You’d think they would have been bit-ter rivals, the Baker and Adolphus Hotels, standing as they did scarcely 100 feet apart along one of the busiest thoroughfares in town. The stakes were, after all, so high. There were presi-dents and generals to entertain, European travelers to please, markets to set up and balls – seemingly endless in details — to accommodate. And, of course, there were the oilmen who needed careful tending when they came to town and gathered in the big hotels to discuss business. It was a time when builders could afford to be lavish, and it was apparent that aesthetic considerations were paramount in the design of both hotels. Marble and crystal were flung about as casually as aluminum and plastic are today.
But the Baker and the Adolphus were not bitter rivals for a simple reason: there was no need to be. Until the early Fifties, people will tell you, there were two hotels in town. There were other hotels, but when anyone who, shall we say, “was anyone” inquired about accommodations in Dallas, they were given two names: the Baker and the Adolphus. It wasthat easy. There was more than enough business to fill two grand hotels. During State Fair time, the buildings were madhouses of activity. On one particularly frenetic weekend the mayor and sheriff of a small West Texas town were grateful to be put up in the Adolphus Hotel chapel, the only room left in the inn. And they were sufficiently awed to set up a table and chairs outside the door to do their drinking. “We had it all,” says one old-timer at the Adolphus, unable to suppress a sigh.
Today, though practically everything else has changed, the Baker and the Adolphus are still friendly. But three vast convention hotels now dwarf the once mighty old ones; Market Hall – surrounded by a cluster of impressive hostelries – has vacuumed up the trade business; the giant hives of the interstate motels have all but eliminated drive-in trade to downtown hotels, the efficiency of air travel has reduced the number of businessmen who stay overnight in the city, and many of the wealthy travelers who once frequented the Adolphus and the Baker now go to the Fairmont or the Sheraton or the Hilton, assuming that the biggest and newest is best.
Where once the Baker and the Adolphus could afford to be friendly out of strength, they now consider themselves beleaguered compatriots in a cutthroat war. If the Adolphus fills up during a convention and has extra guests waiting, somebody calls up the Baker to offer it the overflow. And vice versa. It’s always been that way.
The Baker, the Adolphus, the Lawrence and the Milner Plaza downtown, the Stoneleigh and the Melrose in Oak Lawn are all more than 50 years old, the only ones left that can claim to have been part of the grand hotel era. Today the problems of merely keeping an old hotel alive are myriad; the problems of keeping it “grand” are staggering. The owners of these old hotels have found various solutions to the problems of keeping the hotels open, watching warily as at least 10 old hotels around them have been torn down to make way for office buildings or to rid the city of fire traps and flop houses. Some of the solutions have been appealing, others merely expeditious. The result is that some of the hotels are merely old, while others are old and grand.
Probably more than any other hotel, the Adolphus works to maintain the atmosphere of a grand hotel. When the hotel was built in 1912 by Adolphus Busch of St. Louis, it was the finest building and hotel anyone had seen in Texas, and perhaps the Southwest. Texas was the first state into which Busch shipped his famous beer in new refrigerator cars that were re-iced at sidings along the way, and the warm reception Texans gave to his cold brew convinced him to buy 90 percent of the corporate shares tor a Big, modern hotel.
The cost was a near scandalous $1,870,000 but the results were spectacular. Generally modeled after Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel by architect Tom P. Barnett, the “gingerbread palace,” as it came to be known, was a wondrous combination of French Renaissance and beer baron architecture. The Oriental tapestry brick and gray granite structure is adorned with terra cotta representations of Mercury and Ceres, sculpted figures of Night and Morning and various other reliefs of the Louis XIV era that somehow blend with a cornerturret that resembles a beer bottle and anupper facade that terminates with the suggestion of the rounded ends of huge beer barrels.Barnett was even sly enough to add ornate basrelief decorations that resemble flowering hops in the exquisite French Room. A large collection of fine French, English and Italian Renaissance paintings hung in the lobby until 1949 when Leo F. Corrigan bought the building and they were returned to the Busch collection in St. Louis.
Adolphus Busch died a year after the hotel was opened but his heirs took over operation and in 1917, because of booming business, added an annex to the hotel which raised the total number of rooms from 260 to 482. There people dined and danced to the biggest big bands of the day in the city’s first roof garden. In 1936 the Century Room opened to display name entertainers and the longest continuous running ice show in the Southwest.
