Fabyan House was a grand resort hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Completed in 1873, it was named after Horace Fabyan, who had operated a hotel on the same site called the Mount Washington House, which had burned in 1853.
Fabyan House had 250 rooms for up to 500 guests. It had its own dairy farm, golf course, laundry building and livery stable. In the late 1800s, guests would arrive in the area by train and stay at a hotel for an entire season. As automobiles gained popularity in the 20th century, guests would stay a few nights and move on, making it harder for large hotels with comprehensive facilities to remain financially viable.
Views of Fabyan House can be seen here on whitemountainhistory.org, and a few others on the hotel’s Wikipedia page. The hotel burned down in 1951.
The photograph above has a note on the back: “Fabyan’s season of 1880. Peter was watchman.” Peter is presumably one of the men in the group. Click on either half of the photo below to open a page with high-resolution images:
Tokens of Companionship 
Interesting how the automobile impacted hotel accommodations and guest behavior! So much of modern change seems to be a reluctant transfer from one technology to the next.
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Very true! Technology affects our lives in so many ways. New technologies bring improvements, but change inevitably involves loss as well. Maybe that’s why young people embrace innovations while older folks tend to look on them with more reservations.
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Presumably if Peter’s in the photo he is one of the two men at the right, as the others look like chefs or kitchen staff. I’d take a guess at the man on the far left. Very interesting.
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Thanks, Val! The fellow at far left has a great face. I also love the expression of the woman at the center of the group who’s looking directly at the camera.
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Sorry – there goes my dyslexia again. I meant one of the two men at the left!
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Such an interesting image! Do the things that the women are holding have significance, I wonder? The two women on the left seem to be holding branches. Were they responsible for floral arrangements? The woman on the left is holding an open book–librarian for the hotel? (I think some of these grand hotels often had libraries.)
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I’m glad you noticed the branches, Carol. I thought they were interesting as well. The young woman second from right is holding a hat with flowers on it which is very pretty. And you must be right about the library! I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. People were relaxing for weeks at a time, so of course they needed books. The hotel had an orchestra, so they must have had all kinds of entertainment in the evenings. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
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