2016 marked the centennial of the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, N.J. Named after the city’s founder, the 14-story building had its grand opening on May 17, 1916. Among the first guests were then-President Woodrow Wilson and his wife Edith, who stayed in what would eventually be known as the President’s Suite. For the next century, the hotel would host several important figures, including three other U.S. presidents and Martin Luther King Jr. It eventually became part of the Best Western chain, which still operates it today.

Contributing to this history was General Manager and Vice President Lloyd Robinson, who served from 1935 to 1945. Robinson was the father of eventual Herald columnist Bruce Robinson, who spent the first 10 years of his life in the Treat Hotel and has chronicled that period in his new memoir “Many Mansions: A Centennial Celebration of the Robert Treat Hotel.”

This is the second book by Robinson, a former Benicia resident who also authored the novel “Legends of the Strait,” which captured life in Benicia during the Prohibition era and was published serially in the Herald throughout 2010 before being self-published through Author House the following year. For his newest book, Robinson set out to tell not only his story of growing up in the hotel in the ‘30s and ‘40s but also capture what was happening in America and the world during that tumultuous period.

“I discovered about a year and a half ago that the Robert Treat Hotel, which was the premier luxury hotel in Newark, was celebrating its 100th anniversary,” he said. “Since I spent the first 10 years of my life living in that hotel, I thought, you know this might make an interesting book.”

A lot of “Many Mansions” is Robinson’s own personal reflections as a young boy living in the management suite of the Treat Hotel, which he says was beautifully designed. The first chapter is a description of the front lobby, which was constructed by the firm of Gilbert and Betelle who utilized a Renaissance Revival style. The front office featured Greek pillars, marble floors, potted plants and fancy furniture.

“The impression I’m trying to get in the first chapter is how elaborate architecture was during those days,” Robinson said.

Robinson also devotes chapters to many of the hotel’s employees, including elevator operators, bellhops, maids, laundresses and nightwatchmen, as well as some of the visiting guests. At the time Robinson’s father was brought in, mobster Dutch Schultz and his gang were occupying the hotel to plan racketeering operations.

“There was a lot to clean up,” he said.

However, Robinson says the book is not just about his experiences but also what Newark and the wider world were going through during that period, namely the Great Depression and World War II.

“Newark was a pretty exciting place in those days, even during the Depression,” he said. “There was a lot of stuff going on in the book within the business of the hotel industry. The hotels started to turn around after the beginning of the war like a lot of businesses in the United States.”

Also included in the book are newspaper photos of such events as the opening of the Lincoln Tunnel in 1937, a timeline of key historical events from the period covered, a bibliography, a list of figures cited in the book, two autobiographical accounts by Lloyd Robinson and a personal essay by Nathaniel Rosengarden, a descendant of Louis Aronson who befriended Albert Einstein when he stayed at the hotel after fleeing Nazi Germany.

Robinson said the project was a “big undertaking,” and a big challenge was finding photos of Newark from that time. Luckily, he came across a box of old family photographs that a distant relative had inherited from Robinson’s sister.

“She sent them, and lo and behold, I had a treasure trove of great photographs and stories that were in the papers and magazines about the hotel,” he said.

Robinson also received encouragement from his writers group in Lincoln, and the book came together. As with “Legends of the Strait,” the book was self-published, this time through CreateSpace. He chose the title “Many Mansions” in reference to a passage from John 14:2, which in the King James Bible is translated as “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

“This is what my father’s whole life was dedicated to,” Robinson said. “Providing accommodations for all kinds of people in his hotels.”

He added the subtitle to distinguish it from other books with the same name. Eventually he got a call from the current owner of the Best Western Robert Treat Hotel saying he was familiar with the book and would be happy to host a book signing at the hotel and allow Robinson and his wife to stay for a few nights.

“I said, ‘That’s too good to be true,’” Robinson said. “ He said, ‘It’s true.’”

As Robinson’s children live on the East Coast, he is happy to take part in a family reunion and hopes his children and grandchildren can experience this part of history through his book.

“I partly wrote this book because I wanted my own children to understand how the world was in the 1930s and 1940s,” he said.

“Many Mansions” is available to purchase in paperback format at Amazon, where it can also be downloaded in an electronic Kindle form.