“From the Pico House . . . to the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles Has Traveled Far”: The Building of the Biltmore Hotel, 1921-1923, Part Two

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

We move to the second part of this post on the building of the Biltmore Hotel by moving to 1922, with the new year bringing a development alluded to as a possibility the previous year with respect to expanding the project. Specifically, the 11 January edition of the Los Angeles Express reported that local investor Lee A. Phillips, who was president of the Central Development Corporation which built the hostelry, was heading to New York City to consult with the architects Leonard Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver and Biltmore lessee John McEntee Bowman.

The pair formed their partnership in 1921 and their first contracts were for Bowman and the Biltmore, with Schultze handling the design work and Weaver responsible for the engineering and development side. The two men subsequently carried out further Biltmore and many other hotel designs, as well as commercial, residential and government projects until Weaver’s 1940 death with Schultze continuing under his own name, including the massive 1940s Park La Brea apartment complex in Los Angeles.

Moreover, Phillips was meeting with the architects because “the addition of the newly acquired property . . . will require a few changes in the original plans,” this concerning the purchase of a boarding house built by the Salvation Army for young women at the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and 5th Street. With 2 1/2 acres under its ownership, the Central Development firm could proceed with the hotel, but also work on the Biltmore Theatre which was built where the boarding house was situated.

Phillips and company secretary James R. Martin also announced that the goal of raising $4 million for the project was reached and that the former was named president of the newly incorporated firm. Other officers were bankers Joseph F. Sartori, Henry M. Robinson and Marco H. Hellman and Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, as vice-presidents, joining Phillips and Martin in the ranks of company leadership.

The Express of 11 February noted that tenants occupying structures on the hotel property were t be given until the end of the month to vacate as “razing of the present buildings is scheduled to start” in March. Moreover, the paper was told that it would take about a half-year to complete the project’s preliminaries and that construction was slated to begin in September.

Schultze was to arrive the next day, carrying all of the plans and specifications, available to interested contractors who wished to make bids, and open an office in the Pacific Mutual Building, located directly south of the Biltmore site. Phillips, meanwhile, was still in New York City conferring with Bowman and his staff, who were to operate the hotel on a lease from the Central Development Corporation.

Two days later, the Times covered the last services of the St. Paul Pro-Cathedral, which occupied a key part of the hotel site for four decades and it observed,

Unbidden tears dimmed the eyes of many when the congregation . . . met last night to worship for the last time in the historic church edifice opposite Pershing Square. The furniture will be removed from the edifice today and tomorrow the “wreckers” will begin razing the historic structure to make way for the building of the Biltmore Hotel.

It was added that, within a few days, work on the new church, a few blocks to the southwest, at Figueroa and 6th, was to begin and it was expected that construction on the $300,000 place of worship would take about eighteen months. The article also contained some great images of the church, its St. Athanasius predecessor and the successor edifice.

The paper’s edition of 19 March noted that, after what were clearly protracted negotiations for reasons that were not disclosed, the lease contract between Central Development and Bowman’s firm were signed for the operation of the hotel. The 25-year arrangement involved a $600,000 annual rental with the lessee to “pay all operating expenses, taxes and carrying charges.”

It was added that the drying of the ink “marks the clearing away of the last of the details incident to the erection of the great building” and that, once the church was razed, “the excavation for the hotel will be started immediately.” A meeting of the Central board was also mentioned with respect to finalizing a contract with Scofield Engineering Construction Company, which came in with a bid of just north of $5 million to build the hotel.

This was just under $100,000 more than Lange & Bergstrom, but, because the latter indicated, in its bid, that it would take 19 months to complete the work, whereas Scofield stated it could finish two months sooner, the savings in carrying and interest charges were such that the latter’s bid was deemed lower in actuality. It was added that the directors were “anxious to get the building completed as early as possible.”