Today much of the hotel has been remodeled, but it retains an atmosphere of grandeur and charm that, if not quite like the original Adolphus, is nevertheless a good deal grander than the average modern hotel. The lobby has been remodeled in red velvet and brown wood paneling and the gargantuan crystal chandelier that once hung in the Busch brewery remains a dazzling introduction to the building. The Century Room has reopened as Incredible Charlie’s, and features the old big band music of the hotel’s golden era.
Stormy Meadows, resident raconteur and public relations director, is the sort of person that has always been associated with the old hotels. Her fervor is undimmed by twenty years of service. “I love this old hotel, I just love it,” she remarks frequently as she bustles around the lobby in royal blue track shoes, clucking over the guests as if they were her own children. If you haven’t been hugged by Stormy, you probably haven’t been in the Adolphus.
It’s all part of the “atmosphere and attitude” that general manager Grant Baere says differentiates the Adolphus from the “steel and concrete” hotels breathing down its ornate neck. The nostalgia craze has done a lot for business too, he thinks. “Maybe the world’s changing,” he muses over lunch at the King’s Club. “Young kids like to stay where they’re recognized and greeted – where they’re not just number 2538.”
The mere idea of tearing down the Adolphus is blasphemous to its loyal staff. “To rebuild this thing with 800 to 900 rooms today would cost a minimum of $50,000 per room,” says Baere. “About 40 to 50 million dollars.” To keep the Adolphus competitive with other downtown hotels is expensive too, but the old building does have its advantages. “The physical plant – the guts – is still A-l. It’s remarkable,” says Baere. “The beauty of this building is that the maintenance has been kept up on it. That’s the most important thing about an old building. Once you get behind you can never catch up.” He also thinks the personal attention – from the two owners – first Adolphus Busch and now Leo F. Corrigan – has been invaluable. “We wish we had more money to put into it though,” he adds.
The upkeep of the hotel has been impressive indeed. The 11th floor, for example, has recently been remodeled with heavy dark blue and red carpeting on its wide, wide halls and white and gold fleur-de-lis wallpaper. The effect is stunning but-heaven forbid that it be other- wise – very tasteful. The rooms, on the whole, are larger than most though the less expensive ones have fairly standard furnishings.
The apartment suites (with two bedrooms and a parlor), however, can run as high as $250 per night. But if you have that kind of money, they are probably worth it. Marble-topped tables, Degas prints, spacious entrance foyers and always subtle color combinations give them a serene beauty. For the Rococo spirit there is even a lavatory with gold cupids for handles. A large (almost kitchen size) wet bar and accompanying semi-circular couch built into the wall is a particularly sought-after feature, said Stormy, the consummate tour guide at the hotel. Single rooms at the Adolphus start at $22, compared to a minimum of $37 at the Fairmont, $26 at the Hilton and Sheraton and $23 at the Marriott.
George Smith at the Chamber of Commerce convention bureau says that the Adolphus and the Baker are usually the last to fill up when a big convention comes to town. But Baere bristles at that “talk.” His surveys show that the Adolphus is almost always second to fill if a convention is headquartered at another downtown hotel. He also says the Adolphus is the favorite of European travelers.
Despite the obvious effort of everyone at the Adolphus to keep the memory of Busch’s hostelry fresh, no one pretends that things can be like they once were. Labor problems and the new, more casual dress and behavior of most hotel guests has drastically changed the life of bellmen, for instance. Richard Shaw, a 73-year-old bellman who can’t remember whether he’s been at the hotel 45 or 50 years, says, “Nowadays women dress a lot more naked than clothed.” Other things are a lot less formal too. “We used to wear white uniforms, white shoes and white gloves,” he says. “We always had to carry a little tray inside our coat pocket. If you had to deliver a letter to a guest, you couldn’t just walk up and hand it to them. You had to put it on a tray. You also used to always carry cigarette lighters and if you saw a guest who needed a light you did it for them. Today people don’t want you to light their cigarettes. We always used to help people on with their coats in the lobby too. We don’t do that much anymore. And more and more people carry their bags than ever before.
“Yes,” he said over a dish of vanilla ice cream that was promised in exchange for an interview, “if things keep going on like they are now, this hotel is gonna be just like a self-service gas station.” When Shaw first came to the hotel there were almost 30 bellmen and porters. “Today,” he says, “we don’t hardly have eight bellboys in the whole building. It shows you how much business has fell off.” He also remembers that when the trains were running, more businessmen would come and stay for several days at a time. “We used to see a big limousine pull up and run out and get all the bags. Now you run up and all the men have is a briefcase,” he said.
