Mary E. J. Colter and the Westport Room
Westport Room, 1938. (HB-04696-E, Chicago History Museum, Hedrich-Blessing Collection)
In 1937, architect and decorator Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1958) decorated the Fred Harvey dining room and cocktail lounge in the Kansas City Union Station. A distinguishing feature of the Westport Room was the murals painted by nationally renowned artist Hildreth Meière. Meière reported enjoying working with Colter, finding her to be a thoughtful, constructive critic. Colter was also responsible for the furnishings in the restaurant.
“The furniture was specially designed by Miss Colter to give the right settings to the murals,” Restaurant Management reported in its February 1938 issue. “Tables are topped by built-up plywood with a bleached aspen veneer, heat resistant and alcohol proof. The top color is somewhat lighter than the aspen walls but holds together the colors of murals and furniture,” the journalist noted. There was also much discussion of the effective use of color in the paint and upholstering.
The architect for the renovation was Chicago’s Holabird & Root. The firm received praise for the sculptural Art Moderne lines and skillful lighting design. Architectural Forum ran three pages of photos of the restaurant and cocktail lounge in its September 1938 issue. A trade journal reported that the new Westport Room “successfully has bridged almost a century to create an atmosphere at once modern and old-fashioned, intimate and dignified.”
The Westport Room was not Colter’s first design intervention in Kansas City’s Union Station. In 1917, two booths of her design—a Red Cross booth and a booth to sell Liberty Bonds—graced opposite sides of the station’s lobby and represented part of Colter’s contribution to the war effort.
When Colter wasn’t riding the rails and visiting project sites throughout the West and Southwest, she spent time in her private office in Fred Harvey’s headquarters on the upper level of Kansas City’s Union Station. Her time living in Kansas City spanned three decades, from her hiring as a permanent employee in 1910 until 1940, after the Fred Harvey headquarters were relocated to Chicago. That year, Colter gave up her Kansas City apartment and settled into her house in Altadena, California.
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Sources:
“Kansas City Likes Westport Room,” Restaurant Management, February 1938: 82-85.
Arnold Berke, Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.
“Westport Room Fred Harvey Restaurant,” Architectural Forum, September 1938: 183-185.