Old Albemarle Hotel

Hotel Gleason/Old Albemarle Hotel

617-619 West Main Street

“This is that last survivor of many inns and hotels that once stood along the road

between downtown Charlottesville and U.Va. Built in 1896 as the Hotel Gleason and enlarged c.1911-1913 , it was the city’s premiere hotel for a quarter century. Renamed the Albemarle Hotel in the 1930s, it continued in operation until the mid-1970s. The recessed loggia with four Corinthian columns once held rocking chairs for hotel guests. A small second-story portico-in-antis has a Palladian window and an elaborate pressed metal entablature.”

Gaslight Restaurant

615 West Main Street

Attached to the Albemarle Hotel was the Gaslight Restaurant and Coffeehouse, opened in the early 1960s by John Marshall Tuck. Even before desegregation, local residents remember the Gaslight as a place of unique decor where blacks and whites mixed freely. The Gaslight also served as a place where and students, visitors, and residents alike came to socialize to eat, drink, and listen to music. The venue hosted many popular names, such as the Supremes, Muhammad Ali, and Bob Dylan. During the late 1970s the Gaslight went out of business, later to become the Blue Bird Café. This space is currently occupied by an upscale restaurant, the Horse and Hound Gastropub.

Sources

Members of the Albemarle County Historical Society Publications Committee. “Tour F: West Main Street/Ridge Street Driving Tour.” In Historic Charlottesville Tour Book: 10 Tours of Charlottesville, Virginia, edited by Frank E. Grizzard, Jr, 43-51. Charlottesville’s Historic Resource Task Force in conjunction with The Albemarle County Historical Society: Charlottesville, Virginia, 2002.

Barry, Rey. Charlottesville’s Gaslight Restaurant. The Freeware Hall of Fame Reminiscence. February 12, 2010. http://www.freewarehof.org/gaslight.html

Johnson, Jack. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 09 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.