Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 270: Hotel History: Hotel Martinique (1910)

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 270: Hotel History: Hotel Martinique (1910)

Stanley Turkel | August 25, 2022

Nobody Asked Me But… The family of Stanley Turkel would like to share that Stanley Turkel passed away on Friday, August 12th, 2022 after a brief illness. Stanley had completed his 270th article for this newsletter which is below. It was a great pleasure for him to have you, a receptive readership, over the last 20-plus years. Thank you. Stanley’s obituary can be found on his website.  If you are so inclined, Stanley would appreciate donations to The Southern Poverty Law Center or the ACLU in his name. 


by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: Hotel Martinique (530 rooms)

The Hotel Martinique (560 rooms) at the northeast corner of Broadway and 32nd Street was constructed in three phases in 1897-98, 1901-03 and 1909-11.  Developer William R. H. Martin built and expanded his hotel because the center of theater life had moved up Broadway to 39th Street where the Metropolitan Opera House had been built in 1883. Martin hired the distinguished architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (1874-1918).

Hardenbergh, who began his own architectural practice in New York in 1870, became one of the city’s most distinguished architects. Recognized for their picturesque compositions and his buildings often took their inspiration from the French, Dutch, and German Renaissance styles.

Hardenbergh is best known for his luxury hotel and apartment house designs.  Among the earliest of these are the Dakota Apartments (a designated New York City Landmark) and the Hotel Albert, now Albert Apartments. His earliest midtown hotels, the original Waldorf-Astoria (Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street), and the Manhattan Hotel (Madison and East 42nd Street) have all been demolished, but when constructed they set the standard for luxury hotel design, both the exterior and interior. Hardenbergh continued to perfect his luxury hotel designs in the Plaza Hotel (a designated New York City Landmark), and in Washington, D. C., at the Raleigh Hotel (demolished).

The owner and developer of the Martinique Hotel was William R. H. Martin, a large landowner in Manhattan at the turn of the century and a founding member of the clothing firm of Rogers, Peet & Company. Martin was born in St. Louis and lived in Brooklyn as a child. He entered the clothing business with his father John T. Martin, who had been a large army contractor during the Civil War. Later the Martins formed a wholesale clothing business with Marvin Rogers; it was known by several different names before becoming Rogers, Peet & Co. Martin served as head of the company from 1877, but had retired from active involvement several years before his death in 1912. Martin used his wealth to invest heavily in Manhattan real estate, and at the time of his death his holdings were valued at more than ten million dollars. These investments included such properties as the Marbridge Building as well as the Martinique Hotel. Martin also built and supported the Trowmart Inn, a home for working girls.

Martin clearly thought the 34th Street-Broadway area was a vital, growing section for business and investment. Rogers, Peet & Co. opened a store at 1260 Broadway in 1889, even before such big department stores as Macy’s and Saks moved to 34th Street. Martin chose to build his new hotel close to Greeley and Herald Squares because the location was beginning to offer many opportunities for shopping, theater and restaurants to attract the tourist trade, and was close to several modes of transportation.

Hardenbergh created a French Renaissance design which capitalized on the openness of Greeley Square with a boldly-scaled mansard roof, towers and ornate dormers. The façade reflects Hardenbergh’s reputation for designing buildings for long-term use, not short-term profit.  The glazed brick, terracotta-and limestone-clad structure also features stonework, balconies and prominent cartouches on all three of its main facades.

The Hotel Martinique opened on December 21, 1910 with a total of 600 rooms. It was well-located within walking distance from the newly-opened Pennsylvania Station, Macy’s on Herald Square (which opened in 1904) and the PATH commuter railroad system’s Manhattan terminus at 33rd Street (1907). Across the street from the Martinique was the Gimbels New York flagship department store.  Designed by Daniel Burnham, the structure offered 27 acres of selling space.  When this building opened in 1910, a major selling point was its many doors leading to the Herald Square subway station. Doors also opened upon a pedestrian passage under 33rd Street, connecting Penn Station to those subway stations. The idea of a Thanksgiving Day parade originated in 1920 with Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia.  Macy’s in New York did not start its parade until 1924.

A faded old Martinique brochure from 1910 contains the following information:

The Hotel Martinique is located at the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue and 32nd Street, and the plaza thus formed is termed Herald or Greeley Square….One block east is Fifth Avenue, the great residential street of New York.  Within a radius of three blocks are to be found the greatest of the city’s retail stores, making it an ideal headquarters for shoppers. The best theaters are centered in this vicinity, and the two great Opera Houses are within easy walking distance…The Gentlemen’s Broadway Café is a veritable architectural gem. The walls and columns of Italian marble give to this room a richness which is completed by Pompeiian panels of unquestioned merit.

The brochure goes on to report that the Martinique towered over all adjacent structures, “furnishing views and the degree of light seldom secured in a city hotel.  The sanitary precautions, plumbing, etc. are the most complete.” Prices for rooms, according to the brochure, were $3.50 a day for room and bath, $6.00 and up for bedroom, bath and parlor.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, the area of Broadway and West 34th Street gained prominence as an important entertainment district. By the 1860s, the most fashionable playhouses and the Academy of Music were located near Union Square. The construction of Madison Square Garden brought New York’s entertainment district up to 23rd Street, along with the fashionable shopping establishments of the Ladies Mile, hotels and restaurants. By the 1880s Broadway, between 23rd and 42nd Street became New York’s glittering “Great White Way” which was lined with theaters and elegant department stores.

Restaurants and luxurious hotels followed, serving the many visitors who flocked to this part of town. The Metropolitan Opera House, located at Broadway and 39th Street opened in 1883, and sparked a theatrical move uptown. The Casino Theater, the Manhattan Opera House, and Harrigan’s (later the Herald Square Theater) were all located nearby. In 1893, the Empire Theatre opened at Broadway and West 41st Street, sparking further development in the area of Longacre Square (later called Times Square). Saks & Co, Gimbels and R.H. Macy’s anchored the shopping at 34th Street beginning in 1901-02. Restaurants such as Rector’s and Delmonico’s satisfied the gastronomical needs of New York’s wealthy, while they stayed at such hotels as the Marlborough, the Normandie and the Vendome.

To the east, Fifth Avenue had a different tone, set by the establishment of B. Altman’s vast department store and the Gorham Silver Company, as well as the Knickerbocker Club. This was confirmed by the opening, in 1893 and 1897, of the lavish Waldorf and then the Astoria Hotels on Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th Streets. One block to the west of Greeley Square, the planned Pennsylvania Station promoted much future development. Sixth Avenue and 34th Street was also the site of cross-town streetcars, the Sixth Avenue elevated, and the Hudson Tubes to New Jersey.

But when the theater district moved uptown to the Times Square area and the best stores left Sixth Avenue for Fifth Avenue, the Martinique lost business and gradually became a delinquent hotel. By 1970, the Hotel Martinique, still in private ownership, was renting rooms to New York City and the Red Cross for use as emergency housing for homeless people.  For nearly twenty years it served as one of New York’s most notorious welfare hotels.

After years of bad publicity, the city decided to empty the hotel with its dimly lit, squalid rooms and corridors and problems with lead paint and asbestos removal.  (To get the full impact of the dreadful living conditions, read “Rachel and Her Children” by Jonathan Kozol which details the crowding, lack of services and corruption which created a nightmare for family groups. When the last welfare family left the Martinique in 1989, the hotel was acquired from Season Affiliates in a 99-year lease by Harold Thurman, who owned the Hilton Hotel at JFK International Airport. It remained vacant until 1996 while Thurman renovated the hotel completely and secured a Holiday Inn franchise.

On May 5, 1998, in a move that provided reminders of its past glory, the Martinique was conferred landmark status by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Jennifer J. Raab, chairwoman of the Commission, said that they began considering landmark status out of concern that the new owner would seek to alter its exterior.

Here is a summary of the Commission’s report:

The Hotel Martinique, a major work of the prominent designer Henry J. Hardenbergh, was constructed in three phases, in 1897-98, 1901-03, and 1909-11.  Developer William R. H. Martin, who had invested heavily in real estate in this area of the city, built and expanded the hotel in response to the growth of entertainment, shopping, and transportation activities in this busy midtown section.  Martin hired the distinguished architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, who had acquired a reputation for his luxury hotel designs, including the original Waldorf and Astoria Hotels, as well as the Plaza. In his hotel and apartment house designs, Hardenbergh created picturesque compositions based on Beaux-Arts precedents, giving special care to interior planning and appointments. For the sixteen-story, French Renaissance-inspired style Hotel Martinique, the architect capitalized on the openness made possible by Greeley Square, to show off the building’s boldly-scaled mansard roof, with its towers, and ornate dormers. The glazed brick, terra cotta, and limestone-clad structure also features rusticated stonework, balconies and prominent cartouches on all three of its main facades: Broadway, 32nd Street and 33rd Street.

