-ellsworth statler

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~statler/statler/docs/statlerhotels/statlerhotels.ht ml Ellsworth Milton Statler was born on Oct. 26, 1863, the son of William Jackson Statler and Mary Ann McKinney. The Statlers moved to Bridgeport, OH about 1864, which is across the Ohio River from Wheeling, W. Virginia. After working for a short time at the LaBelle Glass Factory in Kirkwood, OH, Ellsworth got a job as a bellboy at the McLure House Hotel after his 13th birthday and became Head Bellboy by age 15. After many years of doing various jobs, running a few businesses, and learning the ropes, he started the Statler Hotel chain. The hotels were all across the country and noted for their excellent customer service and special amenities that no other hotel provided at the time.

On July 4, 1896 he opened "Statler's Restaurant" in the lower level of the Ellicott Square Building in Buffalo that seated up to 500 patrons. After many trials and barely avoiding bankruptcy, through the power of adversting and hard work, the restaurant was a success and by 1901 he had $60,000 in savings. His brother William J. Statler eventually moved from Wheeling and took over the operation. The restaurant closed in 1940. At the age of 37 he built the temporary "Statler's Hotel", a 2,084 room hotel and dining room for the 1901 Pan-American Expo which ran from May 1 to November 1 located in Buffalo, NY. He built another even larger temporary hotel, the Inside Inn, at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. After these events, the hotels were torn down. The first "permanent" Statler Hotel that Ellsworth built was also in Buffalo, NY which opened on Jan. 18, 1908 with 300 rooms on the corner of Washington and Swan Streets. The architectural firm Esenwein and Johnson designed the building and was built by the firm Mosier and Summers. This hotel was renamed The Hotel Buffalo in 1922 when a second Statler Hotel was built here. It was sold in the 1930's by the Hotels Statler Company, and in 1967 was closed and later torn down in 1968. On Oct. 18, 1912, the second Statler Hotel opened in Cleveland, OH at 1127 Euclid Ave. The architectural firm was George B. Post and Sons and Ellsworth hired Louis Rorimer as the interior decorator (Louis also decorated the rest of the Statler Hotels as well). This hotel was 16 stories tall with 800 rooms. An expansion wing of 300 additional rooms were added for travelling men. The hotel was converted into an office building in 1980 as the Statler Office Building. Today, this hotel has been converted into 295 apartment suites called the Statler Arms. This $58 million rehab project includes a number of ground-floor shops, as well as 59 apartments reserved for middle-income people. Visit their website for more information.
The Statler Hotel located at 1539 Washington Blvd. Detroit, Michigan was built in 1914 and opened on Feb. 6, 1915. The building is fifteen stories tall (with a basement) and originally had eight hundred guestrooms, each with a bath, thus creating a new standard of excellence in the hotel industry. George B. Post was a prominent New York architect. The building was designed using subtle Italian and Adamesque architectural detailing. In 1958, it became known as the Statler Hilton after the Hilton

bought out the chain. The hotel was renamed the Detroit Heritage Hotel and it closed its doors in 1975. Sadly, after failed attempts to sell and renovate this property, demolition of the hotel began in August 2005 in an effort to "clean up" the city's image for Super Bowl XL (40) which was held in Detroit at Ford Stadium on Feb. 5, 2006 (Steelers vs Seahawks - Steelers won).

On Dec. 11, 1916, Ellsworth acquired the operating lease for the upcoming Hotel Pennsylvania to be built in New York. He paid $1,000,000 a year for the lease. This allowed Ellsworth to finally achieved his dream of operating a hotel in New York City, NY when the hotel opened on Jan. 25, 1919. It was the largest hotel at the time with 2,200 rooms each with a bath. The hotel was acquired by the Hotels Statler Company in 1948 and was renamed the New York Statler Hotel. Later, after the sale to Hilton Corp., it operated as The Statler Hilton, then as the New York Penta, until it reverted to the Hotel Pennsylvania. As of January 2007, the hotel is slated to be demolished for an office tower planned for completion in 2011. Here is the website for the current Hotel Pennsylvania.
The Statler Hotel located at 822 Washington Ave. in St. Louis was opened on November 4, 1917. It was the fourth Statler Hotel built and was designed by George W. Post & Sons of New York with Mauran, Russell & Crowell of St Louis. The 650room, twenty-story Statler featured lavish public rooms and an arcaded lobby on the first floor with a stunning, two-story ballroom at the top.

