Hotel Farr - Dream vs Reality

Have you ever had a grand plan in your mind  for something which hasn't worked out, but what you did end up with was more than satisfactory only for that to eventually come to an end?
I know I have, and John S Farr has too.
Who was John S. Farr? We'll he was a coal operator who envisaged a 14 storey, 250 room hotel in Huntingdon West Virginia.
A drawing of his plan can be seen in this vintage card below. 

However World War I meant that constructions costs increased and the hotel finished up half the size as was planned, but was still rather nice.

Just days after the end of WWI, a pottery salesman became the first guest of the hotel, setting a precedent as the hotel proved popular with travelling salesmen in the decades which followed.
The hotel  changes hands and went through a number of name changes in the 30s and 40s before closing in 1965 . From the 1970s until 2014 the building had been used as offices, business as well as apartments, but has remained empty since July 2014 when a fire damaged most of the building.
The building does actually still stand, and the original Hotel Farr sign is still visible but I'm not aware of any plans to renovate the building. In fact it's very hard to find any information about the place at all, but thanks to postcards and postcard collectors it is not truly forgotten.

The Beresford Hotel, Glasgow

Today I'm looking at a building which is still in existence, in fact it's a listed building, but which has had several incarnations since being built.

It's an Art Deco building which I'm sure you all know by now are my favourites.

You probably can't read the card but it states Beresford Hotel Glasgow, Scotland's Newest Hotel. Standing proudly on the famous Sauchiehall Street it was known as Glasgow's first sky scraper and was the tallest building erected in the city during the interwar period. The designer, William Beresford Inglis took inspiration from contemporary cinemas.  

It was built in 1938 for those attending the city's Empire Exhibition which took place between May-December that year. The event attracted 12 million visitors but it's unknown how many of them made use of the hotel. What  is known is that it was a popular venue for American Servicemen during WWII.

It continued as a hotel until 1952 when demand for such accommodation began decline and for the next 12 years was Scotland's HQ for ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) before being sold to the University of Strathclyde in 1964 to be used  as student accommodation.

I have to say I'm quite envious of the students who lived in such a lovely building. My own Halls of Residence in Manchester were a rather less lovely 1970s building though I was quite fond of the place at the time. Initially they were only open to male students until the 1980s when female students were permitted to live on the top floor.

In 2002 they were sold again and now contain 112 private flats. Again, I'm quite envious of the people who live there.

The postcard is not dated and has not been posted, but from the description on the front I'd say it was from shortly after the hotel was built.

  

Dover Stage and Coach Hotel - They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Well paradise is pushing it, but the Dover Stage and Coach Hotel was quite well thought of for a while.

The postcard is one of those that many people would consider boring and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in Martin Parr's Boring Postcard book but it is the sort of card many collectors, myself included, enjoy. I do wonder, looking at the Martin Parr book today how many of the structures still stand. Now there's an idea for a book.  For those of interested in that kind of thing, the card was published by Judges' and is not dated but is thought to be from mid sixties to early seventies.

The Dover Stage Hotel was built in 1957, only the third hotel to be built in the UK in the post war period. The modern but unusual design was meant to attract visitors from mainland Europe . The hotel was not glamorous but it had a lot to offer a visitor. All its 42 rooms were sea facing and had their own balcony, the hotel also had several bars and a large ballroom.  One thing it did lack were en suite facilities and though these were later added, it was to the detriment of the room size. Despite this, the hotel did attract many visitors for a while
It was not just overseas visitors who enjoyed the facilities. The ballroom and bars were popular among locals  for  wedding receptions, formal dinners and dances . Some say that this was because there was a lack of choice as other nearby hotels had been destroyed in the war but its ballroom in particular remained popular until the hotel was closed in 1988.  Unfortunately by this point the people who counted, namely Dover District Council, considered The Stage Hotel to be past its sell by date and approval was granted for its demolition.
It was stated that the plan was to build flats on site, but for some reason, possibly because that had never been the  actual plan, the flats never materialised and a car park for the visitor attraction The White Cliffs Experience was built instead.  
Ironically The White Cliffs Experience was a bit of a flop, was nicknamed the White Elephant Experience, failed to attract the visitors and closed after 8 years. Plans to build a new hotel on the site have  come to nothing and it remains a rather underused carpark.

