Why is the painting of George Henderson, by Marian Steele, in the dining room?
Henderson was a prominent Boston hotelier and a member from 1926-1973. He was known fondly as the club's "oldest living inhabitant" and was a long time summer resident of the Eastern. He made a gift to the Club which financed the dining room, completed in 1978.
The origins of the Sheraton Hotel brand date back to 1937 when Ernest and George Henderson and Robert Moore acquired the Stonehaven Hotel in Springfield, MA. The chain got its name from another early hotel that had been acquired, which had a lighted sign on the roof saying "Sheraton Hotel". It was large and heavy and therefore too expensive to change. Instead, they decided to call all their hotels by that name. By 1939 three hotels were opened in Boston continuing with their rapid expansion along the entire East Coast. In the 1940s, Sheraton purchased the famous Hotel Kimball of Springfield, MA, and transformed the 4-star hotel into The Sheraton-Kimball Hotel, attracting guests like President John F. Kennedy. In 1945, it was the first hotel chain to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1949 Sheraton expanded internationally with the purchase of two Canadian hotel chains. The 1960s saw the first Sheraton hotels outside North America with the opening of the Tel Aviv-Sheraton in February 1961 and the Macuto-Sheraton outside Caracas, Venezuela, in 1963. By 1965, the 100th Sheraton had opened its doors. The multinational conglomerate ITT purchased the chain in 1968, after which it was known as ITT Sheraton.
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