by Paul R. Spitzzeri
This concluding fourth part of a post on the planning, construction and grand opening of the Biltmore Hotel, an iconic downtown Los Angeles landmark off the west side of Pershing Square, takes us to that 1 October 1923 debut and the major coverage of it by Angel City newspapers, including lengthy sections devoted to the event.
The Los Angeles Illustrated News, within its first month of operation, covered the preview on the 29th of the “spick and span” hotel, while it was added that a celebratory dinner for the opening two days later yielded 3,000 reservations, while the orchestra of local bandleader Art Hickman was to entertain guests. Others holding banquets to kick off the Biltmore’s opening were architect Leonard Schultze on the 28th and Schofield Construction Company, the contractor which built the edifice, the following evening.
In its coverage on the 1st, the paper crowed that “the Southland takes precedence in yet another particular” with the completion of the hotel, noting that it was “complete from the cockades in the hat of the doorman to the ice water spigots which work in each room.” Moreover, those thousands of dinner guests “will test the culinary skill of the army of chefs and cooks, the legerdemain of waiters, the quiet courtesy of attaches and the luxury of the hotel’s incomparable appointments.”
Also noted was that “for the first time, smartly dressed women will sweep through the tapestried Gallery [Galeria] Real” while that section would also be “a rendezvous par excellence for sweethearts. The lounges, dining rooms, tea room, ballroom and other spaces “will bring exclamations of delight” and the guest rooms, “equipped with the wisdom of inn-keepers of centuries” were deemed to “have a homey restfulness.” Suites, with one costing $1,290 a month, were a combination of practicality and ultimate luxury.
While world travelers were said to be approving of what was unique on planet Earth, the article concluded with the observation that,
Archaeollogists [sic] excavating Pershing square 2000 years from now will marvel at the civilization which is ours when their pick-axes and shovels clear the debris of centuries from the Biltmore which gets its premiere tonight.
Publisher Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., whose family’s palatial North Carolina pile, completed in 1895, gave the hotel chain its name, was effusive in his praise of the hotel in an editorial advising that every Angeleno should visit and remember those “whose talent and resourcefulness made this gigantic structure possible.”
He mentioned the architects, Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver; Central Development Corporation head Lee Phillips; hotel manager Charles Baad; John R. Martin, who raised money as did Phillips for the project; decorator John B. Smeraldi, who also worked on the nearby Jonathan Club and the Pasadena Convention Center; a host of contractors; realtor Joe Toplitzky; and James Woods, whose boss, John McEntee Bowman, owner of the leasing company, could not attend the opening. The publisher concluded, “Los Angeles has another thing to boast of over San Francisco—and that is that it owns [?] the FINEST, MOST EXPENSIVE hotel in the world today.”
The Los Angeles Record, pegging the total cost of the “tavern” at $9 million, wrote of the “Midases” and “Beau Brummels” who were to attend the opening, while adding that “all Los Angeles proffered a hearty welcome to the palatial Biltmore Hotel.” The venue, deemed the best in the world, hired an additional half-dozen orchestras to that of Hickman to entertain the opening night’s guests, while what was said to be “the best equipped train ever made up” was to arrive that afternoon from New York City ferrying 100 hotel industry officials.
To prepare those 3,000 meals, eighteen chefs and 125 cooks were hired for the evening and the paper commented that “nothing has been overlooked to gain the greatest efficiency in the operating of the big dining rooms” including “electrically controlled conveyors” to take used dinnerware to a room where a massive electric dishwasher was installed. Another space boasted several machines to clean and polish the silverware.
The Record‘s Ted LeBerthon interviewed manager Baad, who declared that the overarching goal for his administration was “to surpass” as this “is the business of hotels, the true business of men, the true function of life.” He also made the interesting comment that,
The public does not know what it wants—collectively. A few individuals must have some distinct environment, as some artists demand a precise milieu, but after all—what they want is something good. Something good! Yes, something good, that’s what we all want. We only know it’s good when we come to it [as they strolled the Galeria Real].