The St. Louis Statler was sold by Hilton in 1968 and was renamed The Gateway Hotel. The hotel eventually closed its doors in 1987. Check out this website about the Gateway Hotel. A new hotel tower has been built to the east side of the Statler, and on the west side, connected by a tunnel under Ninth Street and also includes a parking garage and ballroom complex. The new hotel complex has been renamed the Marriott Renaissance Grand Hotel and opened its doors in April 2003. Visit their website.
Built on the site of Millard Fillmore's residence, it is the second Buffalo hotel built by Ellsworth which opened its doors on May 19, 1923 located at 107 Delaware Avenue. Statler's hotels nationwide offered conveniences to the average American that at the time were only found in luxury hotels. The building is the English Renaissance Revival style and was built in 1921 by New York architects George B. Post & Sons.

The hotel was converted to offices in 1984 and renamed the Statler Towers. In June 2006, British businessman Bashar Issa bought the building, and it is being converted into a mix of condominiums on the top 14 floors of the 18 floor building, partly back to its original use as a luxury hotel with office/retail space on the first floor and basement. After this hotel was built, the first Statler Hotel that was built in Buffalo was renamed the Hotel Buffalo.

On March 10, 1927, Ellsworth opened another Statler Hotel in Boston. It was 14 stories tall with 1,300 rooms. Starting with this hotel, he put a radio in every room for a cost of $50,000. Here is a link to the current hotel, the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Tower's website. There is also an interesting article at this website written by Richard Hall about the Statler Library which was located in this hotel to provide books for hotel vistors. Ellsworth Milton Statler died on April 16, 1928. The Statler Foundation was established under Ellsworth's will to provide funds for improving the hotel industry. His former secretary and second wife, Alice, was made Chairman of the Board of Hotels Statler Corp., Inc. and the residuary of the estate went to her. She went on to build other Statler Hotels in Pittsburgh, PA (1938 - Leased the William Penn hotel), Washington, DC (1943 - Now called the Capitol Hilton), Los Angeles, CA (1952 - Now called the Wilshire Grand Hotel), Hartford, CT (1954 Imploded in 1990), and Dallas, TX (1956 - Currently vacant) and remained active in the management of the hotels for the next 26 years. On Oct. 27, 1954, Conrad Hilton, owner of the Hilton Hotel chain, paid $111,000,000 for the Statler assets, the then largest commercial real estate purchase in history. For a time following, some of the hotels were renamed Statler-Hilton Hotels. Alice was 71 at the time. After the sale, Alice continued full-time as the Chairman of the Trustees of the Statler Foundation until her death in October, 1969.
There is one Statler Hotel that remains as a "training ground" for future hotel managers, administrators and workers. The Statler Hotel at Cornell University is located in the scenic Finger Lakes region of New York State, overlooking Cayuga Lake and the city of Ithaca. For more information about this Statler Hotel, check out their website.

The City College of San Francisco has an Alice Statler Library which houses a special collection of research and circulating materials concerned with the hospitality industry. It is located in Room 10 of the Statler Wing of the Phelan Campus. There were two books written about E. M. and the hotels: A Bed for the Night; the Story of the Wheeling Bellboy, E.M. Statler, and His Remarkable Hotels written by Rufus Jarman in 1952. (New York, NY: Harper, 309 p.) Statler, America's Extraordinary Hotelman. written by Floyd Miller in 1968. (New York, NY: Statler Foundation, 240 p.)

Blackstone on Tuesday bought Hilton Hotels Corporation for $26bn (12.8bn), giving the private equity company the biggest hotel group in the world by number of properties. The deal, at $47.50 a share, represents a 31.7 per cent premium on last nights closing price of $36.05 and a

40 per cent premium on Hiltons price at the start of trading yesterday. It is the biggest deal in the hotel sector." We've come a long way from Ellsworth's "a room and a bath for a dollar and a half," but without his foresight and ingenuity, hotels wouldn't be the same as they are today.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=14962832 Hotel Pioneer. At the age of 13, he obtained a job as belle boy at the McLure House Hotel, Virginia, starting a life long interest in the hotel business. With experience, he worked his way up applying methods to develop ideas to improve hotel service, efficiency and business. Through the McLure House, he turned an unprofitable establishment into a profitable high-class business. In 1894, he opened Statler's Restaurant in the new Ellicott Square Building in Buffalo, New York and a massive hotel for Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition in 1901. With the success of the Buffalo Statler, he gained a reputation with businessmen and lenders as hardworking and reliable. He went on to open another Buffalo Sattler in 1907, plus others to include Cleveland 1912, Detroit 1915, St. Louis 1917, New York 1919, and Boston 1927. After his death, the hotel company he founded established the Pittsburgh Hotel William Penn 1938, Washington D.C. 1943, Los Angeles 1952, Dallas 1955 and Hartford 1956. His widow Alice sold out his company's interest to Conrad Hilton for $111 million dollars in 1954. His ethics for the hotel industry business and service are company standards world wide to this day.

