Golden Lamb Inn

The Golden Lamb Inn is the oldest hotel in Ohio, having been established in the Warren County seat of Lebanon in 1803. The present four-story structure is built around the 1815 rebuilding of the inn, maintaining its colonial architecture. It is known as the Golden Lamb because that image appeared on its signboard for the benefit of the illiterate.[2] At various times it has been known as the Ownly Hotel, the Bradley House, the Lebanon House, and the Stubbs House.

Golden Lamb
Exterior of the Golden Lamb
LocationLebanon, Ohio
Coordinates39°26′1″N 84°12′30″W
Built1815
ArchitectIchabod Corwin
Websitewww.goldenlamb.com/home/
NRHP reference No.78002204[1]
Added to NRHPJanuary 12, 1978
The Golden Lamb Inn, photographed November 15, 1936.

On January 12, 1978, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Golden Lamb.

Famous guests

Because of Lebanon's position on the highway between Cincinnati and Columbus, many notables have visited the inn. The Golden Lamb has been visited by twelve American Presidents: William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

Other famous guests to visit the Golden Lamb include Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Daniel Webster, Thomas Corwin, Clement Vallandigham (who infamously shot and killed himself accidentally in his hotel room at the Golden Lamb, while attempting to prove that a man, whom his client was accused of shooting, shot himself accidentally), Cordell Hull secretary of state for President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who went to school in Lebanon at the National Normal University), Robert A. Taft, Dewitt Clinton, and Lord Stanley, who later became prime minister of the United Kingdom. More recently, on September 8, 2008 Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates senator John McCain and Alaska governor Sarah Palin spoke at the Golden Lamb.[3]

Owners

In 1926, Robert Jones, grandfather of Senator Rob Portman and husband of Virginia Kunkle leased the Golden Lamb. In 1927, he refurbished it and redecorated it with Shaker furniture. In 1969, Mr. and Mrs. Jones leased the Golden Lamb to the Comisar family, who owned and operated the now defunct five-star Maisonette restaurant in Cincinnati. The Golden Lamb Restaurant & Hotel continues to be owned by the Portman Family of Ohio.

The building
  • Four floors
  • Lobby
  • Restaurant with a tavern, three large public dining rooms, and five private dining rooms
  • Gift shop
  • Seventeen guest rooms
  • The old stables were removed to make room for the parking lot

Ghosts

There are a lot of famous ghosts in this inn, a little girl (Sarah Stubbs), and a ghost of a lawyer who shot himself (lead to his death) recreating his client's case. There are many more that haunt this in as well.

Not much is known about Sarah, she was the daughter of an inn caretaker Issac Stubbs and his wife Elizabeth. Her uncle Andrew Stubbs ran the inn during the late 1800s, and Isaac helped out alongside his brother. Despite the ghost being that of a little girl, Sarah had lived a very long life. Perhaps she clung to the happiness of her childhood, instead of her adulthood. Her burial is in a family plot a short distance from the inn. There is no full proof of the ghost being of Sarah, but it is highly speculated. There is a room in the inn called "Sarah's room" with all of her belongings.


See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "Warren County, Ohio Place Names". Warren County Genealogical Society. Archived from the original on March 13, 2018. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  3. Bumiller, Elisabeth, The New York Times, September 9, 2008
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