With respect to the former Salvation Army home where the theater was to be built, it was revealed that a former owner was former United States Senator Frank P. Flint, who was also president of the Los Angeles Investment Company and a director of the Central Development Corporation. Moreover, it was stated that, if the theater plan fell through, the property would be retained as part of the Biltmore holdings.

Notably, there were other future possibilities for Central, including 150 acres to be acquired for a golf course and country club to be operated in conjunction with the Biltmore and, most interestingly, “a farm for the production of flowers, fruits and vegetables required by the hotel,” this having already been done for the New York City Biltmore. These were discussed by Bowman, who was in town for the lease signing and discussions of other projects and made his base at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Finally, concerning construction, the article commented that excavation was to begin the following week, once the last ruins of St. Paul’s were removed, with Scofield stating that the hotel would be opened in September 1923. Furnishings for the Biltmore were also estimated to top $1 million, according to Bowman, who also was happy that the building’s cost did not have to be reduced because of the contract amounts within estimates and the funds available from Central. He added,

The hotel is just as I wanted it, and in my opinion it will not be surpassed in appointments and equipment by any similar institution. When completed, it will be the most modern and perfectly appointed building of its kind in the world. The furnishings and decorations will be typically Californian, and far more distinctive than any hotel I have seen.

Another landmark was achieved on 26 March when a hotel manager was hired. Charles Baad, who oversaw the operations of the Hotel Alexandria, the most luxurious of the Angel City hostelries when it was finished in 1904, had prior experience working in hotels in San Francisco before coming to Los Angeles in 1920. He told the Times that his new job meant that “I will have realized my life’s dream” as “I have always wanted to manage the largest and finest hotel on the Pacific Coast.” It was added that the total cost of the Biltmore was to be about $7 million.

With regard to modernity, another notable development came with a report in the Times of the last day of March, when Baad told the paper “there is so much radio on the air and in the minds of the public” that the hotel was “to have the most sensitive radio set and complete radio receiving room of any hotel in the world.”

Adding that the Bowman firm was working on plans for his amenity, the manager noted “there is no question but that radio is here to stay, as another fulfillment of Edward Bellamy’s dreams,” this reference to the futurist, best known for his 1890s socialist utopian novel, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, but hardly expected to be mentioned in connection with a project led by such capitalists as the Times’ Harry Chandler.

The Biltmore manager went on to note that a room was to be set aside next to the main lobby and dining room and have excellent acoustic and ventilation properties, so that “the business man who has finished his noon luncheon or evening meal may find the opportunity for receiving the latest news of the day” had the finest facilities for doing so.

Naturally, this meant hearing programming, including news, music, business information, Chamber of Commerce talks and others, from KFI, the recently launched station of the Times. Lastly, Baad told the paper that “silence will prevail in the room” and that “the innovation will be so popular that access will have to be limited to guests of the hotel and their friends.”

On his return to New York City after a lengthy sojourn in Los Angeles, Bowman sat in his office and expounded at length, in a Times article from 9 April, on his reasons for building a Biltmore “in a city already boasting some of the greatest hotels in the country.” It was asserted that “winning friendships and good will and new citizens, with vision or money, or both” was a core part of the strategy and Bowman observed that

A hotel in a progressive city becomes its greatest publicity asset. A city like Los Angeles is bound to have a great influx of visitors. The first thing I considered about the traveler is his comfort when he strikes a strange city. He inquires for the best hotel. First impressions are usually the most lasting. If you give the visitor a good hotel with all the comforts and conveniences of home and a few more, you have made a good impression with him for the city. The hotel is the key to the city.

A happy and satisfied guest, moreover, “becomes a natural booster” for the hotel and the metropolis. Broadening his perspective, Bowman commented that “California is one of the most progressive States in the Union. It is not only a wonderful state—It’s a State of wonders” and he offered that no one should pass up an opportunity to visit and learn about it.

