HOTEL’S PLANS MELT AWAY

When Fort Worth’s ritzy Americana Hotel hosted its grand opening reception April 16, hotel executives conjured up a first-class feast worthy of the city’s proud Texas tradition.

Unfortunately, the crowning touch of the celebration turned out-like many Texas traditions – to be bigger than life, and the executives saw their grandest dreams literally put on ice.

The sumptuous menu included pheasant under glass, paté de foie gras, and Russian caviar. The hotel was most proud, however, of its table and room decorations, sculpted in ice and butter by a designer flown all the way from Italy especially for the occasion.

The partygoers oohed and ahhed over the cowboys and armadillos made of butter. But the six-horse stagecoach, which was sculpted out of 20 tons of ice and was more than 15 feet long, didn’t make its scheduled stop.

The designer apparently got so carried away with his creation that he forgot to measure the door of the room in which the sculpture was made.

When workmen tried to carry it to the ballroom, they found they couldn’t get it through the door, and the masterpiece was doomed to melt on the basement floor.