The hotel is now called the Martinique New York on Broadway, Curio Collection by Hilton and, against all odds, remains a stunning Beaux-Arts landmark building in the heart of midtown Manhattan just blocks away from the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, Macy’s and the Chelsea art galleries and restaurants.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 269: Hotel History: Paso Robles Inn (1891)

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 269 Hotel History: Paso Robles Inn (1891)

Stanley Turkel | August 02, 2022 15Shares

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS

For centuries, the local Salinan Indian tribe enjoyed the hot mineral water that bubbled up in what is now the center of Paso Robles. They named it “Heaven’s Spot” because of the curative powers of the sulphur springs. When the Franciscan padres arrived, the tribes’ population was greatly reduced in just four generations. The Spanish colonial government intended for their California missions to be temporary institutions which they mistakenly thought would quickly convert the Indians to Catholicism and teach them Spanish and farming methods.

In 1857, James and Daniel Blackburn purchased land in El Paso de Robles which was a rest stop for travelers on the Camino Real trail. In 1864, the 14-room Hot Springs Hotel was built and operated in conjunction with the hot and cold sulphur springs. The Blackburns were convinced that their waters could cure an amazing number of ailments including rheumatism, syphilis, gout, neuralgia, paralysis, intermittent fever, eczema, afflictions of the womb and diseases of the liver and kidneys. By 1877, a Southern Pacific Railway line from San Francisco to Paso Robles took “only” twenty-one hours.

In 1891, a magnificent new three-story hotel was built to designs by architect Jacob Leuzen which was declared to be “absolutely fireproof”. The El Paso de Robles Hotel featured a seven-acre garden and a nine-hole golf course. It also contained a 20’x40’ hot springs plunge bath as well as 32 individual bathrooms, a library, beauty salon, barbershop and billiard and lounging rooms.

In 1906, a new hot springs bathhouse decorated with marble and ceramic tile opened. It was considered one of the finest and most complete of its time in the United States. In 1913, the world-famous Polish concert pianist, Ignace Paderewski, visited the Paso Robles Hotel. After three months of treatment at the hotel’s mineral hot springs for arthritis, he resumed his concert tour. He later returned to live at the hotel and bought two beautiful ranches just west of Paso Robles where he produced award-winning wines. During the next twenty-seven years the hotel was visited by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, Jack Dempsey, Douglas Fairbanks, Boris Karloff, Bob Hope and Clark Gable, among many others. When Major League baseball teams used Paso Robles for spring training, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox stayed at the hotel and soaked in the mineral hot springs.

Then, in 1940, a spectacular fire completely destroyed the “fire-proof” Paso Robles Hotel. Fortunately, guests were able to escape unharmed. Only night clerk J.H. Emsley who discovered the fire suffered a fatal heart attack immediately after sounding the alarm. Within months after the fire, plans for a new hotel were drawn up and by February 1942, a new Paso Robles Inn opened for business.

El Paso de Robles is a city in San Luis Obispo County, California. It is known for its hot springs, its abundance of wineries, production of olive oil, almond orchards and hosting the California Mid-State Fair. As far back as 1795, Paso Robles has been known as California’s oldest watering place. By 1868, people came from Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and Alabama to enjoy the hot springs, mud baths and the iron and sand springs. Commercial winemaking was introduced to the Paso Robles region in 1882 when Andrew York from Indiana began planting vineyards and established the Ascension Winery, now the Epoch Winery.

In 1999, the Paso Robles Inn was purchased by Martin Resorts, a local family-owned enterprise, who instituted an extensive renovation project including the redrilling of the mineral spring well. In addition, they remodeled many guestrooms, added an outdoor dining room, restored the historic coffee shop, replaced the swimming pool, added thirty new hot springs spa rooms, restored the historic Grand Ballroom and opened the Steakhouse. In 2003, a devastating 6.5 earthquake damaged the Paso Robles Inn which required some new construction including eighteen new deluxe spa suites. Thanks to earlier reinforcement in 2000, the Grand Ballroom withstood the quake with only limited damage.

The Paso Robles Inn has been the cornerstone of its community for 140 years, welcoming travelers and doing its best to make guests feel at home. Paso Robles may have grown and prospered over the years, but in certain ways it has not changed; it continues to be a welcoming, relaxed city with a generous, community-oriented populace. In the spirit of the old west, the welcome sign is always out at the Paso Robles Inn.

The Paso Robles Inn is a member of Historic Hotels of America and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 268: Hotel History: Wentworth By The Sea

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 268: Hotel History: Wentworth by the Sea

Stanley Turkel | July 12, 2022

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: Wentworth By The Sea, New Castle, New Hampshire (161 rooms)

The Wentworth by the Sea (formerly the Hotel Wentworth), built in 1874 by Daniel E. Chase and Charles E. Campbell, was the largest wooden structure on the New Hampshire coast.  It was bought in 1879 by Frank Jones, wealthy owner of banks, breweries, insurance companies, racing stables, railroads and the world’s largest shoe-button company.  Jones hired the talented Frank W. Hilton (no relation of Conrad) to manage and promote the Wentworth.  Hilton introduced steam-driven elevators, Western Union telegraph, a telephone wire connected to the Rockingham Hotel, high-tech outdoor electrical arc lights, flush water closets, a dish-washing machine, croquet and lawn tennis, billiard room, bathing houses, athletic competitions, horses and an in-house orchestra.  With Frank Jone’s death in 1902, the hotel was sold but didn’t have another successful owner until Harry Beckwith bought the Wentworth in 1920 and operated it for 25 years.

In 1905, the hotel housed the Russian and Japanese delegations who negotiated the treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War.  President Theodore Roosevelt proposed the peace talks and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.  Frank Jones’s executor, Judge Calvin Page followed his will and the Wentworth provided free accommodations to both delegations.  After the final document was signed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the Japanese hosted an “International Love Feast” at the Wentworth.

In 1916, the famous 56-year-old Annie Oakley was persuaded by Manager Harry Priest to demonstrate her horsemanship and shooting skills for guests at the Wentworth.  Two sports, golfing and swimming, sum up the Beckwith focus.  He hired the famous Donald Ross to design the finest nine-hole course in New England.  Beckwith built the Ship, a massive new building shaped like a cruise liner and located between the bridge to Rye and the hotel pier.  He also created a deep ocean-fed pool with a new cement floor.  In accordance with the racist fabric of America, Beckwith promised his guests that they would receive the finest in gentile-only accommodations.  The Wentworth prospered through Prohibition and survived even the Great Depression but was closed during World War II when the military took over the hotel’s facilities for the duration.

In 1946, the Wentworth was acquired by Margaret and James Barker Smith who provided hands-on and enlightened management for 34 years until 1980. Over those years, they focused on entertainment, masquerades, Mardi Gras celebrations, photographs of guests, tennis, fresh seafood, expansion of the golf course to 18 holes, a new modern Olympic-sized pool, expansive new floral plantings, etc.  Many celebrities visited the Wentworth: Zero Mostel, Jason Robards, Colonel Sanders and Frank Perdue, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Temple, Richard Nixon, Milton Eisenhower and John Kenneth Galbraith, among many others.  On July 4, 1964, Emerson and Jane Reed became the first African Americans to overcome the hotel’s long-standing segregation policy by dining at its restaurant.

By the mid-1970s, both the Wentworth and the Smiths were aging and deteriorating.  In the fall of 1980, after thirty-four consecutive summers, the Smiths sold the hotel to a Swiss conglomerate, the Berlinger Corporation who tried without success to keep the Wentworth running year-round.  Finally Henley Properties, the fourth owner in seven years, bulldozed eighty-five percent of the “newer” buildings and gutted the oldest portion of the hotel down to its wooden studs.  With declining fortunes and changing owners, the Wentworth closed in 1982.  After plans for its demolition were announced, it appeared on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of Americas Most Endangered Places and the History Channels America’s Most Endangered.

