Simanaitis Says
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KEWL BUILDINGS U.S.A. PART 2
PART 1 YESTERDAY GOT US STARTED VISITING the Discoverer website’s choices of cool buildings around the U.S. Our travels and recollections continue here.
Topeka High School—Kansas. “It’s hard to believe,” posits Discoverer, “that a high school would be named one of the ‘8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture’ by the Kansas Sampler Foundation. Topeka High School is an impressive Gothic tower that stands beside many other architectural masterpieces that grace the Topeka skyline. It was completed in 1931 and became the first $1 million high school west of the Mississippi. If you visit, make sure to check out the English Room; it’s reminiscent of an Elizabethan withdrawing room complete with a stone fireplace and chandeliers. To stay in theme, the library is modeled after Henry VIII’s Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace.”
Image by Jeff Zenhder/Shutterstock via the Discoverer.
Gee, kinda like going to high school with Thomas Cromwell as assistant principal. The marvelous PBS/Masterpiece Wolf Hall sets the mood.
Thomas Cromwell, c. 1485–1540, English lawyer, statesman, and chief minister to King Henry VIII. This Cromwell is the one in TV’s Wolf Hall saga, not to be confused with Roundhead Oliver Cromwell. Portrait by Hans Holbein.
Grand Hotel—Michigan. The Discoverer describes, “The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island is a cool example of the wooden Victorian beach resorts of a bygone era. Sitting majestically on Lake Huron, this nostalgic 1887 hotel was built in just 93 days and features the world’s largest three-story porch which looks out on the Mackinac Bridge—the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere.”
Image by Alexey Stiop/Shutterstock via the Discoverer.
This hotel is the scene for a favorite time-travel book and flick: Somewhere In Time. And, come to think of it, Turner Classic Movies recently had another fav featuring a timeless venue: Some Like It Hot, part of which at San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado.
The Hotel del Coronado, 2016. Image by Armandoartist via Wikipedia.
Biltmore Estate—North Carolina. “Built from the vision of George Vanderbilt,” the Discoverer recounts, “the Biltmore Estate is America’s largest home. This massive manor was completed in 1895 and is a French Renaissance chateau complete with 250 rooms full of the Vanderbilt family’s original collection of furnishings, art and antiques. More than 1.5 million people trek to Asheville each year to visit the estate and its legendary gardens designed by the father of American landscape design, Frederick Law Olmsted.”
Image by Zak Zeinert/Shutterstock via the Discoverer.
Indeed, I too trekked through Asheville in my “Sea to Shining Sea Adventure.” The Biltmore’s proprietors kindly offered a rare photo op.
Thanks, Biltmore. And thanks, the Discoverer, for rekindling these Trippin’ memories. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
Ah yes, those big, old wooden hotels. Too many of them, unfortunately, have gone up in flames over the years, or have been demolished in favor of something more mundane.
The Disney resort in Florida, of course, had to include a Grand Hotel of that type – in their case having the monorail running through it with a station stop inside the hotel.
The one “grand” hotel of that era that I’ve ever stayed at (for one night, on our honeymoon) was the Claremont in Berkeley/Oakland CA (on the border between them). It was a little dodgy at the time, with a lot of work going on. Has been spiffed up nicely since then, though with prices far beyond my reach now. I also remember it as the office of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for the Bay Area, when they occupied most of the lower (below lobby level) floors.