(FIRST) HOMESTEAD
Hot Springs, Bath County
Built c. 1848 and 1890s; burned 1901
Photograph: Virginia Department of Historic Resources
By 1848 there were enough visitors to Hot Springs that the owner there, a physician and entrepreneur named
Thomas Goode, was compelled to build a large hotel that he named the Homestead. In 1890 the property was
purchased by the Southern Improvement Company, which set out to develop it into a world-class resort. The
grounds were expanded more than four-fold, and a massive construction project was initiated. By 1893, the main,
wooden hotel had been greatly enlarged, as shown here in a view from the east. Elzner and Anderson of Cincinnati
had transformed the 1848 building into a quadrangular structure and extended it with an even longer 4 1/2 -story
northwest wing that reached towards a new bathhouse. On both the north and east facades, the building was
given a double-story rounded Ionic portico. In 1901 a fire that originated in the hotel's bake shop leveled this
building, including the new wing. The present Georgian style Homestead Hotel occupies the site.
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