Maplewood Hotel
Maplewood Hotel
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)The Maplewood Hotel is the main accommodation at Lily Dale Assembly in New York. The building was originally a stable. Instead of constructing a new hotel, the stable was converted and expanded in 1879. Benjamin Baldwin was hired by Albert Cobb, President of The Cassadaga Lake Free Association, to be responsible for the building of the hotel. Named the Grand Hotel, it was ready for opening on August 7, 1880. The first registered guests were Wilberforce J. Colville, well known Spiritualist author and lecturer, O. P. Kellogg, W. D. Bugbee, and A. Kendall.
During inclement weather, lectures and classes were held in the Grand Hotel until the auditorium was built in 1883. The hotel building is what is known as a “hung building” in that when a new floor was added, the existing floor(s) was raised and the new one added underneath. This was done in 1883 for the addition of the second floor, and again in 1886 for the third floor. In 1903, the name was changed to the Maplewood Hotel.
Originally the hotel had its own 250-person dining room. In May, 1983, the Leolyn hotel at Lily Dale suffered a fire and consequently the Maplewood dining room was converted into more hotel rooms. There was a full renovation in 1967: The second floor balcony was removed and the building was given aluminum siding. A new roof was put on and the original dormers were removed.
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