Built to Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi

By Stanley Turkel CMHS ISHC

Built to Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi is a sequel to my 2011 book, Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York. It has 86 chapters, one for each century-old hotel (of 50 rooms or more) east of the Mississippi River and each is illustrated by an antique postcard. The Foreword was written by Joseph McInerney, CHA, President of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. The book has been accepted for promotion, distribution and sale by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute. My research into the histories of these hotels turned up fascinating stories about single-minded developers, brilliant and accidental architects, dedicated owners, famous and infamous guests and even the story of an underground bunker-shelter the size of two football fields built under a hotel to house the U.S. Government in the event of a nuclear war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491810064

Stanley Turkel CMHS ISHC

Stanley Turkel is a recognized authority and consultant in the hotel industry. He operates his hotel, hospitality and consulting practice specializing in litigation support assignments, asset management and hotel franchising agreements. Prior to forming his hotel consulting firm, Turkel was the Product Line Manager for Hotel/Motel Operations at the International Telephone & Telegraph Co. overseeing the Sheraton Corporation of America. Before joining IT&T, he was the General Manager of the Summit Hotel (762 Rooms), General Manager of the Drake Hotel (680 Rooms) and Resident Manager of the Americana Hotel (1842 Rooms), all in New York City. Turkel is an Emeritus member of Friends of the Tisch Center and lectures at the NYU Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management. He is a member of the prestigious International Society of Hospitality Consultants and is certified as a Master Hotel Supplier by the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. He served for eleven years as Chairman of the Board of the Trustees of the City Club of New York. Stanley Turkel is one of the most widely-published hotel consultants in the United States. His 250 plus articles on various hotel subjects have been published in all the major trade press outlets and posted on the Hotel-Online, HotelNewsResource, eTurboNews and BlueMauMau websites. His 2009 book “Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry” was promoted, distributed and sold by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute. His 2011 book, “Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York” was called “passionate and informative” by the New York Times. Stanley Turkel brings many talents and accomplishments to his clients including his broad-based experience, his informed knowledge, his legendary perseverance and research capability and his sterling reputation.

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BUILT TO LAST:

100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi

STANLEY TURKEL, CMHS, ISHC

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AuthorHouse™ LLC

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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© 2013 Stanley Turkel, CMHS, ISHC. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/18/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1007-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1006-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013914857

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

The Battle House Hotel (1852)

Grand Hotel (1847)

Hotel Dupont (1913)

Belleview Biltmore Hotel (1897)

The Breakers Hotel (1896)

Casa Monica Hotel (1888)

Gasparilla Inn & Club (1913)

Lakeside Inn (1883)

Ponce De León Hotel (1888)

Tampa Bay Hotel (1891)

Jekyll Island Club Hotel (1881)

Hotel Allegro (1894)

Hotel Burnham (1895)

Jw Marriott Hotel (1914)

Hotel Monaco (1912)

Palmer House (1871)

French Lick Springs Hotel (1845)

Severin Hotel (1913)

West Baden Springs Hotel (1902)

Boone Tavern Hotel (1909)

Bienville House Hotel (1835)

Le Pavillon Hotel (1907)

Monteleone Hotel (1886)

Roosevelt Hotel (1893)

Royal Orleans (1843)

The Cliff House (1872)

Colonial Inn (1888)

Portland Regency Hotel & Spa (1895)

Samoset Hotel (1889)

Admiral Fell Inn (1770)

Historic Inns Of Annapolis (1727)

Cranwell Resort, Spa And Golf Club (1894)

The Colonial Inn (1716)

Copley Plaza Hotel (1912)

The Harbor View Hotel (1891)

Kendall Hotel (1894)

Lenox Hotel (1900)

Liberty Hotel (1851)

Nantucket Hotel & Resorts (1891)

Parker House Hotel (1855)

Red Lion Inn (1773)

Grand Hotel (1887)

Island House Hotel (1852)

Stafford’s Perry Hotel (1899)

Balsams Grand Resort Hotel (1866)

Eagle Mountain House (1879)

