Founders of the Hotel Industry
A history of the founders of the hotel industry provides an opportunity to reflect on our heritage. Learning about the founding giants such as Statler, Hilton, Marriot, Wilson, and Schultz, to name a few, allows a student of the industry to discover the interesting lineage of hoteliers, studying the efforts of the innovators who carved out the modern hotel industry may help future professionals with their own career planning.
E. M. Statler
To begin to understand the history of the modern hotel industry, let’s look at its early entrepreneurs, who were motivated by wealth and fame on a grand scale? Ellsworth M. Statler (1863-1928) developed the chain of hotels that were known as Statlers, beginning with a hotel in buffalo, New York, built for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Eventually there were Statler hotels in Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York City, St. Louis, and other locations. In 1954, he sold the Statler chain to Conrad Hilton. Statler devised a scheme to open an incredible two-story, rectangular wood structure that would contain 2,804 rooms and accommodate 5,000 guests. It was to be temporary structure, covered with a thin layer of plaster to make it appear substantial, although simple to tear down after the fair closed.
Conrad Hilton
Conrad Hilton (1887-1979) became a successful hotelier after Word war I, when he purchased several properties in Texas during its oil boom. In 1919, he bought the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas. In 1925, he built the Hilton Hotel in Dallas, Texas. His acquisitions during and after World War II included the 3,000-room Stevens Hotel (now the Chicago Hilton) and the Palmer House in Chicago and Plaza and Waldorf=Astoria in New York City. In 1946, he formed the Hilton Hotels Corporation, and in 1948, he formed the Hilton International Company, which came to number more than 125 hotels. With the purchase of the Statler chain in 1954, Hilton created the first major chain of modern American hotels that is a group of hotels that follow standard operating procedures in marketing, reservations, quality of services, food and beverage operations, housekeeping and accounting. Hilton Hotels now includes Hilton garden Inns, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Harrison Conference Centers, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Red Lion Hotels and Inns and Conrad International.
Cesar Ritz
Cesar Ritz was an hotelier at the Grand National Hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland. Because of his management abilities, the hotel become one of the most popular in Europe and Cesar Ritz become one of the respected hoteliers in Europe.
William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV
In 1893, William Waldorf Astor launched the 13-story Waldorf Hotel at Fifth Avenue near Thirty-Fourth Street in New York City. The Waldorf was the embodiment of Astor’s vision of a New York hostelry that would appeal to his wealthy friends by combining the opulence of a European mansion with the warmth and homey qualities of a private residence.
Four years later, the Waldorf was joined by the 17-story Astoria hotel, erected on an adjacent site by William Waldorf Astor’s cousin, John Jacob Astor IV. The cousins built a corridor that connected the two hotels, which become known by a single hyphenated name, the Waldorf-Astoria.
In 1929, after decades of hosting distinguished visitor from around the world, the Waldorf-Astoria closed its doors to make room for the Empire State Building. The 2,200-room, 42-floor Waldorf=Astoria Hotel was rebuilt on its current site at Park and Lexington avenues between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth streets. Upon the hotel’s opening, President Herbert Hoover delivered a message of congratulations. President Hoover later becomes a permanent resident of the Waldorf Towers, the luxurious “hotel within a hotel” that occupies the twenty-eight through the forty-second floors. Conrad N Hilton purchased the hotel in 1949 and then the land it stands on 1977. In 1988, the hotel underwent a $150 million restoration. It was designated a New York City land-mark in January 1993.
Please also visit Founder of Hotel Industry (Part 2)
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