Lillie Bell Adkins, “Miss Lillie” to all who know her, has worked in the hotel laundry since 1928 and she agrees that standards have certainly fallen off. “Them sheets and them pillow cases used to look so nice,” she said. “The corners were perfectly straight – there couldn’t be any strings hanging down. They were folded and stacked neatly. Used to wouldn’t be wrinkle one in one of them sheets. We had to kinda beat out the napkins till the edges were perfectly straight. Today some of the people laugh at me when I try to do things the old way, but if I do anything I want to do it right. Today the people they hire really don’t care – they’re just happy-go-lucky.” During the State Fair, she remembers, an extra 18 people were hired just to handle the big flood of laundry. “Today no hotel gets what it used to,” she says flatly.
Moses “Mo” Garcia, who started out as a busboy and worked his way up to second cook during 30 years at the hotel, says the biggest thing that’s changed in the kitchen is that most of the foods come prepared now. “We used to cut up all the meat, peel our own potatoes, clean the green beans. Today sweet potatoes come in a can,” he says, obviously finding that fact amusing. There used to be 10 cooks in the kitchen; now he does it all. He thinks the quality of food – cellophane wrappers or no – has remained first quality, however.
Public relations has relaxed too, says Stormy, who wasone of the first women in the country to be hired inhotel sales and p.r. “When I first came to the hotel in1957, I used to meet all the people who came here,” shesays. “I’d go out to the airport and greet them and takethem back to the hotel.” One time she drove out toLove Field in a rented hearse, accompanied by a bellmanin tails and a cocktail waitress in long dress who carrieda bucket of dry ice. When the president of the NationalTire Dealers stepped off his plane, he was handed adrink and ushered to the Adolphus. Another time theirrepressible Stormy rode out to Gene Autry’s planein a wagon pulled by a team of mules to present the cowboy star with a horse collar instead of flowers. “And I always met Liberace when he came to play,” she said. “Thosewere the times when everything we did was for the customer. But everything’s gotten so big today. It’s just hard to do that kind of thing anymore.”
Across the street at the Baker, the attitude is a bit less optimistic and the decor a little less grand. The standard guest rooms are small, with not much more than functional furnishings, and the hallways are a bit cramped as well, the sort you’d have trouble carrying two bags in if traffic were coming your way. Lonny Witte, the tall, kindly white-haired manager of the hotel, says the Baker doesn’t purport to offer its guests anything more than “a nice comfortable room and good food” at prices much lower than the other big hotels, $17 minimum for a single room.
The hotel is not without its old charm, however. The once two-tiered lobby has been filled in to make room for meeting space, but the present decor remains elegant if a bit subdued. A color scheme of browns and grays blends smoothly with massive black marble columns and cream-colored walls with brown moldings. The wicker furniture that graced the old lobby has been replaced by comfortable leather solas and chairs.
The most elegant reminder of earlier times is the Crystal Ballroom, which remains a breathtaking sight. Nine massive crystal chandeliers imported from Czechoslovakia when the hotel opened in 1925 still decorate the ceiling, now accented by heavy gold classically pleated drapes that touch the floor. The ballroom was once scene of some of the most famous parties in town and would still be a romantic setting for almost any gathering.
The party that is remembered most vividly was probably that given for Wirt Davis’ daughter, Camilla, in 1939. “Elsa Maxwell was imported from New York,” reads an account at the time. She brought her own band, decorated the room in illuminated balloons, made all the guests change from evening clothes to masquerade costumes and collected waffle irons from throughout the city to make breakfast at midnight. “Two black mammies were there to serve them,” the account concluded. An Idlewild party in those times required 1,500 cocktails on ice, 65 waiters and 15 chefs.
Along with the Crystal Ballroom, the Peacock Terrace Room on the 17th floor of the hotel also attracted national attention. “The Peacock Terrace inaugurated the era of name bands in hotels,” remembers Ligon Smith, a bandleader who joined Tommy Dorsey, Ted Weems (with sidekick Perry Como), Don Bestor and many others on stage. The room itself was something of a wonder. The large dance floor was enclosed by a wrought iron gate ana the illuminated ceiling held clusters of greenery. A lily pond with live ducks was a major attraction. A large stuffed peacock at the front of the bandstand presided over the scene.