Demonstrating his knack for selling, the hotelier professed to like seemingly everything about the Golden State (its cities, mountains, fruit and “above all, its people”) and gushed that “Los Angeles is one of the show cities of the United States, if not in the world.” He likened the administration of a large hotel as akin to running a major city, with a key for the leader to have a successful set of subordinates as part of a “harmonious whole, with the the interest of the hostelry their interest.” Of course, this was not unlike what the head of any large company would say about the firm.

Noting that the public knew or cared nothing of the inner workings of such an enterprise, so long as their received proper service, Bowman recited that “the good will of the public is a hotel’s chief asset” and he intoned that “it is easy to get this at the start; it is just as easy to lose it.” While profit was its key aim, it was “the perfection of the invisible machinery” that led to excellent service, happy customers and, naturally, enhanced profitability.

In addition to his long hotel experience, the article mentioned that Bowman served as head of hotels, restaurants, dining-cars and steamships for the food administration bureau during the First World War. His eight hotels, representing $75 million on investment, contained 7,000 rooms for up to 12,000 persons daily and served some 36,000 meals, as well, with 8,000 employees earning $5 million annually.

At the end of April, it was learned that the permit issued for the hotel project was not only the largest ever in the Angel City at just shy of $4.5 million, but that it was nearly double the previous record, though what this structure was, did not get mentioned. The building department approved plans called for a 14-story structure, including below ground portions with a steel frame and brick walls, and it took several weeks of day and night effort to complete the review. Because of the massive size of the permit, the month was expected to be an overall record of almost $11 million.

The 10 May edition of the Express provided a brief update on excavation work, as the paper observed

While at times the corner of Fifth and Olive streets represented a miniature western front, due to blasting for the new Biltmore hotel, there were no casualties and not as much as a single window broken in the total of 950 shots fired.

Frank Pearson, who oversaw the blasting work, was credited with a record in terms of the cleanness, such that “not a stone was thrown out of the lot” from the explosions, even though buildings were as close as fifty feet from the site.

After a long period of what was generally silence about the progress of the work, an update was finally provided in mid-December, with the Express of the 16th observing that half of the projected construction time would be met at the end of the year, but work was more than 50% completed to date. Scofield told the paper that it had every confidence that the hotel would be finished by the end of September 1923, as the contract called for the work to end by 1 October.

Excavation involved the removal of 75,000 tons of earth, while 25,000 yards of concrete, 6,000 tons of structural steel (from the local Llewellyn Iron Works), 3 million “common” bricks, 1 million face bricks, and 1 million square feet of terra cotta tile were to be utilized. It was added that “the Biltmore is by far the largest single building operation ever undertaken in Los Angeles” and that, leaving out furnishings, the cost was pegged at $5.5 million.

As for the design by Schultze and Weaver, it was accounted to be “an adaptation of Italian and Spanish renaissance [revival]” styles and, concrete floors were used. The bottom two levels had exteriors of Bedford stone, while the shaft was comprised of “old gold brick with terra cotta trim.” The south end featured two ramps the full block length for a carriage entrance as well as a service entrance to the basement.

Refrigeration, ice-making, laundry service, the boilers, high-speed elevators and other components were highlighted as the latest in modern equipage for the hostelry. The laundry and machine elements were in the sub-basement, while in the basement proper was the cafeteria for employees, service space and shop storage. The ground level offered retail space, a grill and lounge for men and the main kitchen, while the first floor, “level with the street at the end of the building” was a 28-foot wide gallery spanning the length of the edifice with the ballroom, main dining room, private dining rooms, music room and others opening from it.

A mezzanine level included hotel offices, parlors for women, writing rooms and a manicurist. The remaining eleven floors contained the 1,000 rooms all with en-suite restrooms, though recent remodeling has reduced the number of rooms from a peak of 1,500 to 683. Travertine, Caen stone and Botticino, Verano and Levano marble were finishing materials for the “special rooms” in the Biltmore and English oak and walnut were used extensively in the Gallery and some of the dining rooms.

Part three takes us into 1923 and the work to get the Biltmore completed by the end of September deadline, so look for that continuation soon!