Room 315. Nestled on the third story of the hotel’s Romanesque Revival style turret section of the hotel, is Room 315, which is the magnificent William Chancellor Signature Suite. This room is decorated in a very masculine theme and has been this themed suite room since the hotel’s third major hotel renovations ending in 2006.  It features custom made monumental carpeting and is dedicated to the man himself who built the magnificent Blennerhassett Hotel.

The Blennerhassett Hotel was built and constructed by Colonel William Nelson Chancellor, who was a self-made millionaire. Construction was started on the original part of the hotel in 1883. It was six years under construction before the doors were finally opened to the world on Monday May 6, 1889. Chancellor wanted a hotel grand for its time, and second to none out of any other hotel in the state of West Virginia, which the Blennerhassett was at this time and currently is to this very day. This hotel was built specifically for the millionaires of the day. In the 1880’s, Parkersburg was in the middle of the oil and gas boom era, and William Chancellor wanted his hotel to reflect the wealth of the day.

Colonel Chancellor was mayor of the City of Parkersburg twice and is credited for erecting more businesses and private residences in town than any other citizens of his time.  He was also the president of the first national bank of West Virginia here in Parkersburg, which changed into this during the civil war, when West Virginia became a state.  The branch of the bank was located in the corner of the fourth street entrance of the hotel and remained there until 1913.  The bank here in the blennerhassett hotel, ran by chancellor, was opened about a month before the hotels grand opening in the spring of 1889, and was the first establishment out of any building structure in Parkersburg and the entire surrounding are to have indoor modern-day electricity.

Colonel William Nelson Chancellor went by the name of Nelson. He had three portraits commissioned during his lifetime, one for each of his children. The largest and nicest of the three portraits has been on loan to the Blennerhassett Hotel since the second major renovation in 1986.  It is in its original frame, set inside of a larger frame, and hangs today in the main hotel lobby right here in The Blennerhassett Hotel & Spa.