Great American Hoteliers

During the thirty years prior to the Civil War, Americans built hotels larger and more ostentatious than any in the rest of the world. These hotels were inextricably intertwined with American culture and customs but were accessible to average citizens. As Jefferson Williamson wrote in "The American Hotel" ( Knopf 1930), hotels were perhaps "the most distinctively American of all our institutions for they were nourished and brought to flower solely in American soil and borrowed practically nothing from abroad". Development of hotels was stimulated by the confluence of travel, tourism and transportation. In 1869, the transcontinental railroad engendered hotels by Henry Flagler, Fred Harvey, George Pullman and Henry Plant. The Lincoln Highway and the Interstate Highway System triggered hotel development by Carl Fisher, Ellsworth Statler, Kemmons Wilson and Howard Johnson. The airplane stimulated Juan Trippe, John Bowman, Conrad Hilton, Ernest Henderson, A.M. Sonnabend and John Hammons.. My research into the lives of these great hoteliers reveals that none of them grew up in the hospitality business but became successful through their intense on-the- job experiences. My investigation has uncovered remarkable and startling true stories about these pioneers, some of whom are well-known and others who are lost in the dustbin of history.

This book is a sequel to my first hotel book, ?Great American Hoteliers: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry? AuthorHouse 2009. It tells the fascinating and unpredictable stories of seventeen hotel pioneers who were (and are) important in the development of the hotel industry in the United States. Many of them are relatively unknown and lost in the dustbin of American history. Their biographies comprise this sequel called ?Great American Hoteliers Volume 2: Pioneers of the Hotel Industry?: ? Stewart William Bainum (1920-2014) ? Curtis Leroy Carlson (1914-1999) ? Cecil Burke Day (1934-1978) ? Louis Jacob Dinkler (1864-1928) ? Eugene Chase Eppley (1884-1958) ? Roy C. Kelley (1905-1997) ? Arnold S. Kirkeby (1901-1962) ? Julius Manger (1868-1937) ? Robert R. Meyer (1882-1947) ? Albert Pick, Jr. (1895-1977) ? Jay Pritzker (1922-1999) ? Harris Rosen (1939) ? Ian Schrager (1946) ? Vernon B. Stouffer (1901-1974) ? William Cornelius Van Horne (1843-1915) ? Robert E. Woolley (1935) ? Stephen Allen Wynn (1942) As you will note, four of these great American hoteliers are alive and productive as I write this sequel: Harris Rosen, Ian Schrager, Robert Woolley and Steve Wynn.

During the thirty years prior to the Civil War, Americans built hotels larger and more ostentatious than any in the rest of the world. These hotels were inextricably intertwined with American culture and customs but were accessible to average citizens. As Jefferson Williamson wrote in "The American Hotel" ( Knopf 1930), hotels were perhaps "the most distinctively American of all our institutions for they were nourished and brought to flower solely in American soil and borrowed practically nothing from abroad". Development of hotels was stimulated by the confluence of travel, tourism and transportation. In 1869, the transcontinental railroad engendered hotels by Henry Flagler, Fred Harvey, George Pullman and Henry Plant. The Lincoln Highway and the Interstate Highway System triggered hotel development by Carl Fisher, Ellsworth Statler, Kemmons Wilson and Howard Johnson. The airplane stimulated Juan Trippe, John Bowman, Conrad Hilton, Ernest Henderson, A.M. Sonnabend and John Hammons.. My research into the lives of these great hoteliers reveals that none of them grew up in the hospitality business but became successful through their intense on-the- job experiences. My investigation has uncovered remarkable and startling true stories about these pioneers, some of whom are well-known and others who are lost in the dustbin of history.

The fourteen architects featured in this book designed 304 hotels and apartment hotels. Many were designed on the European plan for families to live without full service kitchens. Meals were prepared and served in restaurant-type dining rooms catering exclusively to residents and their families. The apartment hotels employed full-time service staffs who prepared and served daily room service meals. The first apartment hotels were built between 1880 and 1895. They were followed by a second wave of construction after the passage of the 1899 building code and the 1901 Tenement House Law. The third wave of apartment hotel construction occurred during the 1920s and ended with the Great Depression of the thirties. The passage of the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929 altered height and bulk restrictions and permitted high-rise apartment buildings for the first time.