In 1997, Ocean Properties acquired the Wentworth by the Sea and, after extensive renovation and restoration, reopened in 2003 as a Marriott resort.  The hotel is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Historic Hotels of America.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 267: Hotel History: Famous Artist Edward Hopper and His Hotel Management PaintingsNobody Asked Me, But… No. 266: Hotel History: The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, CaliforniaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 265: Hotel History: Asian American Hotel Owners AssociationNobody Asked Me, But… No. 264: Hotel History: Palmer House (1871), Chicago, IllinoisNobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Hotel History: Frederick Law OlmstedNobody Asked Me, But… No. 262: Hotel History: Tampa Bay HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 261: Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 260: Hotel History: Terminal City, The Roosevelt Hotel and The Postum Building, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 259: Hotel History: The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 258: Hotel History: The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.Nobody Asked Me, But…. No. 257: Hotel History: El Tovar & Hopi Gift ShopNobody Asked Me, But… No. 256: Hotel History: Severin Hotel Indianapolis, IndianaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 255: Hotel History: Shelton Hotel, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 254: Hotel History: St. Regis HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 253; Hotel History: Hotel PennsylvaniaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 252: Hotel History: Libby’s Hotel and BathsNobody Asked Me, But… No. 251: Wish You Were Here: A Tour of America’s Great Hotels During the Golden Age of the Picture Post CardNobody Asked Me, But… No. 250: Hotel History: Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 249: Hotel History: Ocean House at Watch HillNobody Asked Me, But… No. 248: Hotel Theresa, New York, N.Y. (1913)

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 266: Hotel History: The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 266: Hotel History: The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California

Stanley Turkel | June 01, 2022

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: The Palace Hotel (1909), San Francisco, Ca (556 rooms)

San Francisco and the Palace Hotel have shared a common heritage for more than 140 years. Inspired by a visionary developer, William Chapman Ralston, the Palace Hotel was known as the “Grande Dame of the West”, a hotel of timeless elegance and unprecedented opulence. It was designed by architect John P. Gaynor as the largest, costliest and most luxurious hotel in the world. To finance its $5 million cost, Ralston exhausted his Bank of California which collapsed in late August 1875. Soon thereafter, Ralston’s body was found floating in San Francisco Bay. Nevertheless, the Palace Hotel opened two months later on October, 1875. Nevada’s U.S. Senator William Sharon, one of Ralston’s partners, who was known as the “King of the Comstocks” ended up in control of the hotel when he paid off the Bank and Ralston’s debts with pennies on the dollar.

San Francisco and the Palace were both destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Before that tragedy, the original hotel featured the Grand Court, the carriage entrance which was surrounded by seven floors of balconies bedecked in tropical plants and lighted by hundreds of gas jets and was paved in marble and roofed in opaque glass. The guests were distinguished: Don Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil; King David Kalakaua, the last King of Hawaii (who died at the Palace Hotel); Rudyard Kipling, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Enrico Caruso. Guests were awed by the hotel’s four hydraulic elevators known as “rising rooms”. Each room was equipped with an electric call button so that every guest request could be met quickly and completely.

The following Proclamation was circulated by Mayor E.E. Schmitz:

Proclamation By The Mayor

The Federal Troops, the members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized by me to KILL any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime.

I have directed all the Gas and Electric Lighting Co.’s not to turn on Gas or Electricity until I order them to do so. You may therefore expect the city to remain in darkness for an indefinite time.

I request all citizens to remain at home from darkness until daylight every night until order is restored.

I WARN all Citizens of the danger of fire from Damaged or Destroyed Chimneys, Broken or Leaking Gas Pipes or Fixtures, or any like cause.

E. Schmitz, Mayor
April 18, 1906.

After the earthquake and fire, it took three years of rebuilding under the supervision of the architectural firm Trowbridge & Livingston (who were renowned for the St. Regis Hotel, the Knickerbocker Hotel, and the B. Altman & Company department store in New York). To keep the tradition of the Palace alive, a small wooden “Baby Palace” hotel was quickly constructed a few blocks from the ruined hotel. It had twenty-three rooms and was managed by Ernest Arbogast, the renowned chef of the original Palace Hotel. When the Palace Hotel reopened in 1909, it featured the Maxfield Parrish 16-foot mural “The Pied Piper of Hamlin” which is displayed to this day in the Pied Piper Bar. The carriage entrance was transformed into the Garden Court, one of the world’s most beautiful public places and prestigious dining room.

The following summary describes some of the unusual events and famous people who stayed at the Palace Hotel:

  • 1915: Thomas Alva Edison, the wizard of electricity, was honored by Northern California Telegraph Operators. Menus were prepared in Morse Code and orders were placed with telegraph keys along wires strung from table on miniature telegraph poles.
  • 1919: President Woodrow Wilson hosted two luncheons in support of the Versailles Treaty which ended World War I.
  • 1923: Warren G. Harding’s term as President ended suddenly when he died at the Palace Hotel after suffering from food poisoning while cruising the Alaska Coast aboard the presidential yacht.
  • 1927: Colonel Charles Lindbergh, acclaimed as a hero because of his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, flew to San Francisco to encourage the development of commercial aviation and construction of airports. He was honored with a major banquet at the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel.
  • 1934: “The Pied Piper of Hamlin”, a famous painting by Maxfield Parrish was returned to the Palace Hotel bar after fourteen years of storage at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum during Prohibition.
  • 1935-1943: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt were guests at the Palace as well as Don Ameche, Cesar Romero, Douglas Fairbanks, Loretta Young, Tyrone Power, Daryl Zanuck and Bob Hope.
  • 1943: San Francisco honored Madame Chiang Kai-shek at a magnificent banquet at the Palace Garden Court.
  • 1954: Ernest Henderson, president of the Sheraton Corporation purchased the Palace Hotel and renamed it the Sheraton-Palace. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spoke at a banquet at the Sheraton-Palace during his American tour in 1959.
  • 1973: Sheraton sold the Palace to the Japanese Kyo-Ya group along with all their hotels in the Hawaiian Islands but continued to manage them.
  • 1989: The Sheraton-Palace Hotel closed for extensive renovation and reopened as the Sheraton Palace (no hyphen) following a $150 million restoration.
  • 1990: The hotel dropped the Sheraton name by its new owner Starwood Hotels and became part of the Luxury Collection as the Palace Hotel.
  • 1991: Visitors were delighted with the results of the restoration by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, chief architects for the project and Page & Turnbull, specialists in historic restoration. The restored Garden Court, according to architectural critic Allan Temko “is not only the most resplendent room in San Francisco, but one of the largest… There are some 25,000 individual panes in the immense translucent skylight, arranged in 692 geometric panels, and every one of them has been taken down, cleaned, mended where necessary, and replaced in a rebuilt armature under a handsome new outer skylight.” Another writer placed the number of pieces of stained glass in the four-story dining room’s ornamental dome at 70,000. The restored room was highlighted by ten 700-pound crystal chandeliers. On the fourth floor was a glass-domed swimming pool and health spa.
  • 1997: The David Fincher film The Game, starring Michael Douglas, was shot in the Garden Court.
  • 2015: The hotel received an extensive renovation to its guest rooms, indoor pool, fitness center, lobby, promenade and the one and only Garden Court.

A review of the Palace grillroom in the late 1890s that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle was true then and, even more so, in 2016:

“Comparison? Well, there is none, for the reason that the grill room has no competitors; it has only imitators. The Palace grill room came first… then the globe trotters discovered it, and they carried its fame to the four corners of the earth… and the imitators fell into line.

The Palace grill is the fin de siècle in café, restaurant cuisine in America. It has no peer, and the zest of the Grill Room steak would bring Chateaubriand from his grave… Over its silver-framed tables and beneath its white ceiling and glittering chandeliers the great world meets to eat, to drink and talk. It has brought famine to half the club dining rooms…”

The Palace Hotel is a member of the Historic Hotels of America and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 267: Hotel History: Famous Artist Edward Hopper and His Hotel Management PaintingsNobody Asked Me, But… No. 265: Hotel History: Asian American Hotel Owners AssociationNobody Asked Me, But… No. 264: Hotel History: Palmer House (1871), Chicago, IllinoisNobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Hotel History: Frederick Law OlmstedNobody Asked Me, But… No. 262: Hotel History: Tampa Bay HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 261: Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 260: Hotel History: Terminal City, The Roosevelt Hotel and The Postum Building, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 259: Hotel History: The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 258: Hotel History: The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.Nobody Asked Me, But…. No. 257: Hotel History: El Tovar & Hopi Gift ShopNobody Asked Me, But… No. 256: Hotel History: Severin Hotel Indianapolis, IndianaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 255: Hotel History: Shelton Hotel, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 254: Hotel History: St. Regis HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 253; Hotel History: Hotel PennsylvaniaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 252: Hotel History: Libby’s Hotel and BathsNobody Asked Me, But… No. 251: Wish You Were Here: A Tour of America’s Great Hotels During the Golden Age of the Picture Post CardNobody Asked Me, But… No. 250: Hotel History: Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 249: Hotel History: Ocean House at Watch HillNobody Asked Me, But… No. 248: Hotel Theresa, New York, N.Y. (1913)Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 247: Hotel History: Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 265: Hotel History: The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA)

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA)

The Asian American Hotel Owners Association is a trade association that represents hotel owners. As of 2022, AAHOA has approximately 20,000 members who own 60% of the hotels in the United States and are responsible for 1.7% of the nation’s GDP. More than one million employees work at AAHOA member-owned hotels, earning $47 billion annually and provide 4.2 million U.S. jobs across all sectors of the hospitality industry.