The Hanover Inn At Dartmouth College (1780)

Mount Washington Hotel (1902)

Mountain View Grand Resort (1865)

Wentworth By The Sea (1874)

The Chalfonte Hotel (1876)

Congress Hall (1879)

Nassau Inn (1756)

The Beekman Arms & Delamater Inn (1766)

The Garden City Hotel (1874)

Mohonk Mountain House (1869)

The Otesaga Hotel (1909)

The Sagamore Hotel (1883)

The Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa (1913)

Old Edwards Inn And Spa (1878)

Pinehurst Resort (1895)

The Cincinnatian Hotel (1882)

Great Southern Hotel (1897)

Bedford Springs Resort & Spa (1806)

Bellevue-Stratford Hotel (1904)

The Gettysburg Hotel (1797)

The Inn At Pocono Manor (1902)

Hotel El Convento (1651)

Ocean House (1868)

Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel (1909)

General Morgan Inn & Conference Center (1884)

The Hermitage Hotel (1910)

The Peabody (1869)

Union Station Hotel (1900)

Basin Harbor Club (1886)

The Equinox (1769)

Middlebury Inn (1827)

The Boar’s Head (1834)

The Homestead (1766)

Jefferson Hotel (1895)

The Martha Washington Hotel & Spa (1832)

Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center (1882)

The Churchill Hotel (1906)

Willard Intercontinental Hotel (1904)

The Blennerhassett Hotel (1889)

The Greenbrier (1778)

Bibliography

DEDICATION

To my dear wife Rima Sokoloff Turkel who fulfills the multiple roles of daughter, wife, mother, college professor and friend with grace, kindness, forbearance and love.

FOREWORD

By Joseph A. McInerney, CHA

We have become a people longing for nostalgia. It seems like there’s not a day that passes where we don’t hear someone ask Remember when? or say I miss the old days. New has become old, and any reappearance of the old is now new.

Stanley Turkel is one of the best writers I know at capturing our history—the old—and infusing it with new life and relevance. In his two previous books on classic American hotels and the legends of the hotel business, Stanley brought to vivid life many characters and places that contributed to the greatness of the lodging industry. Now, in this latest book, he adds a wonderful chapter to the rich history we share.

It is a rare gift for someone to write so vividly as to make the reader feel as if they are in a particular place or time experiencing what they are reading first-hand. Stan has that talent, a talent I was first exposed to decades ago when the International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation acquired the Sheraton Corporation of America. Stan was ITT’s Product Line Manager for Hotel Operations and I worked in Sheraton’s Boston headquarters at 470 Atlantic Avenue. He provided us with the knowledge and guidance to integrate Sheraton into the world of ITT.

It was a time that I call our Camelot. ITT and Sheraton had dynamic leaders—Harold Geneen, ITT’s president & CEO, and Bud James, Sheraton’s president & CEO. ITT and Sheraton were rapidly growing. It was an exciting time for business and the hotel industry; it provided us with a great opportunity to be part of a special time in our industry. Stan and I remember fondly when we were in Camelot and talk about it often.

As you read through the pages of this latest book on some of the most historic hotels ever opened in the eastern United States, you’ll get a taste of Stan’s gift for yourself.

Along with having a knowledgeable guide on this walk through the history of our industry, you’ll discover something about the author: not only does he love to tell a story, but he writes as someone with a deep connection to the places about which he’s writing. His descriptions of the histories of these fine old hotels, their operations, and the people who made them run are told from the perspective of one who knows first-hand what it takes to make a good hotel truly great.

So put everything else aside for a while and check in to some of the greatest hotels in American history.

Stanley Turkel, your host, is ready to greet you in the lobby.

