EXCHANGE HOTEL
Southeast corner Franklin and Fourteenth streets, Richmond
Built 1840-41; demolished 1900-1
Photograph: Virginia Historical Society
New Englander Isaiah Rogers, the nation's premier figure in the genre of hotel architecture, designed the Exchange Hotel, which
soon was celebrated as one of the great buildings in the nation. Calling it "the Lion of the day" at its opening in 1841, the
Richmond Whig reported that this mammoth and multipurpose structure housed a "Hotel, Post Office, Reading
Room, Baths, Stores, &c." Rogers gave the Exchange a handsome exterior that was distinctive. He designed an
overtly Greek Revival building, but one made up with Greek components in a way than no ancient architect could
have imagined. In 1851 the hotel was acquired and refurbished by John Ballard, whose Ballard House Hotel fronted
it across Franklin Street. With Victorian eclecticism, he linked the Greek Revival structure to his newer Italianate
one, by means of a Gothic pedestrian bridge (later replaced with the one pictured here). Competition in 1895 from
the new Jefferson Hotel forced the closing of the Exchange the following year.
Next: Hotel Chamberlin
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