Indian Americans in the hotel and motel industry early on faced discrimination, both from the insurance industry and from competitors placing “American owned” signs outside their properties to take business from them. Another group of Indian hoteliers was created in Atlanta in 1989 to address discrimination issues and increase awareness of Asian Americans working in the hospitality industry under the name Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

The Asian American Hotel Owners Association was originally founded to fight racism. As early as the mid-1970’s, Indian Americans hoteliers faced discrimination from banks and insurance carriers. Around that time, after delegates to a regional fire marshal’s convention reported that Patels had set fire to their motels and submitted phony claims, insurance brokers refused to sell insurance to Indian owners.

To fight this problem and other forms of discrimination, the Mid-South Indemnity Association was formed in Tennessee. It grew nationwide and eventually changed its name to the INDO American Hospitality Association. Another group of Indian hoteliers came together in Atlanta in 1989 also to address discrimination issues and to increase awareness of Asian Americans in the hospitality industry. With the help of Michael Leven, then president of Days Inn of America, they formed the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. By the end of 1994, these two groups merged with the following mission:

AAHOA provides an active forum in which Asian American hotel owners through an exchange of ideas with a unified voice, can communicate, interact, and secure their proper position within the hospitality industry, and be a source of inspiration by promoting professionalism and excellence through education and community involvement.

The new owners brought their business expertise and their families to operate these motels. They instituted modern accounting techniques to monitor the all-important cash flow. Four times cash flow became the mantra of the Patels. If the distressed motel produced $10,000 per year in revenues and could be acquired for $40,000, it was profitable to a hard-working family.

They renovated and upgraded rundown motels to improve cash flow, sold the properties and traded up to better motels. This was not without difficulties. Conventional insurance companies wouldn’t provide coverage because they believed these immigrant owners would burn down their motels. In those days banks were unlikely to provide mortgages either. The Patels had to finance each other and self insure their properties.

In a July 4, 1999 New York Times article, reporter Tunku Vardarajan wrote, “The first owners, in a manner consistent with many an emergent immigrant group, scrimped, went without, darned old socks and never took a holiday. They did this not merely to save money but also because thrift is part of a larger moral framework, one that regards all nonessential expenditure as wasteful and unattractive. It’s an attitude buttressed by a puritanical aversion to frills and frivolities, one that has its roots as much in the kind of Hinduism that the Patels practice as in their historical tradition as commercial perfectionists.”

Author Joel Millman writes in The Other Americans Viking, 1997, New York:

Patels took a sleepy, mature industry and turned it upside down- offering consumers more choices while making the properties themselves more profitable. Motels that attracted billions in immigrant savings turned into real estate equity worth many billions more. That equity, managed by a new generation, is being leveraged into new businesses. Some are related to lodging (manufacturing motel supplies); some related to real estate (reclaiming derelict housing); some simply cash seeking an opportunity. The Patel-motel model is an example, like New York’s West Indian jitneys, of the way immigrant initiative expands the pie. And there is another lesson: as the economy shifts from manufacturing to services, the Patel-motel phenomenon demonstrates how franchising can turn an outsider into a mainstream player. The Gujarati model for motels might be copied by Latinos in landscaping, West Indians in homecare or Asians in clerical services. By operating a turnkey franchise as a family business, immigrants will help an endless stream of service providers grow.

As investment and ownership expanded, the Patels were accused of a wide variety of crimes: arson, laundering stolen travel checks, circumventing immigration laws. In an unpleasant burst of xenophobia, Frequent Flyer magazine (Summer 1981) declared, “Foreign investment has come to the motel industry…..causing grave problems for American buyers and brokers. Those Americans in turn are grumbling about unfair, perhaps illegal business practices:  there is even talk of conspiracy.” The magazine complained that the Patels had artificially boosted motel prices to induce a buying frenzy.  The article concluded with an unmistakable racist remark, “Comments are passed about motels smelling like curry and dark hints about immigrants who hire Caucasians to work the front desk.” The article concluded, “The facts are that immigrants are playing hardball in the motel industry and maybe not strictly by the rule book.” The worst visible manifestation of such racism was a rash of “American Owned” banners displayed in certain hotels across the country. This hateful display was repeated in post- Sept 11 America.

In my article, “How American-Owned Can You Get”, (Lodging Hospitality, August 2002), I wrote,

“In post-Sept. 11 America, signs of patriotism are everywhere: flags, slogans, God Bless America and United We Stand posters. Unfortunately, this outpouring sometimes oversteps the boundaries of democracy and decent behavior. After all, true patriotism encompasses the best features of our founding documents, and the very best of America is reflected in its diversity. Conversely, the worst if reflected when any one group attempts to define “American” in their own image. Unfortunately, a few hotel owners have attempted to describe their own peculiar version of “American.” When at the end of 2002 the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City installed an entrance banner saying “an American-owned hotel,” the owners attempted to deflect criticism by explaining, “The issue of American-owned is basically not disparaging toward other hotels. We want to provide our guests with an American experience. We want people to know they are going to get an American experience. We are not really interested in what the other hotels are or what they are not.”

This explanation is as wrongheaded as it gets. What is an “American experience” in a country that prides itself on its cultural diversity? Is it only white bread, hot dogs and cola? Or does it encompass all the arts, music, dance, food, culture and activities that various nationalities and citizens bring to the American experience?

In 1998, AAHOA Chairman Mike Patel announced to the hotel industry that the time had come to identify AAHOA’s 12 Points of Fair Franchising. He said that the major purpose was “to create a franchising environment that promotes equality and is mutually beneficial to all parties.”

AAHOA’s 12 Points of Fair Franchising

Point1:        Early Termination and Liquidated Damages

Point 2:       Impact/ Encroachment/ Cross Brand Protection

Point 3:       Minimum Performance & Quality Guarantees

Point 4:        Quality Assurance Inspections/ Guest Surveys

Point 5:       Vendor Exclusivity

Point 6:       Disclosure and Accountability

Point 7:        Maintaining Relationships with Franchisees

Point 8:        Dispute Resolution

Point 9:       Venue and Choice of Law Clauses

Point 10:      Franchise Sales Ethics and Practices

Point 11:      Transferability

Point 12:      Sale of the Franchise System Hotel Brand

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting www.stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Categories

Instagram

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 267: Hotel History: Famous Artist Edward Hopper and His Hotel Management Paintings

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 267: Hotel History: Famous Artist
Edward Hopper and His Hotel Management Paintings
Stanley Turkel | June 21, 2022

Hotel History: Famous Artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and his Hotel Management paintings
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

The American artist Edward Hopper was known for interest in hotels,
motels, tourist homes, and the wide scope of hospitality services. From
1920 through 1925 he worked as a commercial illustrator for Hotel
Management and Tavern Topics from the Great Depression through the
Cold War. He augmented his knowledge of hospitality services as a
frequent guest in several lodgings on the long-distance automobile trips he took with his wife, the artist Josephine Hopper. Beginning in the mid-
1920s and through the early 1960s, Hopper explored hospitality services subjects in paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints. Sometimes he
titled these works as “hotel” or “motel,” but just as often he did not. More
than half are composites of sites, with no small amount of invention and
artistic license.

In the early 1920s, Hopper produced illustrations and covers for Tavern
Topics, published and distributed by the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New
York, and in 1924 and 1925, he drew eighteen brilliantly illuminated
covers for the trade magazine Hotel Management. Edward and Jo lived
much of their lives in Manhattan, which, like other regions across the
country, experienced a massive hotel-building boom in the first quarter of
the twentieth century. Hotel-generated revenue fell by more than 25
percent in the Depression years of 1929 through 1935, which was hardly
a deterrent to Hopper.


Between the World Wars, Hopper produced at least two etchings and five
paintings synthesizing architectural components of various urban
hotels—some of which he knew from living in New York, while others
harked back to images suggested in the pages of Hotel Management during
the years he produced its covers. For the most part, the covers depict
elegant couples dancing, dining and boating in a hotel environment.


