Onyx Room… (link to this info)
Originally known as the Grand Salon when the hotel opened in 1892, the Onyx Room featured white onyx wainscoting and columns, as well as an immense central medallion on the ceiling in the center of the room. Although the original onyx remains, over time the mural was destroyed. In 1980 the hotel commissioned artist M. Lloyd Way to recreate it, using notes from the hotel’s original brochure: ‘here are blue skies and soft fleecy clouds amid which rosy, blossom-wreathed cupids disport themselves.’ Since the artist had nothing more to go on, he painted the cupids faces utilizing his relatives’ (and his) likenesses, giving an adult-look to each of the cherubs.
Jeanine Thurston 