-cesar ritz

Csar Ritz* was the son of humble farmers, born in the Swiss village of Niederwald on 23 February 1850, a tiny village in the Swiss Alps. He spent his childhood tending goats. At the age of 13 he was brought to a family in the regional capital Sitten for a certain degree of education. At the Hotel Couronnes et Poste he started an apprenticeship program as waiter. His patron later advised Ritz: "You will never become a hotelier; it needs a special talent and flair, both you don't have!' In 1867 he came to Paris, where he found employment as a waiter at the hotel 'de la Fidlit'. He became waiter, later headwaiter.His next job took him to the Hotel Voisin, where he met Auguste Escoffier, the talented chef. In 1873, Ritz went to Vienna to work at the French restaurant 'Les Trois Frres Provenaux', which was a temporary institution at the World Exhibition. There, it is said, Ritz for the first time met the Prince of Wales, who would later become his loyal follower. He then worked in resorts throughout Europe and managed luxurious hotels like the Grand National in Lucerne and the Grand in Monte Carlo. He opened his own properties, including the Hotel Minerva in Baden-Baden and the Hotel de Provence in Cannes.
-conrad Hilton Name at birth: Conrad Nicholson Hilton

Conrad Hilton founded the international chain of business hotels which bear his name. He bought his first hotel in 1919, and founded the first so-named Hilton Hotel in 1925 in Dallas, Texas. Hilton Hotels grew into the first coast-to-coast hotel chain, placing a special emphasis on the business traveler, and Hilton became one of the world's wealthiest men. He also purchased other prestigious inns, including the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco, New York's WaldorfAstoria, and the Palmer House in Chicago. Hilton's son Barron followed him as head of the company, which by the year 2000 had nearly 500 hotels around the world. Conrad Hilton died in 1979, leaving the bulk of his estate to his philanthropic organization, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. He also endowed the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. His 1957 autobiography was titled Be My Guest.
Hilton had three sons by his first wife, Mary Barron: Conrad, Jr.; William Barron; and Eric Michael... He had a daughter, Francesca, with his second wife, the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (married 1942-47)... Hilton's son Conrad Jr. ("Nicky") was the first husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor; the couple were married from 1950-51... Hilton is the great-grandfather of party girls Paris and Nicky Hilton... He was played by actor Chelcie Ross on episodes of the TV show Mad Men in 2009. http: //www.who2.com/bio/conrad-hilton -j.w. Marriott John Willard Marriott (September 17, 1900 August 13, 1985) was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the founder of the Marriott Corporation (which became Marriott International in 1993), the parent company of one of the world's largest hospitality, hotel chains, and food services companies. The Marriott company rose from a small root beer stand in Washington D.C. in 1927 to a chain of family restaurants by 1932, to his first motel in 1957. By the time he died, the Marriott company operated 1,400 restaurants and 143 hotels and resorts worldwide, including two theme parks, earned USD $4.5 billion in revenue annually with 154,600 employees. The company's interests even extended to a line of cruise ships and theme parks. -washinton -kuala lumpur Malaysia -bangkok Thailand -hongkong -lima peru -ontario Canada -mumbai india -kemmons Wilson

Wilson initially came up with the idea after a family road trip to Washington, D.C., during which he was disappointed by the quality and consistency provided by the roadside motels of that era. The name Holiday Inn was given to the original hotel by his architect Eddie Bluestein as a joke, in reference to the Bing Crosby movie. He opened the first Holiday Inn motel in Memphis in 1952, and quickly added others to create an entire hotel chain. Holiday Inn went international in 1960. The first four roofs put on the Holiday Inn were by James Edwin Murphy.

In 1957, Wilson franchised the chain as Holiday Inn of America and it grew dramatically, following Wilson's original tenet that the properties should be standardized, clean, predictable, family-friendly and readily accessible to road travellers. By 1958, there were 50 locations across the country, 100 by 1959, 500 by 1964, and the 1000th Holiday Inn opened in San Antonio, Texas, in 1968. The chain dominated the motel market, leveraged its innovative Holidex reservation system, put considerable financial pressure on traditional hotels and set the standard for its competitors, like Ramada Inns, Quality Inn, Howard Johnson's, and Best Western. By June 1972, when Wilson was featured on the cover of Time magazine, there were over 1,400 Holiday Inn hotels worldwide. Innovations like the company's Holidome indoor pools turned many hotels into roadside resorts. Wilson retired from Holiday Inn in 1979. In 1988, Holiday Corporation was purchased by UKbased Bass PLC, followed by the remaining domestic Holiday Inn hotels in 1990, when founder Wilson sold his interest, after which the hotel group was known as Holiday Inn Worldwide. Wilson was the founder of many different kind of companies such as Holiday Inn Records. After selling his shares of Holiday Inn, he formed Wilson World, another hotel chain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemmons_Wilson -jay pritzker co-founder of hyatt hotel Jay Arthur Pritzker (26 August 1922 - 23 January 1999) was an American entrepreneur and conglomerate organizer. Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Fanny Doppelt and Abram Nicholas Pritzker. His brother was Robert Pritzker.[1] He was the father of Dan Pritzker. Trained as a lawyer, he early diversified the Chicago-based family business, the Marmon Group, into lumber. With his brother Robert Pritzker, he built a portfolio of 60 diversified industrial corporations. He created the Hyatt Hotel chain 1957 with his brother Donald Pritzker and owned Braniff Airlines from 1983 1988. In 1979 he established the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is now considered the most prestigious honor in the field. In 2004, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by architect Frank Gehry, was completed as part of Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. http://connect.in.com/jay-pritzker/biography-330624.html -ernest Henderson & Robert moore

