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Photo By: Julianne Rainone/The Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries
Long before Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Roanoke Hospital housed the exquisite Flickwir Memorial Unit, featuring silver tray tea service, a sun parlor and more.
Silver tray service, complete with tea, sugar and cream, for private hospital rooms.
A colorful top-floor sun parlor.
The latest in hospital equipment.
These were some of the impressive features inside the Flickwir Memorial Unit, the building on the left pictured here in 1925. It was the North Wing of the former Roanoke Hospital, standing at the base of Mill Mountain where Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital is today.
David Flickwir, a railroad tycoon with an eye for the exquisite, was considered Roanoke Hospital’s greatest benefactor. In 1925, he paid for the construction of the Flickwir Memorial Unit, which replaced a wooden structure and opened adjacent to Roanoke Hospital’s South Wing, according to historical information provided by Carilion Clinic.
The North Wing had steel floor beams, which were not common at the time, as well as hot and cold water in rooms and wall-supported radiators, two features considered innovative for that era. Flickwir’s unit also housed a top floor sunroom as a relaxation area for patients and visitors, along with other luxuries, such as silver tray tea service and individual dining rooms for students, nurses, doctors, and interns, complete with tables covered with white damask tablecloths.
Flickwir, a member of the hospital’s board of trustees, also financed the expansion of a nurses’ residence, which opened there in 1927.
Eventually, he donated a quarter of a million dollars to the hospital.
Later, Roanoke Hospital became Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, now a 703-bed facility that includes a neonatal intensive care unit, Carilion Children’s Hospital, a Level 1 Trauma Center, specialty clinical care and more. It is the flagship facility for Carilion Clinic, a nonprofit healthcare organization that last year was the largest employer in the Roanoke Valley, according to the Virginia Employment Commission.
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