The current hotel was founded by Henry Willard, a former Chief Steward on The Steamer "Niagara" on the Hudson River, personally suggested by “Ogle” Tayloe’s second wife, Miss Phoebe Warren, formerly of Troy, New York, in 1847; when he leased the six buildings, combined them into a single structure, and enlarged it into a four-story hotel he renamed Willard's Hotel.[2][8]