Gone but Not Forgotten- The Majestic Hotel, Hot Springs Arkansas

I've mentioned before that there are some postcards I'd like to be able to setp into and this is one of them.
I'd love to be able to see this beautiful building in its prime and I'm intrigued to know what the people on the left of the card all in white are doing.
Curiously, I've seen a couple of different versions of this same card but with cars or trams superimposed over the horse and carriages. The mysterious figures in white remain in all versions. What do you think they are doing?

The hotel, built in 1882 and originally named the Avenue Hotel had an interesting and varied life before sadly being destroyed in fire 6 years ago.
The hotel got its new name six years after being built and with the change of moiker came a lift, something new at the time.  Curiosly it's the second hotel called the Majestic Hotel to feature in this blog. I wonder if the name is cursed. I don't really beleive in curses but I might make it a side project to see how many places called the Majestic would be suitable for this blog.
The building as depicted on the card was actually built in 1903, replacing a wooden structure and becoming one of the first brick buildings in Hot Springs. Although not part of the famous Bathhouse Row, the hotel did receive many vistors who were in town to take the waters and trams would depart to and from the hotel every five minutes to guests to the bath houses.
The hotel rose in popularity in early part of the 20th century and famous guests included The Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburg Pirates and Babe Ruth.  Could the people on the card be playing baseball? I wonder. The Pittsburg Pirates did spring training here from 1901 until 1916 so that is a distinct possibility.
The sender of the card (postmarked 29th November 1910) doesn't mention meeting anyone famous, just that she wishes she'd brought warmer clothes.
Perhaps the most notorious guest was Al Capone's rival Bugs Moran. Capone spent a lot of time in Hot Springs too and the two formed a sort of truce while in town.  During WWII, the hotel was used as a redsribution centre for American soldiers, but it opened again as a hotel in 1945 and still attracted celebrity guests such as Humphrey Bogart and Liberace.
The latter half of the 20th century seems to have a been a rather uneventful period for The Majestic though a million dollar renovation did take place in 1982.  Guest numbers dwindled in the 1990s and the hotel was closed and abandoned in 2006.
Plans to renovate the building were discussed the following year but came to nothing and now sadly never will as the hotel was destroyed by fire 2010.
The hotel is still fondly remembered by many residents of the town.

Update

Here's another version of the card, with cars instead of horse and carriages taken from the abandonedar website. Looking at it again, I believe the people in white might be fencing.

Source  http://www.abandonedar.com/

The Hotel Majestic

As another TT draws to a close this will be my last Manx related post for a while, though do expect more in the future. I have a lot of Isle of Man postcards.

We've looked at some tourist attractions, but all those tourists had to stay somewhere so I'll be looking at one of the many sadly now defunct hotels on the island - The Majestic.

Although there is still a request stop in Onchan called the Majestic Halt, the hotel is long gone having been razed to build apartments .

The hotel started life as a mansion in 1893 and was sold in 1920 to a couple looking to build a hotel to cater to tourists who wanted to take advantage of the attractions of Douglas and not have to travel from the South of the island to do so.

Tho hotel open in 1922 and boasted a ball rooms, billiard room and bar. The swimming was not added until 1935 and the same year the hotel changed its name to the Majestic Lido Hotel. In the following decades the hotel became a popular place for wedding receptions and was increasingly used by non-residents.

The decline of the hotel is a familiar one. As foreign holidays become more available, domestic based holidays fall out of favour and the local tourist industry suffers and so it was the case with the Majestic. It ceased functioning as a hotel in 1987 but the building remained for a few years as an auction house before, as stated earlier,it was razed to build apartments.

I'm not sure when the above postcard is from, it's not dated,  but I've seen similar pictures used on adverts for the hotel from the early 1970s so that seems about right.

The Changing Fortunes of Port Soderick Bay and Hotel

Is that the roar of motorbike engines I can hear? Is that Bushy's beer tent I can see from my window and are those leather clad men I can see wondering around Strand Street?

It seems so, which can only mean that TT is upon us again and so all my blog posts for the next fortnight will be Manx related.

Port Soderick got a brief mention in a previous post but it deserves a post of its own.

The Isle of Man is known for its glens and among them is Port Soderick. Its Wikipedia entry makes for rather grim reading, describing closed and abandoned buildings, filled in padding pools and unsafe walkways. Strangely, or perhaps not, it's one of my favourite places to visit on the Isle of Man.

In visiting the glen I'm following on from many a tourist from previous generations.  The site was first developed as a tourist attraction by the Forrester brother and advertised as "the only free glen on the island". Holiday makers in the late Victorian era flocked in their droves to the Port Soderick Hotel where they enjoyed the private beach, camera obscura and the funicular. The railway, built in 1898, which still runs today, was once the busiest in the island such was the popularity of the place.

