Today it’s a senior living community known as the Biltmore Towers, but for decades the magnificent building at the northeast corner of Main and 1st Streets was a prominent hotel that once welcomed Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy as guests.
The hotel was constructed in 1929 in the beaux arts style and its grand opening celebration on November 16 of that year was attended by 1,000 people, including John McEntee Bowman, president of Bowman-Biltmore hotels, who came to Dayton by private train car to see the new hotel he built to be “worthy of the progressive city.”
The architect was Frederick Hughes of F.J. Hughes and Company, who also designed the Centre City Building and the Commodore Apartments in the Grafton Hill neighborhood.
The hotel changed ownership a few times in the ensuing decades, and in the 1960s it became a Sheraton and was renamed the Sheraton-Dayton Hotel.
The building was converted into senior apartments in 1981, and the following year the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
It has maintained a variety of first-floor retail tenants over the years. In 2015, longtime tenant China Royal closed after a kitchen fire, but a new Chinese restaurant named Liu Garden opened in its place soon after.
A Jimmy John’s restaurant also opened in an adjacent retail space in 2019, adding another quick and casual lunch option for those who live or work in downtown Dayton.
In 2018, the landmark building was sold as part of an affordable housing portfolio consisting of 51 properties. It changed hands once again in August of 2020 when it was sold for $4.2 million. It appears that the owners intend to maintain the historic integrity of the structure and ensure its long-term viability as an affordable housing option. With plenty of retail space still open in the massive building that sits just across First St. from the Victoria Theater, hopefully some additional new businesses join the downtown Dayton scene in coming years.
Historic image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library
Come back Jimmy Johns!
My great-uncle, Marvin Murray, was bell captain at the Biltmore in the 1950s-remember Mom taking my sister and I there often to see him. Dad (G.L. “Bud” Austing) was a Dayton police officer back then.
My grandmother, Beaulah Deger, lived in the hotel in the late 1950’s until the 1970’s or thereabouts. She was well-traveled woman, a working widow the majority of her life. Her daughter, my mother, married a Montana man that later became an FBI agent. My grandmother was buried with her 3 children in Dayton. They lived at 783 Greenhouse Road (it was “road” back then). I have outdoor wedding celebration photos on the front lawn.
I am looking for photos of the lobby of the Dayton Biltmore Hotel around the 1950’s -1957 range.
i am told that the front counter and wall display at Moraine Airpark was salvaged from there.
I have photos of it at the Airpark. I have seen a postcard on internet but they are very blurry. I was also told the cabinets could have been used as a humidor?