Joseph A. McInerney, CHA

President/CEO

American Hotel & Lodging Association

PREFACE

My entry into the hotel business was the result of a solid middle-class upbringing, a good education, a modicum of luck and unexpected business opportunities. I was born and raised in the Bronx in New York City. I attended public schools including DeWitt Clinton High School where I studied Latin, Hebrew and calculus and graduated at 15 years of age. After two years at the University Heights campus of New York University, I enlisted in the United States Army Air Force as an aviation cadet for pilot training and served for two years at air force bases in New Jersey, North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Ohio and Massachusetts. After my discharge, I returned to New York University’s School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance in Greenwich Village where I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. In preparation for my career in the laundry business, I attended the American Institute of Laundering in Joliet, Illinois. After graduating at the top of my class, I joined Nathan Turkel, my entrepreneur father in his Manhattan-based New York Laundry (407 East 91st Street) which he developed over a 32-year period. I worked intensively in all the departments of this large commercial laundry including the washroom with 300 lb. washing machines and extractors; two 8-roll flatwork ironers, ten 100 lb. tumbler/dryers, steam-operated pressing machines, shirt-ironing units; dry cleaning machines and presses; steam boilers, electric generators, hot water units, compressors, heat exchangers, etc. I also filled in for vacationing route-men and drove laundry trucks all over New York.

My letter in the New York Times on Sunday, August 13, 2000 describes some of my memories of East 91st Street:

The New York Times

Sunday, August 13, 2000

Memories of East 91st Street

To the Editor:

As the follow-up to the Streetscapes article The 400 Block of East 91st Street; A West Side Food Name Shapes an East Side Block [July 30], I have some first-hand historical information about 407 East 91st Street.

For 32 years (from 1920 to 1952) my father, Nathan Turkel, owned and operated the New York Wet Wash Laundry (later the New York Laundry) in that five-story industrial building. The laundry, established in 1911, provided private laundry and dry cleaning service to families in Manhattan and in the Bronx, as well as wholesale laundry service to rooming houses, restaurants and small hotels.

The laundry occupied two floors, with the remaining three floors leased to industrial tenants. The power plant had two generators that provided electricity for the laundry and tenant use. The waste steam from the generators was used to preheat boiler feed water in an early energy-conservation installation.

As late as 1949, the so-called home routes (close to East 91st Street) were serviced by horse and wagon. When I sometimes worked as vacation relief for the regular route-men, I discovered that the horses knew the customers’ addresses and invariably stopped in front of the next building for a pickup of dirty laundry.

Incidentally, in 1948 the price for 25 pounds of wet wash was $1.60, picked up soiled at 6 a.m. and delivered clean and extracted later the same day.

Stanley Turkel

Manhattan

When the New York Laundry was sold three years later, I went to work for the Victor Kramer Company, a well-known laundry consulting firm which specialized in advising hospitals and hotels about laundry and linen control solutions. For seven years, I advised individual hospitals, state psychiatric institutions and prisons how to operate their laundries successfully. One of our clients was the Tisch Hotel Corporation which later hired me as their back-of-the-house expert, including laundries, housekeeping, kitchens, storage, trash collection, engineering and maintenance. At the time, they owned and operated the Laurel-in-the-Pines, Lakewood, N.J.; the Grand Hotel, Highmount, N.Y.; the Traymore and Ambassador Hotels, Atlantic City, N.J.; the Belmont Plaza and McAlpin Hotels in New York City. Soon thereafter, Laurence and Preston Robert Tisch acquired the Loews Theater Company, created the Loews Hotel Corporation and began to build new hotels: the Summit Hotel, the Americana of New York, the City Squire Hotel and the Regency Hotel in New York City; the Americana in San Juan, Puerto Rico; the Americana in Bal Harbour, Florida. My expanded responsibilities included the design and oversight of the back-of-the-house departments of all the Loews Hotels: laundry, linen control, housekeeping, engineering and maintenance, guest room inspections, etc.

Subsequently, I was appointed as the Resident Manager of the 1840-room Americana of New York (now the Sheraton New York Hotel & Tower) on 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue. This intensive on-the-job training was a total immersion experience. I lived on the 45th floor and often worked around the clock. The general manager was Tom Troy whose forbearance, patience and training helped me to learn the craft of hotelkeeping. Previously, Tom had trained and worked at the Statler Hotel Company. His stories about the genius of Ellsworth Statler were stored in my memory bank until I wrote my book: Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry (AuthorHouse 2009).