After explaining the thinking behind the decor in the guest rooms and his claim that the hotel boasted the largest hotel foyer in the world and was modeled after European palaces of prior centuries, while adding that Venetian doges and barons of the feudal eras did not have to be concerned about electricity, plumbing and ventilation in the palaces that took years to build, Baad observed that “we had people working in every part of the world—civilized and uncivilized” during the year-and-a-half of construction. He noted “from China to Prince Edward Island, we’ve imported stuff” in what he likened to “an assembled automobile.”
In addition to discussing the accoutrements of the kitchen and the modern water softening system by the Permutit company, the paper commented that “henceforth the Biltmore will be the center of social life in Los Angeles” including the June 1924 national conference of the General Federation of Women’s Club. Locally, regular meetings were to be held there for the Kiwanis, Lions and Optimists clubs and the powerful Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, while upcoming reservations were taken by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Ebell Club, the Elks, the Friday Morning Club, the American Society of Cinematographers and the Motion Picture Directors association, as well as Jewish and Catholic organizations.
While the hotel was primarily to be used for tourists, business people and other temporary visitors, there were also permanent residential units. Over a hundred of these were reserved including for such prominent figures as Motley Flint, brother of hotel investor and former United Senator Frank P. Flint (the brothers hailed from North Reading, Massachusetts adjacent to Reading, where the Temple family long resided) and who was a financier whose involvement in the Julian Petroleum Scandal led to his being murdered in 1930 in a courtroom by a Julian stockholder who blamed Flint for the loss of his savings.
Others were Arthur Letts of The Broadway Department Store, who, however, died in May; Peter Janss, head of a prominent development firm, and his wife, whose son was married to Letts’ daughter; Amadeo P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy, later renamed Bank of America, and his spouse; former Angel City Mayor Meredith P. Snyder and his wife; and Dr. Milbank Johnson, a prominent physician and developer, as well as a key figure in the early days of the Automobile Club of Southern California and the Southwest Museum and an official with Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, the headquarters of which were directly south of the Biltmore.
As the largest newspaper in the City of the Angels, the Times devoted an entire eight-page section to celebrating the hotel’s grand opening, including a good many photos and drawings along with articles. In a statement, “A Monument to Civic Support,” the paper, whose publisher Harry Chandler was a major investor in the facility, proclaimed,
The Biltmore, unselfishly conceived and brought into being by a group of Los Angeles business men, stands as a monument to the spirit which has advanced the city from a simple Spanish pueblo to its present status. it is not a lifeless monument of stone and marble; it is as beautiful, as colorful, as vibrant as the city with which its destiny is linked.
The completion of the Biltmore marks the dawn of a new era in the march of the city’s progress. It constitutes a visible and striking evidence of the transformation which has come upon Los Angeles in recent years, and it stands a mute prophet of the brilliant future of the community.
Edward G. Leaf wrote of the “new chapter in real estate annals” brought about by the completion of the hotel, “a chapter replete with the thrill of a big undertaking accomplished in a big way; a chapter which reflects the whole-hearted and wholly disinterested work” of the business elites who invested in it. It was added that banker Joseph F. Sartori, in a March 1921 confab, called for “a modern hotel, commensurate in size, luxury and appointments with the size of the city,” then embarked on another of its massive growth booms.
Meanwhile, Phillips penned a piece that asserted that “the need of additional hotel facilities in Los Angeles” was a pressing need because “travelers arriving were constantly confronted with [a] shortage of first-class accommodations” and it was challenge to provide adequate space for conventions and other large gatherings. He also made note of the 1921 meeting and named the many prominent men who participated, many of whom were mentioned in the first part of this post.
Along with mention that the opening ceremonies would be broadcast on the paper’s radio station, KHJ, including keynote addresses by William Jennings Bryan, a (unsuccessful) three-time Democratic Party candidate for President and a former Secretary of State during the Woodrow Wilson Administration who was best known in the 1920s for his role in the Scopes Trial over evolution, which concluded just days before Bryan’s death in July 1925; and William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson’s son-in-law and Secretary of the Treasury and future U.S. Senator from California. Other orators included San Francisco Mayor James Rolph and the police and fire chiefs, August Vollmer and Ralph J. Scott, respectively, of the Angel City.
