hotel history

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 216: Hotel History: Ellsworth M. Statler

Stanley Turkel | July 9, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Ellsworth M. Statler In 1950, the hotel industry named Ellsworth Milton Statler “Hotel Man of the Half Century”, even though he had been dead for 22 years. Statler’s impact on inn-keeping was so great, no one else even came close. While many considered Statler the premier hotel figure, he was not a typical executive. A plain, rugged man who started to work at the age of nine, he continued to wear twenty dollar suits and four dollar shoes even after he became successful, and resembled Will Rogers more than Rudolph Valentino. When Statler began in the hotel business, the following practic...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 215: Hotel History: The TWA Hotel

Stanley Turkel | June 19, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: The TWA Hotel (2019) On May 15, 2019, New York’s spectacular new TWA Hotel opened at John F. Kennedy International Airport. At a cost of more than $250 million, two new hotel wings containing 512 guestrooms were built behind the landmark Trans World Airlines Flight Center designed by famed architect, Eero Saarinen which first opened in 1962. Saarinen was born in 1910 in Finland and emigrated to the United States in 1923. He started his career with an apprenticeship with his father – the prolific Art Deco architect Eliel Saarinen – and went on to become one of the most important architects of...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 214: Hotel History: Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo, Egypt

Stanley Turkel | June 5, 2019

Hotel History: Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt (1841) Shepheard's Hotel history goes back 178 years when it was originally built by Englishman Samuel Shepheard in Cairo. It was originally named the "Hotel des Anglais" (English Hotel). Shepheard co-owned the hotel with a Mr. Hill who was Mohammed Ali Pasha's head coachman. In 1845, Hill relinquished his interest in the hotel which Shepheard sold in 1861. Shepheard's Hotel was known for its opulence, its famous guests and as a governmental base for the military. Its stained glass windows, Persian carpets, lavish gardens, terraces and great granite pillars were renowned throughout the Mid...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 213: Hotel History: Sheraton’s Classic Advertising Campaigns

Stanley Turkel | May 14, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: "Keyed-Up Executives Unwind at Sheraton" In 1965, the Sheraton Corporation of America, under the leadership of President Ernest Henderson, created a brilliant advertising campaign: "Keyed-up Executives Unwind at Sheraton". It was broadly promoted all over the U.S. in print media, TV advertising and locally by individual Sheraton Hotels. Among my collection of Sheraton artifacts is a translucent plexiglass paperweight which has a small figure of a businessman with a wind-up key in his back which says "Keyed-Up Executives Unwind at Sheraton". His picture was everywhere: on television, on posters, in...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 212: Hotel History: Hotel del Coronado, Coronado, California (1888)

Stanley Turkel | April 23, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Hotel del Coronado, Coronado, California * The renowned Hotel del Coronado is a grand example of elegant Victorian architecture providing one of the most beautiful and popular beach resorts in the United States. The Del was conceived by two mid-western businessmen, Elisha Babcock, Jr. and Hampton L. Story who bought the entire undeveloped 4,100 acres on the peninsula of Coronado for $110,000. Babcock was a retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana and Story the owner of the Story & Clark Piano Company in Chicago. Babcock and Story hired the architectural firm of Reid & Reid consi...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 211: Hotel History: Asian American Hotel Owners Association*

Stanley Turkel | April 2, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Asian American Hotel Owners Association* The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) is a trade association that represents hotel owners. As of 2018, AAHOA has approximately 18,000 members who incredibly own about half the 50,000 hotels in the United States. If you bear in mind that Indian Americans constitute less than one percent of Americas population, the conquest of this business niche is extraordinary. Furthermore, about 70% of all Indian hotel owners are named Patel, a surname that shows that they are members of a Gujarati Hindu subcaste. How did this economic miracle come to pass? ...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 210: Hotel History: John Q. Hammons (1919-2013)

Stanley Turkel | March 12, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS John Q. Hammons: Master Hotel Developer and Builder One of the great hotelier/developers of our time. John Q. Hammons developed 200 hotel properties in 40 states. But mere statistics hide the essence of Mr. Hammons special development techniques. He disdained the standard feasibility studies when assessing potential sites for hotel development and instead relied on his own experience, knowledge and intuition. Here are some reflections by John Q. Hammons on being an exceptional hotel developer: Be in Tune With Change: Have a Plan of Action. People do not stop to think what change means. That's the thing about su...

Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 209: Hotel History: The Americana of New York (1962)

Stanley Turkel | February 19, 2019

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: The Americana of New York The Americana of New York opened on September 25, 1962 as a 2,000-room convention hotel. It was constructed by brothers Laurence Tisch and Preston Tisch, co-owners of the Loews Corporation and was the first over 1,000-room hotel to be built in New York since the Waldorf Astoria in 1931. With 51 floors, it was acclaimed for many years in its advertising and by the media as the tallest hotel in the world, based on the number and height of its inhabited floors. The Americana was built, along with the New York Hilton facing Sixth Avenue on the next block, to serve the huge num...