After one year as second-in-command of the Americana of New York, I was named the General Manager of the 640-room Drake Hotel on 56th Street and Park Avenue. After two and a half years at the luxurious Drake Hotel (now demolished), I became the General Manager of the 762-room Summit Hotel at 51st Street and Lexington Avenue (now called the DoubleTree Hotel). When the Summit was built in 1969, it was the first new hotel in New York in 30 years and was designed by the famous Florida architect, Morris Lapidus. In a critical comment about its design, a critic said that it was too far from the beach.

After three years at the Summit Hotel, I was recruited by the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation who had recently acquired the Sheraton Corporation of America. After a year as assistant to the ITT Vice President of Consumer Services, Howard Miller, I was promoted to Product Line Manager for worldwide Hotel and Motel Operations. For the next seven years, I traveled all over the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, the Mideast, Hawaii and the Far East on ITT/Sheraton business. I negotiated new hotel developments and reviewed all the domestic and international Sheraton Hotels’ budgets, performances and competitiveness.

During those years, the Dunfey Hotel Company in New Hampshire was Sheraton’s largest franchisee. When Dunfey was acquired by the Aetna Life and Casualty Company, Jack Dunfey asked me to serve as his consultant. This year-long consulting contract enabled me to remain in New York City and then to establish my own hotel consulting practice.

During the past thirty years, as one of the most widely-published hotel consultants in the United States, I have realized that knowledge of the history of the hotel business is essential for anyone interested in a career in the lodging industry. As Confucius wrote, Study the past if you would divine the future. With the rapid technological changes taking place, it is more than ever important to know where we have been in order to predict where we are going.

INTRODUCTION

In 2009, I published Built To Last: 100+ Year Old Hotels in New York. My main criteria for inclusion of the thirty-two properties was that their structures were at least one hundred years old:

38415.jpg Twenty of them began their existence as hotels and still operate as hotels

38418.jpg Two began as university clubs with hotel rooms and still operate as clubs

38420.jpg Six began as hotels and are now apartment buildings

38422.jpg Two began as private clubs and are now hotels

38424.jpg One began as a hotel and now operates as a subsidized housing facility.

38427.jpg One started as a hotel, was converted into an office building and is now becoming a hotel again.

I also reported that eighteen of the thirty two hotels were saved from destruction by creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The landmarks law was enacted in 1965 in response to New Yorker’s concern that important iconic buildings were being demolished. The 1963 demolition of the architecturally-distinguished Pennsylvania Station (designed by McKim, Mead & White) increased public awareness of the need to protect the city’s architectural heritage.

Unfortunately, very few cities and states have such landmark preservation laws to protect distinguished hotels from the vagaries of the market place. However, the following federal programs have saved more than one million properties:

1. National Register of Historic Places, established in 1966 by Congress, is the United States federal government’s official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. Such designated properties may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property. While National Register recognition provides some financial incentive to owners, protection of the property from destruction is not guaranteed.

2. National Trust for Historic Preservation was founded in 1949 by congressional charter to support preservation of historic buildings. Its Save America’s Treasures office is now closed. Congress did not fund the program in 2011 and has no plans to fund it in the near future. The National Trust has compiled a list of hotels registered as Historic Hotels of America because they are at least 50 years old and have faithfully maintained their historic character and ambience.

3. America’s 11 Most Endangered Places

Each year since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has compiled a list of America’s Most Endangered Places in an effort to protect America’s architectural, cultural and national heritage.

4. National Treasures

National Treasures are irreplaceable, critically threatened places across the country where the National Trust for Historic Preservation is making a deep organizational investment. Guided by more than 60 years of experience, the National Trust is taking direct action to protect these places and promote their history and significance, engaging local preservationists to help us advance the cause of preservation nationally.

For each National Trust Treasure, the National Trust for Historic Preservation creates coordinated campaigns that tap expert resources across the organization, including preservation, advocacy, legal, marketing and fund-raising. When the National Treasures has met the Trust’s protection goals, the site will rotate out of the active campaign collection to free up resources for a new endangered place.

