Golden Lamb Inn

Golden Lamb
Exterior of the Golden Lamb
Location Lebanon, Ohio
Coordinates 39°26′1″N 84°12′30″W / 39.43361°N 84.20833°WCoordinates: 39°26′1″N 84°12′30″W / 39.43361°N 84.20833°W
Built 1815
Architect Icabod Corwin
Governing body Private
NRHP Reference # 78002204[1]
Added to NRHP January 12, 1978
The Golden Lamb Inn, photographed November 15, 1936.

The Golden Lamb Inn is the oldest hotel in Ohio, having been established in the Warren County seat of Lebanon in 1803. The present four-story structure is built around the 1815 rebuilding of the inn, maintaining its colonial architecture. It is known as the Golden Lamb because that image appeared on its signboard for the benefit of the illiterate. At various times it has been known as the Ownly Hotel, the Bradley House, the Lebanon House, and the Stubbs House.

On January 12, 1978, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Golden Lamb.

Famous guests

Because of Lebanon's position on the highway between Cincinnati and Columbus, many notables have visited the inn. The Golden Lamb has been visited by twelve American Presidents: William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

Other famous guests to visit the Golden Lamb include Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Daniel Webster, Bill McIntire, Thomas Corwin, Clement Vallandigham (who infamously shot and killed himself accidentally in his hotel room at the Golden Lamb, while attempting to prove that a man, whom his client was accused of shooting, shot himself accidentally at the same establishment), Cordell Hull (who went to school in Lebanon), Robert A. Taft, Dewitt Clinton, and Lord Stanley, who later became prime minister of the United Kingdom. Most recently on September 8, 2008 Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates senator John McCain and Alaska governor Sarah Palin dined and spoke at the Golden Lamb and on October 13, 2012 Mitt Romney spoke at and toured the hotel.[2]

Owners

In 1926, the Golden Lamb was purchased by Robert Jones, grandfather of Senator Rob Portman and husband of Virginia Kunkle, who refurbished the inn and decorated it with Shaker furniture. In 1969, Mr. and Mrs. Jones leased the Golden Lamb to the Comisar family, who owned and operated the now defunct five-star Maisonette restaurant in Cincinnati.

The building

See also

References

External links

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