Arlington Lawn

Arlington Lawn is an open public lawn on the south side of Fountain Street, opposite the present Arlington Hotel at the north end of Bathhouse Row. If you’re walking from the Fordyce Visitor Center, head north on Central Avenue and cross toward the hotel. The pavilion is an easy landmark, and this is a good place for a brief pause rather than a stop that needs a long visit. The lawn is designated wheelchair accessible, though the route’s surface and grade aren’t detailed.

The hotel across the street is the third Arlington Hotel. Its first version was a 150-room wooden building completed in 1875. A much larger replacement opened here in 1893: a 300-room brick, stone, and iron building with Moorish and Spanish Renaissance details, a glass-topped rotunda, a ballroom, and bridges to Hot Springs Mountain from several floors. It burned in 1923; the 500-room hotel across Fountain Street opened in 1925.

The open grass and pavilion make a useful foreground for the hotel’s twin towers across Fountain Street. It’s a clearer picture of the site’s story than photographing the hotel by itself. The Hot Water Cascade sits just beside the pavilion, and Tufa Terrace Trail climbs from here toward the Grand Promenade, so you can pair the lawn with a thermal-water stop or a short uphill walk.