From the acclaimed Rick Moody, a darkly comic portrait of a man who comes to life in the most unexpected of ways: through his online reviews. Reginald Edward Morse is one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many reviews reveal more than just details of hotels around the globe -- they tell his life story. The puzzle of Reginald's life comes together through reviews that comment upon his motivational speaking career, the dissolution of his marriage, the separation from his beloved daughter, and his devotion to an amour known only as "K." But when Reginald disappears, we are left with the fragments of a life -- or at least the life he has carefully constructed -- which writer Rick Moody must make sense of. An inventive blurring of the lines between the real and the fabricated, Hotels of North America demonstrates Moody's masterly ability to push the bounds of the novel.

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.

"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.

"The Life of a Hotelier" follows the author on his journey through the hospitality industry. His stories are designed to give unique and impactful anecdotes from behind the scenes of the hotel industry. Anyone who has ever worked at a hotel, stayed at a hotel or lived the life of a "Road warrior" can appreciate his true tales of the good, the bad, and the unbelievable. The hotel business is a fast-paced life, where days run into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The doors never close, and the guests keep coming. Addresses may change of the players in the game and the employees may change, but most people in the hotel industry would not think of having a career in any other profession.

Success in today’s rapidly changing hospitality industry depends on understanding the desires of guests of all ages, from seniors and boomers to the newly dominant millennial generation of travelers. Help has arrived with a compulsively-readable new standard, The Heart of Hospitality: Great Hotel and Restaurant Leaders Share Their Secrets by Micah Solomon, with a foreword by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s president and COO Herve Humler. This up-to-the-minute resource delivers the closely guarded customer experience secrets and on-trend customer service insights of today’s top hoteliers, restaurateurs, and masters of hospitality management including: Four Seasons Chairman Isadore Sharp: How to build an unsinkable company culture Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Danny Meyer: His secrets of hiring, onboarding, training, and more Tom Colicchio (Craft Restaurants, Top Chef): How to create a customer-centric customer experience in a chef-centric restaurant Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal: How Virgin Hotels created its innovative, future-friendly hospitality approach Ritz-Carlton President and COO Herve Humler: How to engage today’s new breed of luxury travelers Double-five-star chef and hotelier Patrick O’Connell (The Inn at Little Washington) shares the secrets of creating hospitality connections Designer David Rockwell on the secrets of building millennial-friendly restaurants and hotel spaces (W, Nobu, Andaz) that resonate with today’s travelers Restaurateur Traci Des Jardins on building a “narcissism-free” hospitality culture Legendary chef Eric Ripert’s principles of creating a great guest experiences, simultaneously within a single dining room. The Heart of Hospitality is a hospitality management resource like no other, put together by leading customer service expert Micah Solomon. Filled with exclusive, first-hand stories and wisdom from the top professionals in the industry, The Heart of Hospitality is an essential hospitality industry resource. As Ritz-Carlton President and COO Herve Humler says in his foreword to the book, “If you want to create and sustain a level of service so memorable that it becomes an unbeatable competitive advantage, you’ll find the secrets here.”

This is a book for lovers of remarkable hotels. Whether you are a long-term luxury hotel addict, or just fantasising about a visit to one of the world's great hotels, this book is for you. This book features stories about great, grand and famous hotels sourced from history, legend and the occasional snippet of gossip. Take a peek inside and discover a treasure trove of famous or forgotten anecdotes. See the dramas unfold in lobbies, dining rooms, bars and ballrooms, or behind the closed doors of guest rooms and Presidential Suites. Marvel at those who made these hotels what they are: daring financiers, visionary owners, inventive architects, cutting-edge designers, devoted hoteliers and renowned chefs. Remember the great, grand and famous celebrity guests and meet the new breed of visionaries who are creating the great hotels of the future. Visit historic hotels, including The Ritz, Paris; the Waldorf-Astoria, New York; the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles; the Savoy, London; the Hassler, Rome; The Peninsula, Hong Kong; Raffles, Singapore; Mena House, Cairo; Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur; Chateau Lake Louise, Alberta; the Cipriani, Danieli and Gritti Palace, Venice; Reid's Palace, Madeira; and the Baur au Lac, Zurich, alongside modern masterpieces such as The Burj al Arab, Icehotel and other futuristic hotels. The book is intended to give the traveller a better understanding of, and greater insight into, the hotels they admire and love. It is also a reference book for the passionate hotel professional and provides knowledge for young hoteliers, helping them to understand the history and the development of their industry. Combining four years of research, assisted by many students in various hotel schools around the world, and with contributions by six travel writers, it is hoped this book will entice more people to seek out the world's great, grand and famous hotels, and to stay in them for an unforgettable experience, not just as a place to spend the night.