Williamsburg Inn, Williamsburg, Virginia, circa 1937

About this postcard

The Williamsburg Inn sits at the end of a curved drive, framed by mature trees and lamp posts, its long symmetrical facade fronted by a columned portico and a ground-level arcade. The caption describes the building as following the architectural style popular at Virginia's springs resorts in the early nineteenth century, with decorations and furnishings of the Regency period. Opened in 1937, the inn was built as part of John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s restoration of Colonial Williamsburg to house visitors to the historic area. The caption's Regency framing places it in the tradition of the old Virginia springs hotels, where wealthy travelers took the waters and stayed for the season, rather than in the eighteenth-century idiom of the restored town around it.