Hanover's "Host with the Most"

James Thomas McFate for 19 years has prowled the lounges and lobbies, the corridors and kitchens of the Hanover Inn as its resident boniface, moving his six-foot-six frame as unobtrusively as a six-foot-six frame can be moved. His head is always slightly a-tilt (perhaps from too frequent contact with lintels?) and the eyes are always alert for any rough burr in the smooth operation of a hostelry that stands for more than mere room and board.

On November 1 the last prowl will have been made. On that date Jim McFate will step down as manager of the Hanover Inn ("the front door to Dartmouth" he calls it) and retire to his home on Lake Shore Drive at the head of Mascoma Lake in nearby Enfield, N. H.

His 19-year marriage with the Hanover Inn has been, as all honest marriages are, a mixture of querulousness and affection, with the latter far outweighing the former. One recent day, reminiscing in his nicely appointed, ground-floor office, he said this about running an inn in a college town that is not exactly on the beaten path:

"It's peak and valley, a roller-coaster business. Look, bringing the Yale and Princeton football games to Hanover was the worst thing that ever happened to the Inn. There are about 35,000 Dartmouth alumni, right? Say they have 30,000 wives — that's 65,000 people. If only one per cent of them want to come to Hanover they would more than fill all the rooms in the area."

On non-football weekends Jim McFate thinks that the interstate highway system has not helped to fill up the valleys. "It's easier to get home . . . and it's easier to get beyond us."

But, he admits readily, gesturing to the awards and mementos that festoon his office walls, "I'm proud of these . . . and I'm proud that I survived 19 years with only two heart attacks."

The awards include Hotelman of the Year and the Distinguished Service Award for his stint as president of the American Hotel Association; the mementos include a picture autographed by "Dick Nixon" and a cartoon and an appreciation by Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel '25).

"You know," he said referring to the cartoon, "I'm even in one of Dr. Seuss' poems. He needed something to rhyme with 'not too late' and he came up with 'Buck-Buck McFate.' "

Jim McFate will grouse about the unending nature of his business ("You work 168 hours a week — Christmas Eve is just another Tuesday"), but then will switch off to "It's a fun business. Dartmouth attracts a wide range of people. One minute you're meeting a well-known entertainer, then a learned scholar, and finally an inconspicuous guy from the Class of Oughty-Ought who thinks Dartmouth was heaven and always will be."

As with any hotel-keeper, Jim McFate has had his share of untoward experiences (people stuck in elevators, guests who lock themselves in their rooms for three days) and eccentric guests. He ranks as champion in the latter category an elderly lady who came, unbeknownst to the Inn management, equipped with all her own light bulbs. Big light bulbs; six or eight of the 150- to 200-watt variety. These she promptly placed in all the sockets in her rooms and just as promptly turned on. Fuses started to go off like popcorn and it was quite some time before Inn personnel solved this electrical enigma.

He rates the top incident of his years at the Inn as the time a couple of enterprising fraternity men liberated a piano from the Inn.

"They slipped it out of the Tavern," he recalls, "and started pushing it up Main Street toward Webster Avenue. It was slow work, for there were only two of them. About midway in their voyage, a campus cop stopped and asked what they were doing. The kids told him they were taking this piano to their house for a dance, and darned if he didn't help them push."

The greatest weekend of his Hanover career was the visit of President Eisenhower at Commencement 1953 to receive an honorary degree. Next to it he places the Bicentennial Commencement of 1969 when Lord and Lady Dartmouth ("my wife baby-sat her jewels") received degrees.

The white cowboy hat he owns is a memento of another special hotel experience, but not related to Hanover. Jim McFate is often taken for actor John Wayne; he has the same features and build and even sounds like him. When Jim was managing the Wolverine Hotel in Detroit, John Wayne stopped there. Word got around and autograph-seekers began waylaying Jim all over the hotel. John Wayne and McFate both had fun with this case of look-alikes, and later the movie star sent Jim a white cowboy hat which he can be persuaded to wear on a rare occasion.

Managing the Wolverine was one of five hotel assignments Jim filled before coming to Hanover in 1953. In DeLand, Florida (the location of his alma mater, Stetson University) he managed the College Arms Hotel and Golf Club, as a resort hotel and later as a U. S. Navy Rest Center, during World War II. He was associated also with the Bismarck in Chicago and the Hotel Northampton in Northampton, Mass. For 15 years before taking over the Hanover Inn he owned and managed the Wayne Hotel in Wayne, Pa. His wife Beth came from nearby Lock Haven, home town of John Sloan Dickey '29, with whom Jim has developed a close and mutually disrespectful friendship.

McFate had oversight of one of the major building changes of President Dickey's administration when the Hanover Inn's main wing, dating from 1902, was rebuilt from the ground up. Opened in early 1968, the main wing increased its rooms from 28 to 50; added a new lounge, conference rooms, and underground garage; and rehabilitated its coffee shop and bar. So Jim McFate's final years as manager have been spent in rather splendid surroundings.

Hanover itself has worked its spell on him. "When I told a friend I was coming up here to work, he said, 'You'll never get old.' It's true, you know. There's so much offered here."

Jim McFate has taken the offerings and remained young. He has also done more than a little of the giving himself.

Hanover Inn Manager James T. McFatewho will retire November 1.