Looking out from the vantage point of their home at 3 Washington Square
North in New York, the Hoppers would have encountered several hybrid
rental structures, including a ten-story campanile at 53 Washington
Square South. Designed by McKim, Mead & White and built in 1893, this
was actually part of the Hotel Judson, the proceeds from which benefitted
the colonnaded Judson Memorial Church next door. Hopper captured this
view in the painting November, Washington Square, which he commenced
in 1932 and to which he added sky components in 1959. The Hoppers’
friend, artist John Sloan, lived at the Hotel Judson for eight years, until he
was evicted by New York University (which had earlier annexed the
property). The three-story, burnt orange structure at far left in the painted
version is the House of Genius boardinghouse, at 61 Washington Square
South, which, at various times from the 1910s through the 1930s, housed
artists, authors, poets, and musicians, including Theodore Dreiser, John
Dos Passos, Eugene O’Neill, and Alan Seeger.

Apartment hotels are among the structures figuring in the architectural
types Hopper synthesized in selected compositions such as House at Dusk.
Popular, urban lodging houses offering short-term leases, these were essentially apartments but with the amenities of a hotel. These middle-
class hybrid spaces contained multiple units with shared bathrooms and frequently contained sitting rooms with pianos and offered a restaurant,
a doorman, and daily maid service.


The result of at least nine study drawings, Hotel Lobby is probably
Hopper’s most comprehensive treatment of the hospitality services
theme. Seated in an upholstered chair, a young woman in a blue dress
reads her book, reclining at angles that mirror those of her more mature
counterpart across the foyer. On the back wall, a view through dark drapes
in an open doorway reveals a restaurant with linen-covered tables. The
lines formed on the floor reflect period design principles treating carpet
as a means to guide crowds and determine the placement of furniture.
Even more important for crowd and climate control is the revolving
door—cropped at left in Hotel Lobby. For all Hopper’s urban architectural
imagery, revolving doors appear in just two of the studies for this work
and in only one other painting (Sunlight in a Cafeteria, 1958, in the Yale
University Art Gallery). Variations of the revolving door had existed since
at least the mid-nineteenth century with the quest to regulate ventilation
and keep temperatures constant in public settings. Allowing no air in from
the outside, a revolving door was, in the words of an early promoter,
“always closed.” This helps explain how Hotel Lobby, a painting finished in
January of 1943, and featuring a couple in winter clothing, could also
depict a coatless woman in a short-sleeve dress.

Many of the 18 known Hopper HM front covers were done in the mid-
1920s. For the most part, the covers depict one or more elegant couples enjoying an activity such as dancing, dining and boat set against a created
hotel background. Hopper used actual hotels—Ohio’s Cincinnatian Hotel
and New York’s Mohonk Mountain House—as inspiration on two of the
covers. The illustrations’ light colors and energetic activities are a distinct
departure from Hopper’s more-somber famous works, such as “Automat”
or the iconic “Nighthawks”. The Hoppers, Edward and Josephine [also a
painter], had lunch every day at The Hotel Dixie in New York.


And perhaps absorbing the hospitality mindset that it’s all about the guest
experience, the VMFA has gone one step farther, recreating the hotel room
seen in Hopper’s 1957 work “Western Hotel.”

Edward and Jo began renting summer cottages in South Truro on Cape
Cod in 1930 and would buy property and then build a home there a few
years later. By the 1940s, Cape Cod possessed a number of tourist
homes—furnished single-family dwellings offering rooms for short-term
stays, often seasonally. Deeply interested in domestic architecture,
Hopper painted several tourist homes over his long career, but he seems
in retrospect to have been particularly interested in one such residence in
Provincetown on Cape Cod. He spent several long nights parked before the
structure, making drawings, resulting in a painting that offers a view into
the front rooms of the house—apparently, the inhabitants wondered what
the artist was doing, sitting there in his Buick sketching away.


The Hoppers took long periodic road trips in search of subject matter
across New England, the West, and Mexico, among other locales. On these
jaunts, they stayed at tourist homes and, eventually, as Edward’s income
increased, in motels and motor courts. Portions of Jo’s diaries—covering
the mid-1930s to the 1960s, and recently given to the Provincetown Art
Association and Museum—reveal page after page of extended
descriptions of these lodgings and the couple’s feelings about them. One
of the more colorful and lengthier of these entries discusses their stay at
the Weseman Motor Court in El Paso from December 15 through
December 22, 1952. Hopper painted Western Motel during a fellowship at the Huntington Hartford Foundation in Pacific Palisades, California, but
the canvas also evokes Jo’s descriptions of and contemporary press
discussing lodgings in El Paso.


The Hoppers took five long trips to Mexico between 1943 and 1955, on
which they also visited several regions in the United States; they traveled
by train in 1943, but on the other jaunts they traveled by car. They
frequently sized up a locale based on the quality of their lodgings and the
view offered by their room and from the structure’s roof. Much of what we
know about Hopper’s time in Mexico comes from the couple’s
correspondence on hotel and motel letterhead and postcards. Dating from
his first trip to Mexico, Saltillo Rooftops enlists the stovepipe of his hotel
rooftop at the Guarhado House (where he and Jo stayed) in the foreground
to balance the unfolding span of the Sierra Madre mountains in the
background. In Monterrey Cathedral, he returns to his practice of using his
lodgings (in this case the Hotel Monterrey) as a framing device to
synthesize a visual inventory of hotels and other structures—the cropped
signage for the Hotel Bermuda appears at the lower left. Hotels and motels
may provide a useful metaphor for understanding much of Hopper’s work
in general. He took for granted that hotels and paintings offer temporary
experiences, serve multiple individuals, and are, ultimately, highly crafted
illusions. Hopper viewed his art—his paintings and watercolors in
particular—as sites in which to invest temporarily and upon which to
muse later with equal parts introspection and nostalgia. Sixty-nine of
these paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, and magazine covers are
featured—along with thirty-five works on the theme by other artists—in
the exhibition Edward Hopper and the American Hotel at the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

It is perhaps fitting that the exhibition is organized by and makes its debut
there. The Hoppers visited Richmond on several occasions. His own art
would be featured in subsequent biennial exhibitions. Hopper returned to the museum in 1953 for a Judge the Jury exhibition, around the time the
museum purchased House at Dusk. A photograph from this visit shows
Hopper and Richmond artist Bell Worsham standing before Hopper’s
painting Early Sunday Morning. Following up on some spirited
communication, via the couple’s lodgings on this visit, the museum’s
director, Leslie Cheek Jr., assured Hopper, “While in Richmond you will be
quartered at the Jefferson Hotel, a Beaux-Arts structure I believe you will
enjoy.” There were plenty of hotels in which Cheek could have placed
Hopper, but he made sure that the artist was staying at an establishment
recognized as the “finest in the South.”


Hopper’s work for Hotel Management did indeed, influence his career. The
things he did for Hotel Management—and even some of the photographs
and advertisements and articles—provided a storehouse of images and
ideas he would return to again and again.


All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by
visiting stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:


• Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
• Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
• Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
• Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf
(2014)
• Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
• Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
• Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
• Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
• Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz,
Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
• Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)
If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-
related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:
• slip and fall accidents
• wrongful deaths
• fire and carbon monoxide injuries
• hotel security issues
• dram shop requirements
• hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-
related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 264: Hotel History: Palmer House (1871), Chicago, IL

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 264: Hotel History: Palmer House (1871), Chicago, Illinois

Stanley Turkel | April 20, 2022

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: Palmer House, Chicago, IL (1,639 rooms)

The original Palmer House was built in 1871 by Potter Palmer who began his career as a bank clerk in upstate New York. He later became a dry-goods store owner in Chicago where he revolutionized the retail trade. He was the first to make big window displays, to use big advertising spaces, to send goods on approval to homes and to hold bargain sales. He became a brilliant hotel man as he applied his successful department store methods to the operation of his hotel. He saw no reason why clerks, chefs and head waiters should not be subject to the same discipline as floorwalkers and counter-jumpers. The Hotel Gazette said he could be seen at all hours in the lobby and corridors of the Palmer House watching and directing.

There have been three different Palmer House hotels. The first, known as The Palmer, was built as a wedding gift from Potter Palmer to his bride Bertha Honorè. It opened on September 26, 1871, but incredibly was destroyed by fire thirteen days later in the Great Chicago Fire. Palmer quickly rebuilt the Palmer House which reopened in 1875. It was advertised as “The World’s Only Fire-Proof Hotel” and contained a grand lobby, ballrooms, elaborate parlors, bridal suites, cafes and restaurants. The hotel attracted well-to-do permanent residents who enjoyed the spacious quarters, master bedrooms, walk-in closets, multiple bathrooms, housekeeping and porter services. By 1925, Palmer erected a new 25-story hotel which was promoted as the largest hotel in the world. The architects were Holabird & Roche who were well known for their groundbreaking Chicago School of skyscrapers. They also designed the Stevens Hotel, the Cook County Courthouse, the Chicago City Hall and the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City.

