The Renaissance Cleveland Hotel opened in 1918 on the site of the former Forest City House in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Since then, the luxury hotel--site of speeches by presidents from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton, aviator Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Martin Luther King, and even former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher--has changed owners and names many times.
The Renaissance Cleveland Hotel was built as the first piece of the ambitious Terminal Complex project which eventually became a "multipurpose downtown complex," according to the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel brochure. The Complex was the brainchild of brothers O.P. and M.J. Van Sweringen, who opened the 1,000-room, 14-story, $4.5 million hotel as one of the largest in the world.
The Van Sweringens' original hotel was designed to be the height of luxury. Constructed in an E-shape to maximize light and views, the neoclassical building was covered in white glazed brick with terra cotta ornamentation. The hotel was one of the first to feature a lobby above the ground floor to maintain a "secluded atmosphere" for guests.
Ownership of the hotel passed to the Sheraton Corporation in the late 1950s, then was purchased by a group of Cleveland-area businesses and the Stouffer Corporation in the 1970s (rescuing the hotel from receivership). In 1993, the New World Development Corporation became the hotel's owner, and finally, Marriott took charge in 1997. Each change in ownership brought renovations and revitalization, along with a name change. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, the name was simplified in 1996 to the current Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.
