Nickel Plate RR which, like the C&O, were once owned by The Vans), and owned & named the Greenbrier Suite. C&O named it after their famous resort in the mountains of West Virginia.

http://tinyurl.com/ofnx4km

 

Another FYI: the English Oak Room was operated by the Fred Harvey Co. which ran restaurants, hotels and other hospitality businesses at or near railroad stations throughout the western and midwestern United States. Cleveland was their easternmost operation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038589/