hotel history
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 265: Hotel History: Asian American Hotel Owners Association
Stanley Turkel | May 10, 2022
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 com...
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...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Hotel History: Frederick Law Olmsted
Stanley Turkel | March 29, 2022
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”. ...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 262: Hotel History: Tampa Bay Hotel
Stanley Turkel | March 8, 2022
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 conta...
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...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 260: Hotel History: Terminal City, The Roosevelt Hotel and The Postum Building, New York
Stanley Turkel | January 25, 2022
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Terminal City (1911) Terminal City originated as an idea during the reconstruction of Grand Central Terminal from the old Grand Central Station from 1903 to 1913. The railroad owner, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, wished to increase capacity of the station’s train shed and rail yards, and so it devised a plan to bury the tracks and platforms and create two levels to its new train shed, more than doubling the station’s capacity. At the same time, chief engineer William J. Wilgus was the first to realize the potential of selling air rights, the right to build atop the now-undergr...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 259: Hotel History: The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
Stanley Turkel | January 3, 2022
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: The Greenbrier (682 rooms) The original hotel, the Grand Central Hotel, was built on this site in 1858. It was known as "The White" and later "The Old White". Beginning in 1778, people came to follow the local Native American tradition to "take the waters" to restore their health. In the 19th century, visitors drank and bathed in the sulphur water to cure everything from rheumatism to an upset stomach In 1910, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway purchased the historic resort property and embarked upon a major expansion. By 1913, the railroad had added The Greenbrier Hotel (the central section of t...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 258: Hotel History: The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Stanley Turkel | December 7, 2021
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Willard Hotel (394 rooms) The Willard InterContinental Washington, commonly known as the Willard Hotel, is a historic luxury Beaux-Arts hotel located at 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in downtown Washington, D.C. Among its facilities are numerous luxurious guest rooms, several restaurants, the famed Round Robin Bar, the Peacock Alley series of luxury shops, and voluminous function rooms. Owned by InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, it is two blocks east of the White House, and two blocks west of the Metro Center station of the Washington Metro. The National Park Service and the U.S. Department o...
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