While the sign Martini Hotel may have raised eyebrows during prohibition, it was actually the name of the hotel’s proprietor, Albert Martini. Built in 1913, the four-story steel-framed brick structure brought modern construction to downtown Norfolk and opened as the Wangum Hotel; Wangum Lake was the town’s nearby reservoir. When Martini bought the hotel in 1926 and the adjacent Town Meadow, his grandiose plans called for installing a sunken garden in the rear, two tennis courts, and a nine-hole course for “clock golf.” This was a popular game in which the players would putt from positions arranged like the dial of a clock around the holes. Martini’s plans never materialized, and the hotel closed after a few years. The building was eventually converted into small apartments with commercial space on the ground floor and was torn down in 1994. – Ann Havemeyer

Photo courtesy of the Norfolk Historical Society.