A warm autumn palette of gold and russet frames one of Washington's grandest addresses — the Mayflower Hotel, its pale limestone tower rising confidently above Connecticut Avenue and De Sales Street, horse-chestnut trees blazing in seasonal color while well-dressed pedestrians stroll the wide sidewalks below. This advertising chrome-era card captures the hotel at the height of its mid-century prestige, when it boasted 1,000 rooms with bath, air-conditioning, and circulating ice water — luxuries worth trumpeting in the early television age. Opened in 1925 and sometimes called "the Grande Dame of Washington," the Mayflower hosted inaugural balls from Calvin Coolidge onward and earned its nickname "the second-best address in Washington" (after the White House). The richly illustrated watercolor-style artwork, typical of hotel promotional cards of the 1950s, emphasizes grandeur and approachability in equal measure.