After the Depression the big dine-and-dance rooms gave way to smaller, more intimate clubs, recalls Smith, so the Baker opened the Mural Room which remained home for the most famous singers, dancers, ventriloquists, magicians and other entertainers around. Among the guests that passed through its doors were Rudy Vallee, Sophie Tucker, Hildegarde, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Del Courtney, Dorothy Lamour, Frankie Laine, George Gobel, Carmen Miranda, Xavier Cugat, the DeMarco sisters, Patti Page, and Pat Boone, who debuted in his white shoes to screaming mobs of teen-age girls.
The room got its name from a mural by PerryNichols depicting classical figures of Greek mythology in shades of earth bronze, mauve, green and warm gold. A scene
of Leda and the Swan was particularly admired. Those murals came down in 1956, however, when the Mural Room became the private Club Imperial which today is a plush setting (with red and gold peacock motif wallpaper) for Dallas’ upper echelon.
The regrets of the old-timers at the Baker are similar to those at the Adolphus. You just can’t get the same class of employees now as you did then, they say, because of welfare and unemployment benefits. “It used to be a privilege to hold almost any position at the Baker,” says Nina Biser, credit manager and a 30-year veteran at the hotel. “Room clerk, bellman – anything. It was a marvelous training ground for hotel people. We used to have the very top employees. The waitresses were fine-looking women, they gave beautiful service and they made good livings too.
“Everything – and I mean every phase – was run like a super hotel. Everyone throughout Texas came to the Baker and the Adolphus. We were IT. What did it was when the Statler opened, then the Sheraton – and each was tremendous competition. And now we take what is left. Business just isn’t what it used to be. We used to get all the business that the Fairmont gets now, all the society balls. Now we have highs and lows in business – we call them mountains and valleys – and you just can’t keep a good employee during the valleys.”
Ikie Walker, superintendent of service and drugstore manager who’s been at the Baker 36 years, remembers that tips were as grand as the hotel when he started as a bellman. “I raised a family and paid for a home that way,” he said. “People just don’t spend their money the way they used to.” Rules for bellmen were a lot stricter too. “The bellmen used to be inspected every morning before they could go on the floor,” he said. “Their uniforms had to be neatly pressed, their shoes shined, their hair combed. There was no such thing as a moustache in those days. We used to not be allowed to let a guest walk through the lobby with a brief-case. Business was so good that the Baker had a three-day limit on rooms. People had to leave after three days to let other people come in.” The Pack-ards, Cadillacs and Lincolns he used to see at the hotel have been replaced by Volkswagens and Hondas, he says.
Although manager Witte says, “Frankly I see no reason why we won’t keep going indefinitely,” he is honest about the problems of keeping an old building alive. “What is the answer?” he says. “Which way should you go? Is it worthwhile to completely redo an old hotel, to keep pouring money into it? The hotel-motel business is very competitive and I just don’t know the answers. If I did, I’d be a very rich man.”
One option for hotels that cannot keep abreast of convention competition is to take on permanent residents, and the Milner Plaza, the original Hilton Hotel built in 1927, now has about 50 percent permanent lodgers. The tan brick structure, located at the corner of Main and Harwood looks dingy on the outside today (and hasn’t been helped by the addition of garish turquoise and orange panels on the fire escapes), but the lobby – always the best part of the older hotels – is large, airy and beautifully decorated. A long wood-paneled front desk is surrounded by tall, cream-colored columns that stretch to the vast ceiling. The rooms are small, clean and ordinary – and they only cost $12.72 for a single.
The problems of operating an old, inexpensive hotel proved too much for William Smilardo, who quit as manager a few months ago. “People are trying to get the most for their money,” he says, “They think they ought to get the same service for $12 that they get for $40.” Maintenance problems are difficult. “The plumbing and electricity are old,” he says. “People are using more electrical appliances in their rooms that adds more amperage to the system. The windows are getting loose, there are more drafts.” He scoffs at the idea that people would find anything particularly charming about the old White Plaza Hotel. “People have a tendency to go to something new,” he says. “People come here – I don’t like to use the word – because it’s cheap. And the demands put upon me are more than I can cope with.” And with that he scuttled off to the basement to try to figure out why a socket in a nearby lamp wasn’t working.