The origins of the brand date back to 1937 when Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore acquired the Stonehaven Hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts. The chain got its name from another early hotel that the pair had acquired, which had a lighted sign on the roof saying "Sheraton Hotel" which was large and heavy and therefore too expensive to change. Instead, they decided to call all their hotels by that name.[1] Henderson and Moore had opened three hotels in Boston by 1939, continuing with their rapid expansion opening properties along the entire East Coast. In the 1940s, Sheraton purchased the famous Hotel Kimball of Springfield, Massachusetts, and transformed the 4-star hotel into The

Sheraton-Kimball Hotel, attracting guests like President John F. Kennedy. [2] In 1945, it was the first hotel chain to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1949 Sheraton expanded internationally with the purchase of two Canadian hotel chains. The 1960s saw the first Sheraton hotels outside North America with the opening of the Tel AvivSheraton in February 1961 and the Macuto-Sheraton outside Caracas, Venezuela, in 1963. By 1965, the 100th Sheraton had opened its doors. The multinational conglomerate ITT purchased the chain in 1968, after which it was known as ITT Sheraton. In 1985 Sheraton became the first Western company to operate a hotel in the People's Republic of China, assuming management of the state-built Great Wall Hotel in Beijing, which became the Great Wall Sheraton. In 1994, ITT Sheraton purchased a controlling interest in the Italian CIGA chain, the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi, or Italian Grand Hotels Company, which had been seized from its previous owner, the Aga Khan, by its creditors. The chain had begun by operating hotels in Italy, but overexpanded across Europe just as a recession hit.[3] These hotels formed the core of what came to be the ITT Sheraton Luxury group, later Starwood's Luxury Collection. In April 1995, Sheraton introduced a new, mid-scale hotel brand Four Points by Sheraton Hotels, to replace the designation of certain hotels as Sheraton Inns. In 1998, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. acquired ITT Sheraton, outbidding Hilton. Under Starwood's leadership, Sheraton has begun renovating many existing hotels and expanding the brand's footprint. Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. For more than 70 years Sheraton has enjoyed a history as vibrant and spirited as the travelers we welcome. The world has changed, but one thing hasn't - travel is about bringing people together. 1937 The origins of Sheraton date back to 1937 when the company's founders, Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore, acquired their first hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within two years, they purchased three hotels in Boston and soon expanded their holdings to include properties from Maine to Florida. 1947 Sheraton Corporation of America becomes the first hotel chain to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 1949 With the purchase of two Canadian hotel chains Sheraton expands internationally and grows rapidly around the world.

1958 The company launches "Reservation," the industry's first automatic electronic reservations system. 1961 The first Sheraton in the Middle East debuts with the opening of the Tel Aviv Sheraton in Israel. 1963 The Macuto Sheraton Hotel opens in Venezuela, becoming the first Sheraton hotel in Latin America. 1965 Sheraton opens the doors to its 100th hotel - The Sheraton Boston. 1970 The company is the first hotel chain with a toll-free 800-number for direct guest access (1-800325-3535) which is still in use today. 1985 Sheraton achieves an important milestone becoming the first international hotel chain to operate a hotel in the People's Republic of China. 1998 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. acquires Sheraton. 2004 Sheraton introduces the Sweet SleeperTM Bed. 2006 The Link@SheratonSM experienced with Microsoft debuts at five hotels around the world. The Link@Sheraton is the connectivity hub of our lobby experience, allowing guests to work, relax, socialize or grab a snack. 2008 Sheraton Fitness programmed by Core Performance is introduced. Created in partnership with world-renowned personal training experts Core Performance, our fitness program is designed to keep guests at their peak at all times. 2008 Sheraton boasts a portfolio of more than 400 hotels in 70 countries, including a stellar portfolio of more than 60 resorts in stunning destinations worldwide http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/about/history.html