Statler Hotel

:"For the building in Detroit, Michigan, see Detroit Statler Hotel."The Statler Hotel company was one of the United States' early chains of hotels catering to traveling businessmen and tourists. It was founded by Ellsworth Milton (E. M.) Statler in Buffalo, New York.

Early ventures

In 1901, Buffalo was the host city for the Pan-American Exposition. Statler envisioned and built a hotel on the Exposition grounds and called it "Statler's Hotel." It was a temporary wooden structure built only to last the life of the Exposition. With 2084 rooms, it could accommodate 5000 guests. Although the Exposition was deemed an overall failure due to a number of factors (bad weather and the assassination of President William McKinley included), Statler made a small profit—one of the few vendors to actually do so.

His next venture was the Inside Inn, built for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. Another temporary wooden structure, it was the world's largest hotel with 2257 rooms. A grand success, the hotel made Statler a net profit of $361,000 and laid the groundwork for his first permanent hotel. The hotel and its fittings were then sold for scrap and dismantled. The Inside Inn was located near the edge of Forest Park in St. Louis, with traffic from the modern day Highway 64/40 running through the location of the hotel.

Company history

The first Statler hotel was designed by August Esenwein and James A. Johnson (architect) and built in Buffalo, New York and offered 300 rooms and bathrooms (it was later expanded to 450 rooms and baths). The Buffalo hotel was very successful and led to a chain of hotels in other cities. Statler's intent was not to compete with the luxury hotels, but rather to provide, clean, comfortable and moderately priced rooms for the average traveler. Statler was the first major hotel chain to have a bathroom in every room. His innovative Statler Plumbing Shaft is still used in modern construction. From providing paper and ink pens for correspondence (prominently bearing the Statler name) to a light in the closet, Statler brought the average traveler a level of luxury that was otherwise unaffordable.

Rooms were originally available at what seemed a very cheap price, leading many other hoteliers to predict the failure of the Buffalo hotel. The opening night price was as low as $1.50 for a guest room, leading to the slogan "A Room and a Bath for a Dollar and a Half." The hotel had a line of credit available of $500,000, but was so successful from the beginning that Statler never touched the line of credit.

Each of the subsequent Statler Hotels built upon this formula for success. After Statler's death in 1928, the company built hotels in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, California, Hartford, Connecticut. and Dallas, Texas. Each was more innovative than the last, and was a testimony to the founder of the company. Many of these hotels were designed by the architectural firm of George Post & Sons, the successor firm of George B. Post.

The Hotels Statler Company, Inc., was sold to Conrad Hilton's (Hilton Hotels) in 1954 for $111,000,000 in what was then the world's largest real estate transaction.

List of hotels

Related hotels

*There is a Statler Hotel at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York that is operated by the Cornell Hotel School.

*The Hotel William Penn in Pittsburgh, built in 1938, was merely managed by Statler and never owned by the company.

References

*Miller, Floyd "Statler: America's Extraordinary Hotelman"
*Jarman, Rufus "A Bed for the Night"

Trivia

Statler & Waldorf are two Muppet characters and were named after the New York Statler Hotel (now the Hotel Pennsylvania) and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

ee also

*List of tallest buildings in Buffalo

External links

* [http://ah.phpwebhosting.com/~ah/h/statler/hotel/ Buffalo as an Architectural Museum]
* [http://www.forgottendetroit.com/statler/emstatler.html E.M. Statler, Forgotten Detroit]
* [http://www.hotelpenn.com/ Hotel Pennsylvania Official Website]
* [http://nostalgicglass.org/display.php?pn=18 Dallas Statler Hilton, The Nostalgic Glass]