Although English colonists had inhabited the region since the early 17th century, present-day Petersburg itself was not settled until the Virginia House of Burgesses established a rudimentary frontier outpost upon the site in 1645. Known as “Fort Henry,” the settlement overlooked a series of cascading waterfalls on the Appomattox River. The colonial government had hoped that the fort would provide protection along what was then the Virginian frontier, providing a haven for future pioneers interested in venturing further inland., The bastion’s first commander, Colonel Abraham Wood, dispatched numerous expeditions from Fort Henry at the behest of Virginia officials. Wood himself came to view the area as his home, eventually establishing a rudimentary trading camp that directly interacted with the indigenous Appamatuck people. Then in 1675, Wood’s son-in-law, Peter Jones, decided to open a second market referred to as “Peter’s Point,” which quickly rose in prominence. Together, the two businesses spurred the widespread settlement of the surrounding countryside, specifically providing provisions for the many families who had begun debuting their homesteads nearby. The commercial activity eventually inspired a prominent Virginia statesmen named William Byrd II to create a city at the location called “Petersburg” during the mid-18th century. The community grew steadily in turn, emerging as the focal point through which all the regional trade passed.  

Tobacco was the most common good exchanged in Petersburg, leading to the proliferation of several significant warehouses and factories specializing in processing the crop. However, this prosperity was not experienced equally by all, as many of the local farms (and plantations) had relied on African American slaves to cultivate the tobacco crops. Black slaves worked inside dozens of Petersburg’s businesses constituting around a third of the municipal population by the 1850s. However, the city had one of the South’s largest communities of freed Blacks, with over 3,200 calling Petersburg home. Petersburg continued to thrive as a major affluent commercial center in Virginia, ranking second only to the capital Richmond. The city’s economic identity made an integral part once the American Civil War erupted—as well as an equally important military target for Union forces. Despite escaping considerable damage for most of the conflict, federal soldiers managed to reach the outskirts of Petersburg in the summer of 1864. Union General Ulysses S. Grant spent the previous spring trying to outflank Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia to seize Richmond. But while Grant had failed to encircle Lee, he succeeded in pinning down his opponent just south of Richmond in Petersburg.  

What followed next was a long, nine-month siege that saw Grant slowly sap Lee’s army of strength. An extensive system of earthen trenches soon encompassed Petersburg, save for the portion of the city that faced the Appomattox River. There were many battles subsequently raged around Petersburg, including Jerusalem Plank Road, Ream’s Station, Peeble’s Farm, and Fort Stedman. The most chaotic fight was the Battle of the Crater, during which savage hand-to-hand fighting had led to thousands of soldiers being killed, wounded, or captured. Nevertheless, Grant eventually won the Siege of Petersburg, having nearly destroyed Lee’s army by early 1865. Lee and his remaining men then vainly fled to Appomattox Court House that April, where they surrendered to Grant. In the war's aftermath, Petersburg recovered swiftly in just a few years. Many of the city’s factories soon reopened, as did the once prolific tobacco warehouses that had defined its landscape for generations. Hotel Petersburg has continued to thrive in the present as a popular tourist destination among the nation’s cultural heritage travelers. The presence of numerous historic sites affiliated with the American Civil War have proven to be especially alluring, such as the fascinating Pamplin Historical Park and the expansive Petersburg National Battlefield.    

Hotel Petersburg, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, stands today as a brilliant historical example of Renaissance Revival style architecture. Also referred to occasionally as “Neo-Renaissance,” Renaissance Revival architecture is a group of architectural revival styles that originally date back to the 19th century. Neither Grecian nor Gothic in appearance, Renaissance Revival-style architecture drew inspiration from a wide range of structural motifs found throughout Early Modern Europe. Architects in France and Italy were the first to embrace the artistic movement, who saw the architectural forms of the European Renaissance as an opportunity to reinvigorate a sense of civic pride throughout their communities. Those intellectuals incorporated the colonnades and low-pitched roofs of Renaissance-era buildings into their designs, along with elements of earlier Mannerist and Baroque-themed motifs. The greatest structural component to a Renaissance Revival-style building involved the installation of a grand staircase in a vein like those located at the Château de Blois and the Château de Chambord in France’s Loire Valley. This feature served as a central focal point for the design, often directing guests to a magnificent lobby or exterior courtyard further inside. But the nebulous nature of Renaissance Revival architecture meant that its appearance varied widely across Europe and North America. Many architects left their own mark upon any structure designed with Renaissance Revival-style design aesthetics, including Joseph Evans Sperry. Historians often find it difficult to provide a specific definition for the architectural movement yet acknowledge its inherent beauty.