The new Palmer House was once remembered for the fact that 225 silver dollars were embedded in the checkerboard tile floor of the barbershop. They were put there by William S. Eaton, lessee of the shop, who cashed in on the idea within the next few years. Everyone wanted to see that floor out of sheer curiosity or to verify that a barber could thus display his money.

As one of the longest-operating hotels in America, the Palmer House has an outstanding roster of famous guests including every president since Ulysses S. Grant, numerous world leaders, celebrities and Chicago’s movers and shakers. The Empire Room at the Palmer House became the showplace in Chicago. During the World’s Fair of 1933, an unknown ballroom dance team, Veloz and Yolanda won the hearts of the city and performed there for more than a year. They were followed by live entertainers including Guy Lombardo, Ted Lewis, Sophie Tucker, Eddie Duchin, Hildegarde, Carol Channing, Phyllis Diller, Bobby Darin, Jimmy Durante, Lou Rawls, Maurice Chevalier, Liberace, Louis Armstrong, Harry Belafonte, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald, among others.

In 1945, Conrad Hilton went to Chicago to purchase the Stevens Hotel, the largest hotel in the world with three thousand rooms and three thousand baths. After a prolonged negotiation with Stephen A. Healy, the owner millionaire contractor and ex-bricklayer, Hilton acquired the Stevens. Later in that same year, Hilton bought the Palmer House from Potter Palmer for $19,385,000. Hilton hired the recently-discharged U.S. Army Air Force Colonel Joseph Binns who had the ability to manage both hotels. Hilton reported in his “Be My Guest” autobiography: “I had gone to Chicago hoping to buy one gold mine and came home with two.”

In 1971, the Palmer House celebrated its 100th birthday. Octogenarian Conrad Hilton was present for the ceremonies. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daly said, “Throughout the country and the world, there is no better known nor more highly esteemed hotel institution than the Palmer House. …. People who have been in and out of our city think of the Palmer House when they think of Chicago.”

In 2005, the Palmer House was acquired by Thor Equities for $240 million. Joseph A. Sitt, president of Thor, embarked on a $170 million renovation that included upgrading 1,000 rooms (out of a total of 1,639), adding an underground parking garage, removing a series of fire escapes that marred the State Street facade and adding a new bar and restaurant to the hotel’s spectacular lobby. Perhaps the Palmer House Hilton promotional literature says it best:

Situated just blocks from the Magnificent Mile and the downtown Chicago Theater District, the wedding gift from Potter Palmer continues to delight the weariest of travelers and the most demanding of hosts.

The Palmer House Hilton is a member of the Historic Hotels of America program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It was Chicago’s first hotel with elevators, and the first hotel with electric light bulbs and telephones in guest rooms. Although the hotel had been dubbed the longest continuously-operating hotel in North America, it closed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and reopened on June 17, 2021.

My Latest Book “Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2” was published in 2020.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting www.stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+-Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2 (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases, provides asset management and hotel franchising consultation. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Frederick Law Olmsted

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Hotel History: Frederick Law Olmsted

Stanley Turkel | March 29, 2022

Central Park, museumofthecity.org.

By Stanley Turkel

Landscape Architect: Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux. Olmsted and Vaux’s most famous achievement was Central Park in New York City which resulted in many other urban park designs, including Prospect Park in what is now the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City and Cadwalader Park in Trenton. Olmsted was called by Charles Eliot Norton “the greatest artist that America has yet produced”. His ‘A Journey in the Sea-board Slave States’ was originally published in 1856 and arose from journeys in the south which Olmsted, a passionate abolitionist had undertaken in 1853-1854.

Other projects that Olmsted was involved in include the country’s first and oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York; the country’s oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York; one of the first planned communities in the United States, Riverside, Illinois; Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Quebec; The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut; Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut; the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts; Highland Park in Rochester, New York; the Grand Necklace of Parks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cherokee Park and parks and parkway system in Louisville, Kentucky; Walnut Hill Park in New Britain, Connecticut, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; the master plans for the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Maine, Stanford University near Palo Alto, California, and The Lawrenceville School; and Montebello Park in St. Catharines, Ontario. In Chicago his projects include: Jackson Park; Washington Park; the main park ground for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition; the south portion of Chicago’s “emerald necklace” boulevard ring; and the University of Chicago campus. In Washington, D.C., he worked on the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building.

The quality of Olmsted’s landscape architecture was recognized by his contemporaries, who showered him with prestigious commissions. Daniel Burnham said of him, “He paints with lakes and wooded slopes; with lawns and banks and forest-covered hills; with mountainsides and ocean views …” His work, especially in Central Park, set a standard of excellence that continues to influence landscape architecture in the United States. He was an early and important activist in the conservation movement, including work at Niagara Falls; the Adirondack region of upstate New York; and the National Park system; and though little known, played a major role in organizing and providing medical services to the Union Army in the Civil War.

Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 26, 1822. His father, John Olmsted, was a prosperous merchant who took a lively interest in nature, people, and places; Frederick Law and his younger brother, John Hull, also showed this interest. His mother, Charlotte Law (Hull) Olmsted, died before his fourth birthday. His father remarried in 1827 to Mary Ann Bull, who shared her husband’s strong love of nature and had perhaps a more cultivated taste.

When the young Olmsted was almost ready to enter Yale College, sumac poisoning weakened his eyes, so he gave up college plans. After working as an apprentice seaman, merchant, and journalist, Olmsted settled on a 125-acre farm in January 1848 on the south shore of Staten Island, New York, a farm which his father helped him acquire.

Marriage and family

On June 13, 1859, Olmsted married Mary Cleveland (Perkins) Olmsted, the widow of his brother John (who had died in 1857). He adopted her three children, John Charles Olmsted (born 1852), Charlotte Olmsted (who later married a Bryant), and Owen Olmsted.

Frederick and Mary also had two children together who survived infancy; a daughter, Marion (born October 28, 1861), and a son Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., born in 1870. Their first child, John Theodore Olmsted, was born on June 13, 1860, and died in infancy.

Olmsted had a significant career in journalism. In 1850 he traveled to England to visit public gardens, where he was greatly impressed by Joseph Paxton’s Birkenhead Park. He subsequently wrote and published Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England in 1852.

Interested in the slave economy, he was commissioned by the New York Daily Times (now The New York Times) to embark on an extensive research journey through the American South and Texas from 1852 to 1857. His dispatches to the Times were collected into three volumes (A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), A Journey Through Texas (1857), A Journey in the Back Country in the Winter of 1853-4 (1860).

Olmsted thought that the lack of a Southern white middle class and the general poverty of lower-class whites prevented the development of many civil amenities which were taken for granted in the North.

The citizens of the cotton States, as a whole, are poor. They work little, and that little, badly; they earn little, they sell little; they buy little, and they have little – very little – of the common comforts and consolations of civilized life. Their destitution is not material only; it is intellectual and it is moral … They were neither generous nor hospitable and their talk was not that of evenly courageous men.

New York City’s Central Park

Andrew Jackson Downing, the charismatic landscape architect from Newburgh, New York, was one of the first to propose developing New York’s Central Park in his role as publisher of The Horticulturist magazine. A friend and mentor to Olmsted, Downing introduced him to the English-born architect Calvert Vaux, whom Downing had brought to the U.S. as his architectural collaborator. After Downing died in July 1852 in a widely publicized fire on the Hudson River steamboat Henry Clay, Olmsted and Vaux entered the Central Park design competition together, against Egbert Ludovicus Viele among others. Vaux had invited the less experienced Olmsted to participate in the design competition with him, having been impressed with Olmsted’s theories and political contacts. Prior to this, in contrast with the more experienced Vaux, Olmsted had never designed or executed a landscape design.

Their Greensward Plan was announced in 1858 as the winning design. On his return from the South, Olmsted began executing their plan almost immediately. Olmsted and Vaux continued their informal partnership to design Prospect Park in Brooklyn from 1865 to 1873. That was followed by other projects. Vaux remained in the shadow of Olmsted’s grand public personality and social connections.

