Chicago Hotels

"At Chicago the hotel was bigger than other hotels, and grander. There were pipes without end for cold water which ran hot. and for hot water which would not run at all. . . . Men in those regions . . . make their plans on a large scale, and they who come after them fill up what has been wanting at first. Those taps of hot and cold water will be made to run by the next owner ... if not by the present."--Anthony Trollope, 1862.

In 1871 while the Chicago fire was roaring down on his Tremont House, John Burroughs Drake rushed out and bought another hotel, taking a chance that it would be saved. It was. John Drake lived to build a conservative business reputation and a hotel fortune which he left to his two sons. They built the Blackstone which became the most famed hotel west of the Alleghenies and the Drake which was probably their undoing. For last year Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. foreclosed on the Blackstone and last April started proceedings to foreclose on the Drake. Last week old John Drake's sons Tracy Corey and John Burroughs Jr., now grown old in the business, were fighting to stay in the hotel that bears their name.

Until last year the Brothers Drake held a contract to manage the Drake Hotel for $40,000 a year, plus living expenses for them and their families and 10% of all profits in excess of dividends. After $300,000 of back taxes had accumulated, the stockholders, including Architect Benjamin Marshall (of both the Blackstone and Drake), Vincent Bendix and the McCormick estate, put through a voluntary reorganization. Metropolitan Life extended its $4,000,000 mortgage and $180,000 in defaulted interest and loaned the hotel enough to clean up the taxes. As their contribution the Brothers Drake tore up their old contract calling for a cut in the profits, took instead a new one providing for $15,000 each for their services in an "administrative and advisory" capacity, living expenses including nine rooms each and the right to entertain "a reasonable number of guests."

Despite the reorganization Metropolitan Life lost patience and the Drake went into receivership. The receiver, holding contract-breaking powers and no particular regard for the Drake Brothers' feelings, promptly ordered them to pay for their own parties and furthermore pay rent. When the Drakes did neither, the receiver sought court sanction to oust them. The Brothers Drake and their wives also went to court, arguing that the contract was an operating charge and therefore a prior lien on the property. Last week while the courts pondered the case, the Drakes were still in their nine-room suites.

Since the futile reorganization last year Architect Benjamin Marshall has really run the Drake. An assiduously bohemian gentleman in a flowing black tie, he lives in a famed pink house on the shores of Lake Michigan in Wilmette. His particular joys are a ship-cabin taproom and a handsome table that sinks through the floor. Ben Marshall lightened the tone of the Drake, installed an oyster bar, started serving 50-c- buffet lunches and $1 buffet Thursday night dinners which were jammed all last winter. It was also Ben Marshall & friends who, under a lease from Metropolitan Life, reopened the Blackstone last month. A quiet, palm-cluttered, expensive place, where total charge accounts used to run as high as $80,000 a month, the Blackstone was completely refurbished for the Fair. Rates were cut 30% but old Blackstoners were startled to find an orchestra and dance floor in the grill.

If the Century of Progress means business for any one in Chicago it means business for hotelmen. Since the Fair opened last month demand for rooms has jumped 30% to 40%. Most of the pick up has been due to conventions, of which Chicago expects 1,000 before the Fair is over.* Bona fide Fairgoers have not turned up in large numbers as yet and hotels have been unable even to guess at what volume of business will develop through the summer. Rates in higher-priced hotels are generally down 25% to 35% from last year (and 1929). Low-priced hotels have not reduced.

Because only six of Chicago's 20 major hotels have avoided receivership or bankruptcy since the Depression, Chicago hotel-men are thankful indeed for the Fair. Two solvent hotels are:

The Palmer House, Just 13 days before John Drake scampered out of the path of the fire to buy himself a new hotel, Potter Palmer swung wide the doors of Chicago's finest hostelry. Like most of Chicago it was burned to the ground. But the grizzled bon-vivant who had sold his drygoods store to Levi Leiter and Marshall Field because he thought his days were numbered, lived to see a new Palmer House become Chicago's first world-famed hotel. Its barber shop (floor studded with silver dollars) set the fashion for every first-class saloon west of the Mississippi. Gourmets of the 1880's smacked their chops over the Palmer House's saddles of venison and buffalo steaks.

The finest publicity the old Palmer House ever had was provided by Potter Palmer's wife. From her great castellated mansion on Lake Shore Drive she drove Chicago society for 40 years. There she entertained Edward of Wales for whose favor as Edward VII of Britain she later waged mighty social campaigns in London. Potter Palmer took little part in his beauteous wife's gyrations, often slipped away from levees to spend an evening with his cronies. His mile of State Street real estate grew vastly more important than the hotel. The present Palmer House, a leading commercial hotel, was built in 1925 by the second generation of Palmers.

The Congress made news one morning last winter when President Harry Livingston Kaufman paid off the last instalment of its bonded debt.

Byfield. Although his four hotels are in receivership Ernest Lessing ("Ernie") Byfield is today Chicago's most famed hotel keeper. A shrewd and amusing businessman whose friends range from Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd to Accordionist Phil Baker, he owns the quiet, fashionable Ambassador East, the gayer Ambassador West where Ernie Byfield entertains leading stage and screen folk, the Sherman where Ben Bernie is master of ceremonies in the College Inn night club, and the Fort Dearborn, a low-priced house catering to railroad workers. Ernie Byfield is president of College Inn Products, Inc. (not in receivership) which claims to have invented the tomato juice cocktail. Last year as a publicity stunt he imported 20 dozen penguin eggs. The Customs House promptly impounded the eggs for violation of the Federal law forbidding the importation of wild fowl eggs. Wrote Ernie Byfield to the Customs House: ''Let me assure you that the penguin, even in its natural habitat, is not a wild bird. On the contrary, it is the most solemn member of the avian family. It goes about its business in a grave manner, its coloring is reminiscent of formal evening attire. . . ." He chuckles over the fact that his beauteous young wife thought that when the Press referred to him as a bibliophile, it meant that he was a Jew, which he is.

Stevens. Chicago's and the world's biggest hotel, the Stevens (3,000 rooms, 3,000 baths), is not only in receivership but the centre of a major financial scandal. Built by James W. Stevens & family, it was largely financed by Stevens-controlled Illinois Life Insurance Co. which went to the wall as a result. And if there is any one thing beside the Depression that Chicago hotelmen can blame for their many, many woes, it was the building of this "biggest" hotel.

*Some of the conventions: American Peony Association, Ancient Order of Biberbians in America, The Maccabees Great Camp of Illinois, Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, International Purity Congress, International Turkey Club, American Rabbit & Cavy Breeders Association, Concentrated Order of Hoo Hoo.

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