Hotel Clermont, Then and Now

The Starr Hill Building (801 West Main St.), adjacent to Continental Divide and home to Charlottesville Players, Capital Real Estate and several other tenants, sits on the site of a beautiful old hotel -- Hotel Clermont -- which is pictured here circa 1905:











and here again in 1912:











This is what the property looks like today:












(courtesy http://www.cvilleofficespace.com/starr_hill.JPG)

Back in the early 1900s, hotels up and down West Main St. did a booming business thanks to their proximity to the bustling Union Station, where the Southern Railroad intersected with the Chesapeake & Ohio. They were also well-served by the streetcar line that ran along West Main St., which carried up to 1,500,000 riders per year at the time the above images were taken.

From the front door of the Hotel Clermont, one could walk right across West Main St. and onto the elevated pedestrian bridge (seen below, circa 1915) over to the station depot -- which now, of course, serves as the home of...Wild Wing Cafe.