The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel - Recent

Recent

The hotel gained worldwide notoriety in July 1976, when it hosted a statewide convention of the American Legion. Soon after, a pneumonia-like disease killed 34 people and sickened 221 more who had been in the hotel. The vast majority were members of the convention. The negative publicity associated with what became known in the media as "Legionnaire's Disease" caused the hotel to close in November 1976.

In 1977, Dr. Joseph McDade discovered a new bacterium, which was identified as the causative organism. It thrives in hot, damp places like the water of the cooling towers for the Bellevue-Stratford's air-conditioning system, which spread the disease throughout the hotel. The bacterium was named Legionella and the disease, legionellosis, after the first victims.

The building was sold in 1978 to the Richard I. Rubin Company and given a $25-million restoration. The guest rooms were completely gutted and their number reduced from 725 to 565, while the public areas were painstakingly restored to their 1904 appearance.

The hotel reopened in 1979 as part of the Fairmont chain as The Fairmont Philadelphia. The next year a 49-percent interest in the hotel was bought by the Westin chain and the name reverted to The Bellevue-Stratford. By the mid-1980s, the hotel, which had become The Westin Bellevue-Stratford, was struggling to fill its hundreds of rooms, and closed in 1986.

The Rubin Company again undertook extensive work on the building, at a cost of $100 million. This time, the hotel rooms from floors 2 to 11 were converted into office space. The grand public areas on the ground floor were converted to shops. A huge atrium was cut into the lobby and escalators installed leading to an underground shopping area and food court. The parking garage adjacent to the hotel had a fitness club built on top of it to serve the complex.

In addition, the middle wing of the E-shaped building was removed from floors 12 to 18, and the back side was sealed up, creating an atrium. The historic 19th-floor Rose Ballroom atop this middle wing was retained, however, standing on seven-story stilts which ran through the atrium. The building's name was shortened to The Bellevue.

The hotel portion reopened in 1989 as Hotel Atop the Bellevue, with guest rooms on floors 12-18 and a lobby and public rooms on the remodeled 19th floor. The two domed ballrooms on that floor (the South and North Cameo rooms), were turned into the Ethel Barrymore Tea Room and a restaurant called Founders.

The hotel was managed by the Cunard Line. After Cunard moved out of the hotel business, the hotel operated independent of any chain through the mid 1990s. During this time, its name was shortened to match the whole multi-use complex, becoming The Bellevue. In December 1996 the hotel joined the Hyatt chain's Park Hyatt boutique division and was renamed Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue. In 2010 the name was shortened to Hyatt at The Bellevue.

In 2007 the two restaurants and Founders bar were re-designed by Marguerite Rodgers and are now XIX (NINETEEN) Cafe, Bar and Restaurant. By 2009 all four balconies outside the cafe and restaurant were restored and open to the public for the highest outside dining experience in the city.

The Bellevue-Stratford was the headquarters of the 1936 and 1948 National Conventions of the U.S. Republican Party and the 1948 Convention of the Democratic Party.

The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.