Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Not many hotels have their own historian, but for one Boston hotel, it’s a much-needed position to fill.
The Omni-Parker House is the oldest continuously operating hotel in America. Initially opened as a restaurant by Harvey D. Parker in 1832, it was then shifted into a hotel about 20 years later in 1855.
With such a rich history, it’s no surprise that the hotel is one of the few with its own historian. After a conversation with the manager, Susan Wilson was officially picked back in 2012.
“[They said] ’Susan, we’ve always thought of you as our official house historian,’ and channeling Beyoncé, I said, ‘put a ring on it,’” said Wilson. She even wrote a book on the history of the Parker House, called "Heaven, by Hotel Standards," -- a paraphrase of Mark Twain's famous remark about the hotel.
With past political and literary figures like Nathaniel Hawthorne and John F. Kennedy, to more recent celebrities like Ben Affleck and David Ortiz, the hotel has quite a list of notable names that have resided there in the past.
A history room in the building documents all the famous figures who have stayed there, and even an artifact from a famous author that was almost thrown away during a major renovation in 1925: the door to Charles Dickens' suite.
Despite the array of celebrities who have stayed at the hotel, one of the biggest sources of fame for the hotel is the restaurant, which created both Boston Cream Pies and, more famously, the Parker House Roll.
Wilson explains that for much of early American history, bread was rock-hard inside and out, enough that there are documented cases of serious injury during food fights at Harvard.
“So to have invented a roll, to have a light, fluffy, buttery roll, it was a really big deal,” said Wilson.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.