Hotel Breakers

The Hotel Breakers, opened in 1905, is a large historic Lake Erie resort hotel located at 1 Cedar Point Drive in the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.HistoryGeorge A. Boeckling, then general manager of Cedar Point, believed that the longer guests stayed at Cedar Point, the more profitable the resort would be. The park’s two hotels at that time, the 20-room Bay Shore Hotel and the 125-room White House Hotel, were having trouble meeting the demands of overnight visitors. So, Boeckling made plans to build a massive hotel on the resort's beach. Keeping with Boeckling's vision of Cedar Point as the "Coney Island of the West", he set out to build the resort's grandest hotel. The Hotel Breakers opened on June 12, 1905, featuring 600 rooms, most with a view of Lake Erie. Each room included running water and one hundred had private baths, a rarity for hotels at that time. The hotel's Breakers Cafe seated 400 guests. The hotel was designed by the Knox & Elliott architectural firm and was influenced by chateaus Boeckling had seen while traveling in France.The hotel's lobby featured round seats, which remain a Cedar Point tradition. The ceiling was elaborate pressed tin and included chandeliers crafted by Tiffany artists. The hotel's original amenities included imported wicker furniture, large brass beds, a manicurist, a physician, a tailor, a stenographer, a barbershop, news stand, ice cream parlor and souvenir counter. Adjacent to the lobby was a four-story rotunda featuring four tiers of balconies, which remains in the hotel. Singers from the Metropolitan Opera gave impromptu performances in the rotunda from their balconies during the 1910s and 1920s.