The design of Central Park embodies Olmsted’s social consciousness and commitment to egalitarian ideals. Influenced by Downing and his own observations regarding social class in England, China, and the American South, Olmsted believed that the common green space must always be equally accessible to all citizens, and was to be defended against private encroachment. This principle is now fundamental to the idea of a “public park”, but was not assumed as necessary then. Olmsted’s tenure as Central Park commissioner was a long struggle to preserve that idea.

In 1865, Vaux and Olmsted formed Olmsted, Vaux & Co. When Olmsted returned to New York, he and Vaux designed Prospect Park; suburban Chicago’s Riverside parks; the park system for Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s grand necklace of parks; and the Niagara Reservation at Niagara Falls.

Olmsted not only created numerous city parks around the country, he also conceived of entire systems of parks and interconnecting parkways to connect certain cities to green spaces. Some of the best examples of the scale on which Olmsted worked are the park system designed for Buffalo, New York, one of the largest projects; the system he designed for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the park system designed for Louisville, Kentucky, which was one of only four completed Olmsted-designed park systems in the world.

Olmsted was a frequent collaborator with architect Henry Hobson Richardson, for whom he devised the landscaping schemes for half a dozen projects, including Richardson’s commission for the Buffalo State Asylum. In 1871, Olmsted designed the grounds for the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane in Poughkeepsie.

In 1883, Olmsted established what is considered to be the first full-time landscape architecture firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. He called the home and office compound Fairsted. It is now the restored Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. From there Olmsted designed Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the campuses of Wellesley College, Smith College, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, as well as the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, among many other projects.

Frederick Law Olmsted is known as the “father of American Landscape Architecture.”

My Latest Book “Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2” was published in 2020.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting www.stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases, provides asset management and hotel franchising consultation. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 262: Hotel History: Tampa Bay Hotel

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 262: Hotel History: Tampa Bay Hotel

Stanley Turkel | March 08, 2022

A postcard from the Tampa Bay Hotel, circa 1902. Florida Historical Society.

By Stanley Turkel

Hotel History: Tampa Bay Hotel (511 rooms)

The success of Henry M. Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine convinced Henry B. Plant that Tampa needed a spectacular new hotel. With the agreement of the town council for a new bridge across the Hillsborough River and for substantial real estate tax abatement, Plant chose New York City architect John A. Wood to design a spectacular hotel. The cornerstone of the Tampa Bay Hotel was laid on July 26, 1888 and the 511-room hotel opened on February 5, 1891 with a 23-foot high rotunda supported by thirteen granite columns. Florida’s first fully electrified hotel contained the following features:

  • Guest rooms: one bathroom for every three rooms (while the Ponce de Leon had shared bathrooms at the end of the hallways); carpets, soft beds, telephones, hot water heating, a fireplace and a circular fifteen-inch diameter mirror set in the ceiling of each room with three bulbs below to throw out light to all parts of the rooms. In addition, there were two electric lights placed in the side of the dressing table.
  • Sixteen suites: each with double parlors, three bedrooms, sliding doors, two bathrooms and private hallways.
  • Public facilities included a café, billiard room, telegraph office, barbershop, drug store, flower shop, special ladies area for shuffleboard, billiard room, telegraph office, and café facilities. Also available were needle and mineral water baths, massages and a physician. There were other small shops in the arcade area.
  • Recreation facilities included tennis and croquet courts, rickshaw rides, an 18-hole golf course, stables, hunting trips and excursions by electric launch on the Hillsborough River to observe alligators and mullet.
  • Evening meals were formal with fancy dresses, jackets and ties. There was live music by the orchestra placed on the second level of the large dining room. After dinner, the guests separated—men to the bar for cigars and after-dinner liqueurs; women to the sitting room for cool drinks and conversation.
  • Another service provided by the hotel was fifteen dog kennels for the accommodation of pets carried along by hotel guests during their stay in Florida. The kennels were located in a half-acre park with shade trees and enclosed by a six-foot fence. The hotel’s brochure claimed that it had “the most complete dog accommodations of any hotel in existence.”

Henry Bradley Plant (October 27, 1819 – June 23, 1899), was a businessman, entrepreneur, and investor involved with many transportation interests and projects, mostly railroads, in the southeastern United States. He was founder of the Plant System of railroads and steamboats.

Born in 1819 in Branford, Connecticut, Plant entered the railroad service in 1844, serving as express messenger on the Hartford and New Haven Railroad until 1853, during which time he had entire charge of the express business of that road. He went south in 1853 and established express lines on various southern railways, and in 1861 organized the Southern Express Co., and became its president. In 1879 he purchased, with others, the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad of Georgia, and later reorganized the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad, of which he became president. He purchased and rebuilt, in 1880, the Savannah and Charleston Railroad, now Charleston and Savannah. Not long after this he organized the Plant Investment Co., to control these railroads and advance their interests generally, and later established a steamboat line on the St. John’s river, in Florida. From 1853 until 1860 he was general superintendent of the southern division of the Adams Express Co., and in 1867 became president of the Texas Express Co. In the 1880s, most of his accumulated railroad and steamship lines were combined into the Plant System, which later became part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

Plant is particularly known for connecting the previously isolated Tampa Bay area and southwest Florida to the nation’s railroad system and establishing regular steamship service between Tampa, Cuba, and Key West, helping to spark significant population and economic growth in the region. To promote passenger traffic, Plant built the large Tampa Bay Hotel resort along his rail line through Tampa and several smaller hotels further south, starting the area’s tourist industry. His semi-friendly rival, Henry Flagler, similarly sparked growth along Florida’s opposite coast by building the Florida East Coast Railroad along with several resorts along its route.

In the 1896-97 season, Plant built a casino/auditorium, and 80 x 110 foot exhibition building in the Tampa Bay Hotel and a combined auditorium and swimming pool in the rear. The eastern end of the clubhouse contained two bowling alleys and shuffleboard court. When needed as an auditorium, the tiled pool filled with spring water could be covered with a wooden floor. When the hall, which seated 1,800 persons, was not used as a theater, the dressing rooms of the actors became changing rooms for the bathers. The hotel had great wide verandas, beautiful gardens, arches of electric light, oriental ceramics, beautiful statues and paintings, Turkish rugs, Chinese bronze vases. Mr. and Mrs. Plant took trips to Europe and the Far East to select and purchase furniture and other objects to furnish the public rooms.

A hotel postcard of 1924 described the beautiful grounds as follows:

A jewel so magnificent should have an appropriate setting and so it has, in a tropical garden of rare beauty of foliage and species. The acreage surrounding the hotel should match its noble proportions and so it permits of orange groves, alluring walks, and enticing drives through long lines of palmetto and under live oaks trailing their gray banners of Spanish moss.

Alongside a small stream were planted many tropical plants and fruits including roses, pansies, bamboos, oleander, papayas, mangos and pineapples. Since occasional cold weather could damage tropical plants, a glassed-in conservatory was built to grow plants and flowers for guest rooms, public areas and dining room tables. After a trip to the Bahamas, head gardener Auton Fiche returned with a boat-load of tropical plants. An 1892 catalogue of fruits, flowers and plants growing on hotel grounds listed twenty-two kinds of palm trees, three varieties of bananas, twelve varieties of orchids and various citrus trees including orange, lime, lemon, grapefruit, mandarin and tangerine.

Even today, you can see why the Tampa Bay Hotel was the jewel of Plant’s Florida Gulf Coast Hotels. Much of the original building is now used by the University of Tampa and houses the Henry B. Plant Museum. When it opened on January 31, 1891, the journalist Henry G. Parker in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette wrote,

The new Tampa Bay Hotel: It was reserved for the sagacious and enterprising railroad and steamboat magnate, Mr. H. B. Plant, to reap the honor of erecting in tropical Florida the most attractive, most original and most beautiful hotel in the South, if not in the whole country; and it is a hotel of which the whole world need to be advised. The entire estate, including land and building, cost two millions of dollars, and the furniture and fittings a half million more. Nothing offends the eye, the effect produced is one of the astonishment and delight.

Despite all the hotel’s features, it was never a commercial success in Plant’s time. He wasn’t interested in the financial reports and claimed that the hotel was worthwhile if only to enjoy its great German pipe organ. The Henry B. Plant Museum in the Tampa Bay Hotel (established in 1933) recalls the hotel’s gilded age, when formal dress for dinner was standard and rickshaws carried guests through the hotel’s exotic gardens. The Spanish-American War Room tells the story the hotel played in the 1898 conflict between the United States and Spanish-held Cuba. Because Tampa was the city nearest to Cuba with both rail and port facilities, it was chosen as the point of embarkation for war. The hotel was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Plant’s son, Morton Freeman Plant (1852-1918), was vice president of the Plant Investment Company from 1884 to 1902 and attained distinction as a yachtsman. He was part owner of the Philadelphia baseball club in the National League, and sole owner of the New London club in the Eastern League of the younger Plant’s many gifts to hospitals and other institutions the most notable were three dormitories and the unrestricted gift of $1,000,000 to the Connecticut College for Women. Plant’s former 1905 mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City is now the home of Cartier.

