Hotel Beach
hotel in Bridgeport, CT, USA

The Hotel Beach, also known historically as the Hotel Barnum, is a historic hotel building at 140 Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is a thirteen-story Art Deco tower built in 1927 and designed by Thomas, Martin & Kirkpatrick. It is one of the city's outstanding Art Deco buildings, built when the city was at its peak. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is a contributing building in the Bridgeport Downtown North Historic District, NRHP-listed in 1987. It is currently a residential apartment building called Barnum House.
Description and history
The former Hotel Beach is located on the north side of downtown Bridgeport, facing south toward Fairfield Avenue between Main and Broad Streets. It is a thirteen-story building, with a steel and concrete frame covered in colored bricks. Its main tower has two ten-story protruding sections, and is flanked on either side by eight-story sections, giving the building a stepped appearance. The second story facade consists of a band of Romanesque round-arch windows.
The public source identifies “Hotel Beach” as hotel in Bridgeport, CT, USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hotel, Beach and hotel.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hotel Beach”, the useful work is to connect “hotel in Bridgeport, CT, USA” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5911233. Authority coordinates are 41.179, -73.191. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1978 and 1987.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hotel Beach”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hotel Beach primary sources, Hotel Beach archive and Hotel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hotel Beach”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Hotel Beach” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.