5. Historic Tax Credits

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s policy work encourages the adoption of laws and policies that support preservation; currently through the promotion of the Creating American Prosperity through Preservation (CAPP Act) which will enhance the federal historic tax credit.

Do not forget that while the National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation, it does not protect a registered structure from destruction. In that regard, it is not as protective as the New York Landmarks Preservation law. It is therefore somewhat of a miracle that I was able to identify 86 hotels (of 50 rooms or more) east of the Mississippi River which are more than 100 years old. The various federal laws have provided some incentive for preservation of deserving old buildings.

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard

In February 2000, there was a unique exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard. Evans was a titan of 20th century photography who portrayed broken-down plantations, sharecropper families and bone-dry Southern farms during the Depression, grimy factories in the North and the facial expressions of New York subway passengers.

Evans collected picture postcards throughout his life during the golden age from 1900 into the 1920s. This phenomenon was spurred by the United States postal service’s 1907 ruling that the blank side of a postcard could include the address of the recipient and a message. At the same time, the Post Office put a 1¢ postage stamp price on these postcards. Another boon was the drop in the cost of offset color lithography which gave postcards the look of hand-colored images, with soft blues, greens and reds.

During this period, picture postcard categories included train stations, automobiles, boardwalks, main streets in villages, state capitols, factories, occupations, hotels and summer resorts, and many more subjects.

Most of the images in this book are antique picture postcards. My acquisition of these postcards was achieved over many years by three fortuitous circumstances:

• 36 came on loan from Kathe Nylen, ISHC, CRE, Certified General Appraiser, PBTK Consulting 6100 Elton Ave. Suite 1000, Las Vegas, NV 89107-0123. Kathe is a fabulous collector of antique postcards.

• 25 were purchased by me on Ebay with the invaluable help of my daughter-in-law Susan Forrest

• 25 are in my collection

In response to the newly-imposed stringent requirements by AuthorHouse regarding the public domain status (only before 1923) and copyright approvals (after 1923), Susan Forrest undertook the herculean task of identifying postcard publishers and/or hotel managers for permission to use their postcards images. From the list below, you will observe that none of these postcards would have been usable except with proof of copyright permission from the original publisher or owner of the hotel for all cards printed after 1923. Those printed earlier than 1923 are in the public domain. With high intelligence, persistence and savvy, Susan succeeded against all odds and secured the necessary permission to utilize the postcards you will find in my book. Her cogent summary report provides the necessary approvals and permission to utilize the postcards:

Postcard Approvals for Built to Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels East of the Mississippi

The following postcards were published by Curt Teich (Tike) Co. According to Heather Johnson from the Curt Teich Archives at the Lake County Discovery Museum (847-968-3381), none of Teich’s postcards were copyrighted before 1964. Publication ceased in 1978. Heather Johnson provided the dates for each card, after researching the numbers on each card that I provided to her. None of these cards were published in 1964 or later so all are in the public domain.

The Battle House—Mobile, AL (1950)

Hotel duPont—Wilmington, DE (1933)

Belleview Biltmore—Bellair, FL (1941)

Cranwell Resort—Lenox, MA (1934)

Island House Hotel—Mackinac Island, MI (1908)

Balsams Grand Resort—Dixville Notch, NH (1923)

Nassau Inn—Princeton, NJ (pre-1964)

Otesaga Resort—Cooperstown, NY (1959)

Sagamore Resort—Bolton Landing, NY (1936)

Grove Park Inn—Asheville, NC (1935)

The Peabody—Memphis, TN (1933)

Willard Hotel—Washington, DC (1955)

The Blennerhassett—Parkersburg, WV (1955)

The Greenbrier Hotel—White Sulphur Springs, WV (1931)

The following postcards were published by Tichnor (Ticknor) Brothers Inc., Boston, and according to Jane Winton of the archives in the Boston Public Library (617-859-2280), these postcards were never copyrighted. She spoke to Alan Tichnor (in the past)