Frank Case

Infobox Person
name = Frank Case


caption =Portrait of Frank Case in 1933
birth_date =
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
other_names =
known_for = Owning and managing the Algonquin Hotel
occupation = Hotelier
nationality = American

Frank Case was an American hotelier and author. He owned and managed the Algonquin Hotel during the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table and wrote a number of books about his experiences with the hotel and the Round Tablers.

Case worked at the Algonquin from the time it opened in 1902. It was Case who came up with the hotel's name. The original owner had wanted to call it "The Puritan." [cite book
last =Herrmann
first =Dorothy
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =With Malice Toward All: The Quips, Lives and Loves of Some Celebrated 20th-Century American Wits
publisher =G. P. Putnam's Sons
date =1982
location = New York
pages =19
url =
doi =
id =
isbn = 0399127100] In 1907 Case took over the lease and became manager, eventually buying the hotel in 1927 for $1,000,000. He remained owner and manager of the Algonquin until his death in 1946. [cite web
last =Dana
first =Robert W.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =Algonquin is Rich In Tradition
work =
publisher =TipsOnTables.com
date =1951-04-16
url =http://www.tipsontables.com/algonquin.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2007-09-16 ]

Personal life

In a live appearance on the Royal Gelatine Hour radio show on June 17, 1937, Case told Rudy Valee that he grew up in Buffalo, New York and learned his hotelier skills at the Genesee Hotel there: he had to stay up all night by roaming the hotel on roller skates.

Case was married twice. His first wife, Caroline Eckert Case, died in 1908 [cite web
last =Kavanagh
first =Patrick
title =Caroline Eckert Case
publisher =Buffalo Free-Net
url =http://bah.bfn.org/a/forestL/case/index.html
accessdate = 2007-09-18 ] giving birth to the couple's second child, a boy named Carroll. Nine years following Caroline's death, Case married a woman he referred to as "Hebe" in his books. [cite book
last =Case
first =Frank
title =Do Not Disturb
publisher =Frederick A. Stokes Company
date =1940
location = New York
pages =45
isbn = ] Case's elder child was the author Margaret Case Harriman, who among other books wrote a memoir of the Algonquin Round Table entitled "The Vicious Circle". His son Carroll married actress Josephine Dunn, with whom he would remain until his death in 1978.

Bibliography

*"Tales of a Wayward Inn" - a memoir published in 1938. Includes a chapter on the Round Table.
*"Do Not Disturb" - a second memoir published in 1940.
*"Feeding the Lions" - a 1942 cookbook that included comments from famed Algonquinites on their favorite dishes. In 2005 the hotel integrated updated versions of recipes from the book into the menu. [cite web
title =New Algonquin Menu is Update of Original Round Table Fare Gleaned from Frank Case's Cookbook of Celebrity Favorites
publisher =Algonquin Hotel
date =2005-05-05
url =http://www.algonquinhotel.com/press_newalgonquinmenu_05052005.html
accessdate = 2007-09-17 ]

References