The Winecoff is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history, and prompted many changes in building codes. Guests at the hotel that night included teenagers attending a Tri-Y Youth Conference, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography for his snapshot of a woman (later identified as survivor Daisy McCumber) in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire.[2]
Reopenings
In April 1951, the hotel reopened as the Peachtree on Peachtree Hotel, and was now equipped with both fire alarms and fire escapes. In 1967, it was donated to the Georgia Baptist Convention for housing the elderly, and then repeatedly sold to a series of potential developers.
After over two decades of vacancy, ground broke on a $23 million renovation project in April 2006. The project restored the building into a boutiqueluxury hotel, called the Ellis Hotel after the street that runs along the north side of the building. It was reopened on October 1, 2007.
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