The Magnolia Hotel St. Louis is a historic hotel in downtown

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

. Opened in 1925, it has been known for most of its existence as the Mayfair Hotel. The Mayfair was founded by hotelier Charles Heiss, a Bavarian who worked in hotels in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere in America. Heiss served as the assistant manager at the Knickerbocker Hotel in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and as the manager of the Detroit hotel of the

Statler Hotels The Statler Hotel company was one of the United States, United States' early chains of hotels catering to traveling businessmen and tourists. It was founded by Ellsworth Milton Statler, Ellsworth Milton (E. M.) Statler in Buffalo, New York. Earl ...

, an early American hotel chain. Statler transferred Heiss to St. Louis to manage its hotel there, which he did for some years before having a disagreement with Mr. Statler, in which he swore to build better hotels nearby in St. Louis. Designed by prominent St. Louis architect Preston J. Bradshaw, the hotel's 18-story building was built in 1924 and 1925. The concrete building is faced in red

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

and

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

; it uses terra cotta extensively in its facing, window frames, ornaments, and

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

s. The building had three high-speed elevators run by

elevator operator An elevator operator (North American English), liftman (in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, usually lift attendant), or lift girl (in British English), is a person specifically employed to operate a manually operat ...

s. The Mayfair opened its doors on August 29, 1925, for a private reception and dinner for the 120 stockholders and contractors. The next evening, 4,000 guests were invited for a grand opening and dedication. The Mayfair Hotel featured a nine-chair barbershop, a six-booth beauty parlor (unlike at many hotels where these services would be located in a basement), and private dining rooms and a luxurious lounge in the

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...

off the lobby. Among the hotel's guests throughout the years were

Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Berlin received numerous honors including an Acade ...

John Barrymore John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen, and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly a ...

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English and American actor. Known for his blended British and American accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he ...

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

, and

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...

. In 1925, Radio station

KMOX KMOX (1120 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio station in St. Louis, Missouri, owned by Audacy, Inc. The station is a 50,000 watt List of North American broadcast station classes, Class A clear-channel station with a omnidirectional ante ...

went on the air from a studio in the mezzanine. KMOX installed an $18,000

Kilgen Kilgen was a prominent American builder of organs which was in business from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. History The Kilgen family The Kilgen family's history of organ making supposedly dates to the 17th century, when Sebastian Kilgen ...

organ and held recitals every day at noon and between 6 and 7 p.m. In 1977, the hotel was renovated. Some 85 rooms were removed and the interior redecorated, but original features were kept when possible, maintaining the building's historic value. The hotel was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on September 17, 1979. The hotel was sold in 2003 to local businessmen Michael and Steven Roberts, who renamed it the Roberts Mayfair Hotel. The hotel was managed by Wyndham Hotels for a time during this period. The brothers built a condominium tower next to the hotel, which proved unsuccessful, forcing them to sell the hotel to UrbanStreet Group in 2012, who then resold it for $4 million to Magnolia Hotels in 2013. Magnolia renovated the hotel, and reopened it in 2014 as the Magnolia Hotel St. Louis.

References

External links

Magnolia Hotel St. Louis official website
{{National Register of Historic Places Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Missouri Hotels in St. Louis National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis Downtown St. Louis Buildings and structures in St. Louis 1979 establishments in Missouri

See also

References

External links