Lewis Ginter, Richmond's wealthiest citizen, commissioned Carrère and Hastings to build his dream hotel. Both principals of the New York firm, which designed the Fifth Avenue Public Library and the Frick House (later the Frick Museum), had been trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. This hotel, on the National Register of Historical Places, is considered to be one of the finest examples of the Beaux-Arts style. This Renaissance Revival style was inspired by the Villa Medici in Rome.
A disastrous fire in 1901 destroyed a major portion of the building but it was reconstructed by Kevan Pebbles, a Virginia architect. More recently in the 1980s the hotel was carefully restored.
