1,916 Comments for The Pines Hotel

"That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death."

"When the rose is faded, memory may still dwell on her beauty shadowed, and the sweet smell gone."

We had a phone like that in the late 70's early 80's, it's now a prop for my theatre company! Come to think of it, it's still got our house number on it! :-o

In some ways I still feel very sad for this place. Most of the places I stayed in as a child weren't especially pretty... the often deteriorating resorts and holiday parks of the South Coast of England, seeing out their twilight years by catering for the few too stubborn or too poor to jet off to 'the continent' like everyone else...

You don't care when you're ten or eleven that the carpets are threadbare, the decor is twenty years out-of-date or that the place is surrounded by the peeling hulks of hotels and boarded-up shops that have already succumbed to the inevitable.

Sadly I suspect there's no-one going to step in and save the Pines from the bulldozer - those flat roofs have undoubtedly doomed the place. Looking at the shots it seems that almost every one has failed, resulting in almost unbelievable water damage that would cost millions to even start putting right :(

That's what they did in those days. The shorter building is the Hampshire and when they needed more room they built the Savoy but with an entrance from the Hampshire so all were dry in the rain.

This either Room 703 or 721. This was actually in the newest wing built in the late 80's (I think). The Savoy.

Was that Room 443 in the Hampshire. For internal calls we had to dial 1 then the room number.

This seems to be the "cheap" rooms of the main building. Each of the buildings rooms were designated with different numeric prefixes (the Main was 0 or 1).... 2 and 3's the outer buildings, Hampshire (401.. etc), Essex (501.. etc.), Regency (601... etc.), and Savoy (701.. etc). Also the Savoy had two suites, one was 721, with a heart shaped tub.

This appears to me to be the staircase that connected the Lower Lobby (winter coffee shop/summer gift shop on the right) with the upper South Lobby. Directly behind the lens were pay phone booths.

Played poker there as an adult the whole summer. The bigger stakes games were on the left and right far ends (on nice days outdoors on the card patio). Mornings 9:30 - 12:45, Afternoons 2-6, Evenings 8:15 - 12;30 or 1 AM. In between we ate in the dining room.

This seems to be a pic taken from the "Reservations Desk"... to the right is the Service Desk for bellhop and carhop service and straight ahead on the left short wall (not seen) was the elevator to the Essex and Hampshire wings and the elevator door only opened on this side in the lower lobby; on other floors a second door opened on the right.

That was the 2nd floor lobby with the bar to the right next to the main dining room. Spent every summer there from 1974 through 1998...

No doubt why it was installed Peter! I wonder if the people who eventually re-fit this place (or more likely, tear it down) will appreciate the aesthetic and financial value of that centrepiece or whether it will just be smashed and slung in a skip along with those hideous couches :(

I'd still have serious qualms about removing something like that even though it is beautiful and its eventual destruction almost inevitable. Not the easiest thing to slip under your jacket and carry back to the car either... even if it weren't suspended 20 feet from the ground!

I have a phone from the late 1920's and I also have a green phone likethe one here

If you live nearby this place, go and grab that lamp in the ceiling quick! I would go there myself but the problem is that I live in Sweden. The lamp is made by Danish designer Poul Henningsen. His company PH have made lots of lamps but this one is rather sought after. Interesting is that the model is called "Cone" which you usually find on... pines! Here in Sweden the value on an old one is $1000 or more.

Please tell us here if you went and grabbed it!