A spokesman for the Milner Hotels Management Co. (which operates a national chain of 19 hotels from headquarters in Detroit) was a good bit more enthusiastic about the importance of the Milner Plaza. “This is an in-between type of hotel,” said accountant John Chmielewski. “This building has been well-maintained, and we think we’ve rejuvenated it. We’re pretty well caught up. We put in new air conditioning in the bar last month, and we’ve got a good location. We also figure on making some more apartments because there’s a definite need for apartments for people who want to live in town for two or three months at a time.”
On the west end of downtown stands the Lawrence Hotel, looking lonely and a little shabby. Once the Lawrence, the Jefferson, the Texan and the Victoria were the leading hotels around Union Station. Today the faded white letters that spell “Scott Hotel” on its walls are reminders of its earlier incarnation.
Nick Jackson hasn’t forgotten a moment of those days and in fact would like to forget about the decline of the hotel he has tended for 51 years. On the first day of the State Fair in 1925, he opened the Scott Hotel coffee shop and has been running it ever since. He goes and gets a doughnut to illustrate a point about the good old days, holds it limply on one finger and says, “I sold a doughnut like this today for 21 cents. When this coffee shop opened I had a big sign up over the counter that said “Plate Lunch, 25 Cents” – and that included dessert and drink.” He mourns the passing of that era, and says the Lawrence “keeps going down and down.”
He used to look out each morning from the windows of the cafe and see Morrell Buckner, president of Union Station, watering bluebonnets in the grass across the street, and in the afternoon he’d chat with the judges, attorneys and politicans who came to lunch at the cafe. When Union Station closed, those days were gone for good and the final blow came two years ago when they converted S. Houston Street in front of the cafe to a one-way thoroughfare. “That killed my business,” he said in his still thick Greek accent.
The hotel itself is home to many retired people, some of whom have been there as long as 30 years. Many overnight guests are directed to the hotel from the nearby bus station where they have been told the Lawrence is the place to go for “reasonable” rates. Who would argue that $8.48 a night isn’t reasonable? Manager Rufus Ham, who looks a bit weary at the idea of discussing his hotel, says he doesn’t have to do any advertising to keep a good occupancy rate. “I don’t try to compete against the Holiday Inn or Howard Johnson. We have people that have stayed with us that come back every year. Some people expect to pay $25 to $30 a night so they go other places. Others are not financially able to pay those rates so they come here.” He says maintenance isn’t too worrisome because the building is so well-constructed. “They don’t build ’em like this anymore,” he says.
In an entirely different situation – out of downtown but still in the convention business – are the Stone-leigh and Melrose Hotels, in many ways perhaps the nicest of Dallas’ remaining grand hotels. Both were built in the mid-Twenties and today are the favorite resting places of traveling actors, singers, dancers and other entertainers as well as some permanent cultural representatives of the city, among them civic opera maestro Nicola Rescigno, who lives at the Melrose.
This hotel is located at the bustling corner of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs, but the cool quiet grace of its interior is another world entirely. Gold velvet drapes, a striking gold and black medallion carpet and beautiful crystal chandeliers make the hotel a rare place to stay for $14 to $16 per night for a single room. The chambers are immaculate and all are designed with enough individuality that there’s no question you’re not inhabiting a chain motel of the sort that Esquire magazine recently described as “familiar with a vengeance.”
Kay King, the hotel manager, needs no coaxing to sing its praises. “This hotel has beauty and charm,” she says with the tone of one who is stating fact, not opinion. “The rooms are large, the ceilings are high and we are blessed with – windows” – her voice soars – “and light. We have 1107 windows. Andour location is really superb. Personally I think it would be a shame to demolish a hotel like this because we would never live to see another building built like this one. It’s nearly as fire-proof and sound-proof as you can get. It has all plastered walls, six inches thick at least. And all steel beams – no wooden ones. You couldn’t do it today. It would be so expensive you just couldn’t do it.”
The hotel was originally all apartments but began to take transient trade after World War II. Today about half the guests are permanent residents. “People from the Park Cities who are selling large homes come here. They want the homey atmosphere but the services a hotel can offer,” says Ms. King. “And more and more young people are coming in off the streets just to look around. Young people are more and more interested in antique furniture. All they’ve ever known is the fast-built motels, and I think it gives them a certain amount of security when they see a building as well kept up as this one that’s been here 53 years.”
