The restored portico at the American Hotel in Lima. Photo by Deb Smith
BY DEB AND TIM SMITH
This story has been over a year in the making. One Friday afternoon in the spring of 2024 we received a message from Sentinel editor Donna MacKenzie informing us that Pat and Rose Reynolds at the American Hotel in Lima wanted us to give them a call. We were excited to receive the message as those two venerable Lima personalities are a pair of our favorite people to work with.
So what was up in Lima? Turned out that the portico was in peril! Allow us to explain. Before the pandemic hit, the Hotel had received a grant to repair their classic portico (official definition: a porch leading to the entrance of a building with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns).
Plans were enacted to repair the portico but with the passing time since the pandemic, and the increase in building costs, the grant only included half of the money needed to effect the repairs.
So while contractor John McKinnon had begun work on the repair project, proprietor Pat Reynolds had initiated a GoFundMe project to raise the rest of the money needed to pay for the portico.
At that point John McKinnon had demolished the old porch and poured concrete for the steps and bases for the six pillars. The pillars, which weigh almost half a ton each, needed to be restored before they could be reinstalled.
Regarding the pillars, Pat had a story. As American Hotel veterans, we can attest to the fact that Pat always has a story! Anytime you visit the place, prepare to be entertained!
The story on the six cast iron pillars is that they originally adorned a Methodist church that stood on Rochester Street in Lima; it was the 4th door from the light heading north on the east side of the road. That location is now a residence, the original church building having been razed sometime early in the 1900’s.
When the portico was built back then (the Hotel has been owned by the Reynolds family for over 100 years) the owners needed pillars and Pat deduces that they must have gone through a third party which came into possession of the pillars after the church was razed.
We agree with his logic. It seems unlikely that the members of the Lima Methodist Church would make the conscious decision that, “We’d like to have our church pillars placed at the entrance of the most high-profile bar in town!” Yep, we’re probably looking at a third-party transaction here.
But now, over 100 years later, the renovation of the portico has been completed, the pillars have been refurbished, and as you can see in the picture here… they’ve returned to stand sentinel over the entryway they’ve guarded for over a century.
