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There's a Small Hotel

"There's a Small Hotel" is a 1936 song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Originally written for but dropped from the musical Jumbo (1935), it was used in On Your Toes (1936), where it was introduced by Ray Bolger and Doris Carson, and repeated by Jack Whiting and Vera Zorina in the London West End production that opened on 5 February 1937, at the Palace Theatre.

Betty Garrett sang it in the 1948 film Words and Music, and it was interpolated in the film version of Pal Joey (1957) with a Frank Sinatra-Nelson Riddle collaboration.

Background

According to the biography of Lorenz Hart by Gary Marmorstein, the song was inspired by a visit Hart made to the Stockton Inn in Stockton, New Jersey, accompanied by the bandleader Paul Whiteman. Hart "noted the wishing well outside the inn. Out of that visit emerged the lyric 'There's a Small Hotel', written to one of the few Rodgers melodies that annoyed Larry no end."

Another claimant to be the inspiration is the Montecito Inn, in Santa Barbara County, California. Renovations to the hotel in the 1950s replaced the wishing well, claimed to be mentioned in the song, with a floral fountain.

Lyric confusion

The second verse begins with the line "There's no bridal suite". In many printed editions of the song this appears as "There's a bridal suite", undermining Hart's depiction of the hotel as unassuming. Many performers, including Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, sing "a".

In popular culture

The song was used by Rebecca Lenkiewicz as the basis of her 2025 play Small Hotel. The first production starred Ralph Fiennes, Francesca Annis and Rosalind Eleazar at the Theatre Royal, Bath. The song features throughout the play and the main protagonists are named Larry (Lorenz) and Richard in a nod to the songs original composers

Notable recordings

References