My Latest Book “Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2” was published in 2020.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting www.stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases, provides asset management and hotel franchising consultation. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

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NobodyAsked Me, But… No. 261: Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 261: Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

Stanley Turkel | February 15, 2022

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS

Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

The Homestead is a famous luxury resort that opened a decade before the American revolutionary war. Located in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains, the area has the largest hot springs in Virginia. Native Americans used the waters to rejuvenate themselves during their many excursions through the area.

Captain Thomas Bullett and Charles and Andrew Lewis were part of the militia and surveyors during the French and Indian War. They were told of the many healing qualities of the waters in the area. In 1764, at the end of the war, Capt. Bullett received Gold and Silver medals for his services and was awarded a colonial land grant of 300 acres.

Within two years, the land was cleared and an 18-room wooden hotel was built. In 1766, The Homestead was named in honor of the Homesteaders who built the resort and bathhouses. From 1764 until 1778, Bullett operated the resort until he died during the American Revolutionary War. His family retained ownership of the resort until 1832.

In 1832, Dr. Thomas Goode purchased the resort from the Bullett family along with the Resort in Warm Springs and Healing Springs. He was a prominent physician who was responsible for the European style of many different spa therapies. One of the most famous treatments still in use is the Cure, which is a salt scrub followed by a Swiss shower. Dr. Goode passed away in 1858 and upon his death, the family took over the ownership until the early 1880s.

M.E. Ingalls, a prominent lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio came to the area in 1881, while doing research for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company who was looking to extend their lines. After seven years, Ingalls, J.P. Morgan and other investors came to an agreement to purchase The Homestead and to build a spur into the Hot Springs area. Within the first year of ownership, the investors raised over one million dollars to build a new hotel. On July 2, 1901, a fire which started in the pastry shop, burned the entire building. With the resort not being at full capacity, everyone escaped without any serious injury or loss of life. The staff was able to save the Spa, Casino, the cottages in Cottage Row and the Virginia Hotel which was immediately opened for the accommodation of the displaced guests.

The day after the fire, Ingalls, who was President of the resort, and the many investors met to discuss the resort’s future. With the smoke and embers still in the distance and insurance not available, they came to the conclusion to rebuild the resort. Within a year, the Great Hall was completed and the Homestead was back in business. Former guests of the resort returned to the grand hotel they loved. Within two years, the West Wing was added. In 1911, the Ingalls family acquired the resort. The East Wing was added in 1914, and M.E. Ingalls, Sr. passed away. In 1921, the Empire, Crystal, Garden rooms and Theatre were completed and in 1929, the tower was finished. The last major addition during the Ingalls family ownership was the Garden Wing in 1973.

From December 1941 until June 1942, following the United States entry into World War II, the Homestead served as a high-end internment camp for 785 Japanese diplomats and their families until they could be exchanged through neutral channels for their American counterparts. The diplomats were later transferred to the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia.

The Homestead features two golf courses. The Old Course started as a six-hole layout in 1892, and the first tee is the oldest in continuous use in the United States. It was expanded to 18 holes by 1901, and Donald Ross redesigned it in 1913. The Cascades Course is the most famous of the three, and is usually ranked among the top 100 U.S. courses by both Golf Digest and GOLF Magazine. It was designed by William S. Flynn (who was also a main architect for Shinnecock Hills), and opened in 1923. Famed PGA Tour champion Sam Snead lived in or near Hot Springs all of his life, and served for decades as the Homestead’s golf pro. One of the Homestead’s restaurants, Sam Snead’s Tavern, contains many memorabilia related to his career.

The Homestead offers a host of outdoor activities including skiing and snowboarding, horseback riding, carriage rides, shooting, tennis, swimming, fly fishing, falconry, and mountain biking.

The ski area at The Homestead was opened in 1959. It is the oldest ski resort in Virginia, and the second-oldest continuously operating alpine ski resort in the Southern United States. The resort’s northwest-facing slope is serviced by five lifts, including a double chairlift which accesses the intermediate and advanced terrain at the top of the hill, and four surface lifts which serve the beginner terrain at the bottom. The resort offers a half-pipe and a terrain park for skiers and snowboarders, and a variety of other winter activities including snow tubing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice skating, and snowmobile tours.

In 1993, Club Resorts, a part of ClubCorp, acquired The Homestead and began a total restoration. In 2001, The Homestead unveiled a new Grand Ballroom and outdoor pool, along with state-of-the-art snowmaking for the ski area and a new Shooting Club House and Pavilion. In 2008, The Homestead built a 30′ x 20′ foot ice skating rink on the north slope of the property, next to the outdoor restaurant and gift shop.

In 2006, KSL Resorts acquired management of The Homestead and sold it to Omni Hotels in 2013.

The Omni Homestead Resort has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

My Latest Book “Great American Hotel Architects Volume 2” was published in 2020.

All of my following books can be ordered from AuthorHouse by visiting www.stanleyturkel.com and clicking on the book’s title:

  • Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2009)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York (2011)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi (2013)
  • Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt, Oscar of the Waldorf (2014)
  • Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (2016)
  • Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels West of the Mississippi (2017)
  • Hotel Mavens Volume 2: Henry Morrison Flagler, Henry Bradley Plant, Carl Graham Fisher (2018)
  • Great American Hotel Architects Volume I (2019)
  • Hotel Mavens: Volume 3: Bob and Larry Tisch, Curt Strand, Ralph Hitz, Cesar Ritz, Raymond Orteig (2020)

If You Need an Expert Witness:

Stanley Turkel has served as an expert witness in more than 42 hotel-related cases. His extensive hotel operating experience is beneficial in cases involving:

  • slip and fall accidents
  • wrongful deaths
  • fire and carbon monoxide injuries
  • hotel security issues
  • dram shop requirements
  • hurricane damage and/or business interruption cases

Feel free to call him at no charge on 917-628-8549 to discuss any hotel-related expert witness assignment.183

ABOUT STANLEY TURKEL

Stanley Turkel was designated as the 2020 Historian of the Year by Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He had previously been so designated in 2015 and 2014.

This award is presented to an individual for making a unique contribution in the research and presentation of historic hotels and whose work has encouraged a wide discussion of greater understanding and enthusiasm for American History.

Turkel is the most widely-published hotel consultant in the United States. He operates his hotel consulting practice serving as an expert witness in hotel-related cases, provides asset management and hotel franchising consultation. He is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier Emeritus by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Categories

Instagram

hotelonlinenewsInstagram post 18072439732009889Instagram post 18037678936156831Instagram post 17870090452391124Instagram post 17976176743256949Instagram post 17993811919233333Follow on Instagram

Tags

homestead resorthotel historynobody asked mestan turkelstanley turkelthe homestead

RELATED NEWS:

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 260: Hotel History: Terminal City, The Roosevelt Hotel and The Postum Building, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 259: Hotel History: The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 258: Hotel History: The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.Nobody Asked Me, But…. No. 257: Hotel History: El Tovar & Hopi Gift ShopNobody Asked Me, But… No. 256: Hotel History: Severin Hotel Indianapolis, IndianaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 255: Hotel History: Shelton Hotel, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 254: Hotel History: St. Regis HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 253; Hotel History: Hotel PennsylvaniaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 252: Hotel History: Libby’s Hotel and BathsNobody Asked Me, But… No. 251: Wish You Were Here: A Tour of America’s Great Hotels During the Golden Age of the Picture Post CardNobody Asked Me, But… No. 250: Hotel History: Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New YorkNobody Asked Me, But… No. 249: Hotel History: Ocean House at Watch HillNobody Asked Me, But… No. 248: Hotel Theresa, New York, N.Y. (1913)Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 247: Hotel History: Driskill Hotel, Austin, TexasNobody Asked Me, But… No. 246: Hotel History: Hotel McAlpin, New York, N.Y. (1912)Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 245: Boone Tavern Hotel, Berea, Kentucky (1855)Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 244: Hotel History: Wormley HotelNobody Asked Me, But… No. 243: Hotel History: Hotel Roanoke, VirginiaNobody Asked Me, But… No. 242: Hotel History: Fisher Island, Miami, FloridaStanley Turkel Named the Recipient of the 2020 Historic Hotels of America Historian of the Year Award