9th Anniversary Trip

William and Amanda had given us babysitting and hotel money for us to go away sometime - as a Christmas gift, so we used that amazing gift up for our 9th Anniversary. It was a few weeks early for our anniversary - but perfect timing!

We went to Kingston - where James has wanted to go for a while - and just had so much fun. We ate at Boston Pizza at 11 p.m. one night - which sounds shocking as parents... :)  shopped, had picnics, and booked a Thousand Island boat tour on the Saturday afternoon. James was such a great sport, and let me practice some picture taking stuff on him - and we just had a blast. 

Passing another boat cruise. 

Such a handsome man. :) 

I wanted some baby bump pictures of this pregnancy - as I hardly ever get any nice ones, haha - and after we did some in the front of the boat, realized we were probably providing some entertainment to the people behind the glass.... oops... well that's what you get when you don't sit outside. 

There had been so much flooding, that a lot of the little islands were flooded - or parts of it were... 

One thing that I noticed while on our trip - was how it's not as fun to take pictures without our little kids' faces around. :) They are more interesting than most landscape/architecture photography for sure!

Some of the wealthy homes along the St. Lawrence River.

Approaching Boldt Castle. This was the destination of our five hour tour. It was a huge castle that it's interior is slowly being finished now - but was started in the early 1900's. The millionaire - George Boldt, was making this as love gift for his wife. Tragically, his wife died a few years after it started, and he never came back to this island. Eventually it was run over - finally bought out, and now the Thousand Island Bridge Authority (USA) owns it. Now it's a tourist attraction - and amazing to see.  The smaller castle thing in the foreground was to be their play place - bowling alley, children's fort basically. :) 

The island's powerhouse. 

This was to be his wife's room. 

Many of the unfinished areas of the house. 

 His life history is pretty neat. But feel free to skip this long part...  I took it from here.

Georg Karl Boldt was born on the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea, off the shore from Mecklenberg, Germany. His father, a government official, provided him with a middle-class upbringing and a good education. Boldt emigrated to the United States in 1864 where his first job was in the kitchen of the Merchants Exchange Hotel in New York and later at the Arlington Hotel as kitchen helper and waiter. After a short fruitless sojourn in Texas, Boldt returned to New York to work as an oyster shucker, waiter and dining room captain in Parker’s Restaurant.

Ultimately, Boldt was hired by William Kehrer as assistant manager of the Philadelphia Club. Later, after marrying Kehrer’s daughter Louise, Boldt managed the Bellevue Hotel. He soon bought the Stratford Hotel and, two decades later, on the site of the Stratford, built the largest hotel in Philadelphia, the 1090-room Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.

The Boldts became friendly with Abner Bartlett, a real estate “conveyancer” who was employed by William Waldorf Astor. Bartlett introduced Boldt to Astor, who was planning the luxurious new Waldorf Hotel at 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue. Astor was appreciative of Boldt’s hotel knowledge and, when Boldt promised to raise a hundred thousand dollars to furnish the new hotel, he became the lessee. The agreement provided that Boldt would make an annual payment of five percent of the building cost plus six percent of the value of the land. Astor and Boldt selected the famous Henry J. Hardenbergh as the architect. Hardenbergh later designed the Plaza Hotel, the Hotel Martinique, the Willard Hotel and the Copley Plaza Hotel.

The Boldts traveled to Europe on buying trips to furnish the new Waldorf Hotel. They bought draperies, tapestries, vases, lamps for the guest rooms reflecting Louise’s good taste. For guest peace of mind, every room had a candlestick and a candle, “just in case the electric lights fail.” The Waldorf Hotel emerged as the essence of gracious opulence with “luxury for the masses,” according to Boldt.

In light of the recent action by the New York Hilton Hotel to eliminate room service, it is interesting to recall that more than one hundred and twenty years ago the Waldorf featured meals served in guestrooms. It was a very successful service and prospered with special portable hot tables, warming ovens, gleaming silver, crisp tablecloths and fresh flowers along with the New York Times or the Herald Tribune.

“We must make this hotel a haven for the well-to-do,” George Boldt told his maitre d’ Oscar Tschirky (destined to become Oscar of the Waldorf). “Pad on the luxury and ease of living. There are always enough people willing to pay for these privileges. Just give them the chance. Make the Waldorf so convenient and comfortable they will never go to another place.”

The new thirteen-story Waldorf Hotel opened with 450 guestrooms and 350 bathrooms, each with an outside window which apparently made a tremendous impression upon the high-grade travelling public of the nineties.