The card below dates to the Edwardian era and shows the funicular, which was destroyed in 1914, as well as the hotel and holiday makers.

This is actually my favourite card in all my collections.

Here it can be seen from a different angle but from the same era.

Although the hotel closed in the 1950s, tourists still came to the hamlet and enjoyed the bay as the card from the early 1960s shows below.

    The hotel was sold to private hands in 1984 but did go through something of a renaissance in the 1990s when celebrity chef Kevin Woodford  had the Anchor Hotel there. This was closed in 2002 and the building has been derelict ever since.

However, in March this year we received news that Heritage Great Britain is interested in buying the site and bringing it back to life. This is great news if it happens, though part of me will miss the quiet secluded Port Soderick I like to visit.

Grossinger's - The Dirty Dancing Hotel.

Grossingers Resort Hotel was a  family run affair in the  Catskill Mountains, a popular tourist spot for urban Jewish families and the starting point for many Borscht Belt style comedians.
It is said to have been the inspiration behind the hotel in Dirty Dancing, a film which premiered the year after Grossinger's closed.

It was founded in 1919 by married couple Asher and Malke Grossinger but really hit its stride in the 1950s and 60s when Jennie, their daughter, acted as hostess. The emphasis was on glamour but with a personal touch and it soon gained the nickname "The Waldorf of The Catskills"

The outside of the building as shown on the postcard below (sent in 1967 by someone attending a banquet for School Business Officials) is fairly uninspiring looking.

However, the site itself was very impressive with  35 buildings in 1200 acres of land which included its own airstrip and post office complete with its own zip code.

The card (written in 1965 to someone's mum, someone with handwriting so terrible that's all I can make out) below gives some impression of the size.

The rooms such as the Terrace Lounge and The Pink Elephant Bar were bright and colourful. The former was modernised by Morris Lapidus a name synonymous with 50s and 60s hotel architecture.

There were a variety of activities the guests could enjoy, they didn't even have to wait for winter to go skiing as the hotel became the first place to use artificial snow in 1952.

There was also an ice rink and indoor and outdoor swimming pools.

  

Jennie died in 1972 but the hotel did still attract guests until cheaper foreign air travel in the late 70s and early 80s and changing tastes meant that resort hotels fell out of favour.

It was closed in 1986 and thirty years later the buildings remain decaying and abandoned. That is all except the golf course which is still active and possibly one of the eeriest golf courses around.

More information including photos of before and after can be found here

http://joe4speed.com/grossingers.htm

The Rise and Fall of the Lee Plaza Hotel, Detroit

I would to take a look at something which may have a happy ending.

The Lee Plaza Hotel in Detroit was once the cities biggest apartment hotel. The 15 storey building was constructed in 1929 in the Art Deco style.

Although it was originally conceived as hotel, it spent much of its life as an upscale apartment block with hotel services. The cities rich and powerful who resided in the building could choose one of 220 rooms which ranged from 1 bedroom to 4 bedrooms. They could also take advantage of a concierge, Servidor, 24 hour valet parking, beauty parlour, games room, library and a supervised children's play room.

While some people probably did stay there long-term, and who can blame them, many more used the place as a temporary residence such as the sender of our postcard who stayed there in 1941 while her place was being decorated.

Sadly the good times were not to last. The hotel changed ownership several times, was declared bankrupt at least once and guests dwindled as residential hotels fell out of favour.

In 1969 it, along with other famous buildings in Detroit, became a senior citizens' complex. However its troubles were not over and when an elderly resident was murdered there in 1987 more residents began to leave and the place was finally closed in 1997.

This century the building has been seen by many as a symbol of Detroit's decline from prosperity to poverty.

The building may yet prosper again. A Detroit native by the name of Craig Sasser bought the building in 2015 and there are plans to renovate the building and develop the surrounding area.

This is not the first time hotels have been redeveloped from seemingly hopeless cases. The King Edward Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi was empty for 40 years before restoration began in 2007. Closer to home, another Art Deco masterpiece the Midland in Morecambe underwent expensive restoration to be returned to its former glory.

For now though, The Lee Plaza remains an example of an abandoned building and symbol of the turbulent nature of the past 80+ years.

More information about the Lee Plaza and other buildings in Detroit can be found at the excellent historicdetroit.org