The rooms have been remodeled several times but she says care has been taken to preserve the original period atmosphere. “We don’t have cheap apartment type furniture,” she snaps. The partners who own the building, Julius Schwartz and WilliamDeWoskin of St. Louis, have no plans for the building other than to keep upgrading it, she says.
Some of the suites in the venerable (though architecturally undistinguished) red brick structure are unbelievably elegant. One has giant bay windows throughout, a cool green carpet, butler’s pantry, silent closet, Oriental wallpaper, cream wall moldings, marble topped bathroom fixtures, a wicker commode, two fireplaces and myriad other graceful touches.
Not too far down the street on Maple Avenue is the Stoneleigh Hotel, which surpasses even the Melrose in over-all charm. Together with the Maple Terrace apartments it forms a peaceful little community all its own. The lush plot is filled with lighted tennis courts and greenhouse, a heated swimming pool with cabanas, a 14-acre park with waterfalls, gardens and a children’s playground.
Ray Krieger, the hotel’s effervescent, ever-grinning manager, admires the restraint shown by the owners. “If you wanted to tear up this property you could sell it for a fortune,” he says. “But the owners have kept the whole complex together to preserve the residential, neighborhood atmosphere. Nowadays the owners of many hotels simply bleed the property. They buy it to make a profit or as a tax loss – theydon’t put money back in. They let the hotel do what business it can and then let it deteriorate. Just in the last ten years, people got together and decided to try to preserve some of the older buildings. People are tired of the new. They want their children to know what the old was like.”
The Stoneleigh rooms have been remodeled at a leisurely pace, perhaps 10 or 15 at a time, because Krieger doesn’t believe in doing all renovation at once. The result might be “the whim of an interior decorator” and soon obsolete. The furnishings are among the finest of any hotel in the city and the great charm of the place is that each room is a little bit different but still compatible with all the others. They seem to have been designed by someone who expected to spend a lifetime there. Jake Webster, president of the Dallas Hotel and Motel Association (and also innkeeper at the downtown Holiday Inn) said that two of the remodeled floors at the Stoneleigh had “the prettiest hotel rooms” he’d ever seen. The thick carpets are in a variety of muted shades and the single rooms (which rent for $18-to-$24 per night) are always big enough for a coffee table or couch, something to make it look as if you’ve got some living area beyond the beds.
The 11th and 12th floors are perhaps the prettiest, with salmon-colored carpets in the hallways and matching striped wallpaper. Small brass lamps are positioned by each doorway. Ironically, the least impressive thing about the Stoneleigh is its lobby, usually the highlight of any old hotel. It is relatively ordinary and if anything, its blue color scheme is a bit overdone.
Krieger says an important part of maintaining an old hotel, beyond room renovation, is keeping the public facilities in competition with all others in the city. He claims the Stoneleigh bar, The Den, is the most popular hotel bar in town, much nicer than the merely convenient and vaguely depressing sort one finds in many hotels.
What will happen to the Stoneleigh and the other grand old hotels in Dallas is uncertain. The ones that have not added years gracefully may prove unworthy of salvation within the next five or ten years. The ones that have been maintained will probably be around for many years more. The best of these buildings have an air of indestructibility that belies their age. If some of them do meet premature death, however, there will be those who feel as Henry Parker did. He owned the wrecking company that demolished the Southland Hotel long before many felt its time had come. As the four-ton ball smashed into the famous old bricks, he is said to have remarked, “The good Lord put us here for a purpose and when we’ve served that purpose, He takes us away. That building was put there for a purpose and now it’s time for it to go.”
Others will feel as Ada Louise Hux-table does that even if something is lost in the renovation process – and something inevitably is – the old is usually worth keeping with us. In a recent article for The New York Times on the restoration of Boston’s Quincy market, she analyzed the pros and cons of such endeavors.
She was sad to see the old things she had loved “in the only context – elite, cleaned-up, skillfully merchandised settings – that will work economically, for expensively remodeled space, with appeal for the affluent and sophisticated public that can support such an enterprise today.” Yet she said, “You cannot ever really turn back the clock, or have things as they were. The appropriate resolution of the hard realities of necessary change are what preservation is all about. The dilemma, in the end, is balance. You win and you lose at the same time, and with luck, you mostly win.”
Chances are, there are enough people who want to “mostly win” that the grand old hotels in Dallas will not go down without a fight. If those people have money, there’ll be no problem.