The grand opening presented the New York Symphony orchestra under the direction of Walter Damrosch playing Liszt, Bizet, Tschaikowsky, Rossini and Wagner. No New York hotel had ever opened with such pomp and circumstance. The New York Sun wrote about the Waldorf:

“To American enterprise is due most of the movement aboard in the world today toward luxurious hotels…. In few palaces of the Old World can such costly and artistic surroundings be found. Those who came found private suites, dining-rooms, salons and bedrooms such as kings could not excel… There were more wonders than could be seen in a single evening magnificent tapestries, paintings, frescoes, wood-carvings, marble and onyx mosaics, quaint and rich pieces of furniture, rare and costly tableware… One sees throughout the hotel a mingling of foreign and American improvements… The owner has made the hotel the natural abode of transient and houseless fashion and wealth. He has made its café the rival of Delmonico and Sherry.”

George Boldt was the inspirational leader of this wonderful new hotel. Perfection the perfection of hotelkeeping was his religion. Boldt introduced many innovations at the Waldorf: “room service” that enabled guests to have breakfast in bed; relaxed the rule that prohibited men from smoking in the presence of women; installed an orchestra in the hotel lobby; hired Turkish waiters to serve coffee; placed plenty of ash trays as strategic locations among the potted palms.

A famous attraction was a long corridor that ran through the Waldorf connecting two of its most popular restaurants, the Palm and the Empire. It was a sparkling hallway with soaring Corinthian columns, mosaic floors and upholstered benches along the sides. Almost from the opening, the corridor was a popular promenade for ladies of fashion to display their gowns, jewels and gaudiest plumage. The society editor of the New York Tribune called it “Peacock Alley”. It was reported that it was not unusual for twenty five thousand people to stroll the length of Peacock Alley on a single day.

In 1895, John Jacob Astor IV (a cousin of William Waldorf Astor) demolished his mother’s brownstone mansion on the corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue adjacent to the Waldorf Hotel. He built the Astoria hotel and struck a deal with his cousin for George Boldt to manage both hotels jointly.

The new structure was seventeen stories with “perpendicular railways” (elevators) and an indoor driveway on the thirty-fourth street side, a grand ballroom seating 1500 and a roof garden. Between them, the two hotels had 1000 rooms, three floors of banquet and meeting rooms and common management. For the next twenty years the Waldorf-Astoria was operated as the largest and the most luxurious hotel in New York. George Boldt died in 1916 and the hotel was acquired in 1918 by Lucius Boomer and Senator Coleman DuPont. Boomer was a hotelier who had been trained in Henry Flagler’s Florida hotels and earned his reputation in New York’s McAlpin Hotel in Herald Square just one block from the Waldorf-Astoria. The value of the property in the area had grown enormously in the thirty years since the Waldorf opened. New hotels like the Plaza, Savoy, Netherland, Pierre and St. Regis reflected the inexorable uptown movement to the fifties and sixties.

The original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel survived until 1929, when, after four decades of hosting distinguished visitors and society balls, the Waldorf-Astoria was demolished to make way for the Empire State Building.

At the turn of the century, George Boldt build the Boldt Castle on Hart Island in the Thousand Island area of upper NY Stage. The enormous castle was intended as a gift for his wife Louise...but when she died suddenly in 1904, construction was halted."

The original house plans that made my mind spin... 

The man himself - George Boldt. 

Talking with one of the "staff'". 

We set the camera on a rock and tried to get us together with the castle - so this is our attempt. 

James so sweetly took some maternity pictures of me. :) 

In the children's playhouse. 

I loved this shot - because after all the touring around the island, and seeing how sad it was that Boldt tried to make this as a beautiful place for his wife - to show his love - and never got to - well, here was an older couple in love, just enjoying it - probably no where near the riches that Boldt had, yet so happy just to, just be - and enjoy. 

Showing how much the island was in the water - they had to build a new dock on top of the old one just so visitors could come on... and it was pretty neat - as this day was the first day that they had re-opened up the island due to all the flooding. 

After visiting a nearby church that morning, we walked around the marina to see the pretty boats. :) 

And then we found this neat architectural piece, and James posed for me. :) 

To the left is in the famous Kingston Penitiary - 

Walking around the visitor centre for John McDonald. 

A house where the first Prime Minister lived with his family for a short while. 

James and the PM. 

Then we had a picnic near the water, and found a gazebo to take a few more pictures of us. :) 

Celebrating the last 9 wonderful years and praying for many more with this amazing guy.

Coming home to the kids was great - and dear Amanda, worked super hard to have the house all tidy for us - such a sweet gift. Meant a lot!! Thankful that we got to go away before baby.