A Victorian seaside hotel which inspired one of the world's most famous artists opened the doors on his room before it shuts. The Bay Hotel in Cullercoats, North Tyneside, is being put out of business - but was once a luxury pad for American watercolour painter Winslow Homer. Homer, whose work fetches millions of dollars, stayed there in the 1880s to paint dramatic scenes of Tyneside's fisherfolk. The hotel can't afford to comply with new laws forcing businesses to accommodate disabled people. Owner Joe Henry, 56, said: "Now all that links Homer Winlsow to this hotel is a couple of prints hanging in the room where he stayed. "Obviously he stayed here in the 1880s and little remains of the hotel he would have known. "A few years ago we had a stained glass window made of one of his paintings for the bar - it is nice to commemorate the hotel's history. "It is a sad time for us but the fact is that small hotels are finding it too hard to make ends meet. This is the straw that broke the camel's back." In the 19th century, Cullercoats was a mecca for artists and the hotel opened as the Hudlestone Arms and Hotel in 1870 on the site of the former Ship Inn. Homer began illustrating New York periodicals, such as Harper's Weekly, but ended up with the Union Army, painting the Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s. He had made his mark as a talented artist before arriving on Tyneside in 1881, aged 45, but his stay in room 17 on the Bay's second floor was where he produced his first masterpieces. He painted more than 20 watercolours of the people and views of Cullercoats over 21 months in his dark, dramatic style. One of his favourite subjects was the famous Cullercoats fishwives and his windswept painting The Fog Horn fetched £500,000 at Sotheby's in 2000. Heavy storms in October 1881 climaxed in lifeboats carrying out a dramatic rescue of the crew on board the stricken ship the Iron Crown at the mouth of the Tyne - a rescue which Homer painted as it happened. In May 1998, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates paid a record £17.8 million for Lost on the Grand Banks, Homer's last major seascape. His works now hang in art galleries in Texas, New York, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Conneticut, Washington and Boston. A planning application has been submitted by Darlington-based Leftbank Developments to replace the hotel with 32 flats. | 