Another piece lionized the “speed record” of the edifice’s construction, with it declared that the project was completed two months ahead of time. Excavation of the site began on 24 March 1922, with the foundations finished on 1 July and steel framing was begun about two weeks later and the last of that work done by the end of the year. Masons began their efforts on 12 November and the hotel was enclosed within two-and-a-half months, while ornamental plastering began that month, as well. Finally, granite and limestone work started on 18 October and was finished, except for a outdoor ramp for deliveries, on 22 March.
A tidbit of interest with respect to the burgeoning local film industry is that the greeter for the hotel big-wigs arriving at the hotel from New York to the opening was Jackie Coogan, who rocketed to fame in Charles Chaplin’s 1921 smash film, The Kid, and who “is a patron of the Biltmore system of hotels all over the country, and his official residence in Gotham is the New York Biltmore.” It was added that, once he met the group at the entrance, the eight-year-old star “will be the first of the local motion-picture colony to register,” while he was to officiate later at the opening of a hotel playground for children.
Lastly, the Los Angeles Express fell just a page short of its rival in its extensive coverage and invoked a more historical viewpoint than the Times‘ dismissive, if typical, reference to the “simple Spanish pueblo” of yore. The Express began its general review of the opening with the observation that,
From the Pico house, pioneer of Los Angeles hostelries, famed in song and story, to the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles has traveled far. Yet there are those here who have been in the procession all the way. It has been less than the span of human life. The time, therefore, was less than the distance.
And when the Pico house, fronting the Plaza, looking out upon the old adobe church—old even then—was dedicated to the entertainment of travelers, to the comfort and pleasure of men, society turned out en masse and society marveled at the size and beauty of the house, and there was much gaiety and sumptuous dining until gray dawn.
And with the same thought, moved by the same community spirit, tomorrow night society will meet at the splendid Biltmore Hotel, when in turn it will be dedicated to the entertainment of travelers, to the comfort and pleasure of men, and there will be much marveling at the revelations of beauty and splendor, and again there will be gaiety, and dining and dancing, until dawn mounts over the tree tops of Pershing Square.
What was not similar, the article continued, was that “milady” of a half-century prior, “wrapped in her gay mantilla,” would arrive at the Pico House by a horse-drawn vehicle, “the equipage splendid with glossy varnish and polished silver,” but her descendant “will arrive in her luxurious limousine, gliding noiselessly over smooth pavements.” The dons and caballeros of 1870 dancing the contradanza with “milady” were followed by the ballroom dancers doing the one-step and the fox trot. Given the vast difference in size and population, it was averred that “the spirit is unchanged, the community interest is the same” in comparing the Pico and the Biltmore.
Beyond its peak status in the Angel City and the hotel’s favorable comparison to others in the country, the paper commented that “the Biltmore is another step of Los Angeles toward world greatness.” Its elegance was likened to that of “a lady perfectly gowned,” while, as with art in which “composition is all important,” the edifice “is a balanced composition” thanks to the efforts of Schultze and Weaver. Also utilized was the term “soothing” with respect to “the exquisite decorations, the harmonious furnishings” and more which “fade into such a complete and perfect whole that it is seen and admired in one piece.”
Schultze, Baad, Bowman and James Woods were given featured coverage by the Express, which also described how 95% of the materials employed on the project, said to cost $8 million, were of local manufacture. This, it proudly observed, meant that,
The Biltmore Hotel, therefore, may be looked upon as a proud acquisition to Los Angeles, not only because it is, as attested by the most experienced hotel men, the most perfect hotel in all the world, but also because it stands such conspicuous proof of Los Angeles builders and workmen.
Notable construction facts included the floor area as embracing nearly 700,000 square feet; 76,000 cubic yards of earth moved; 21,000 cubic yards of concrete utilized; structural steel weighed 6,000 tons with another thousand tons of reinforcing steel; 3.5 million common bricks and almost 1.3 million face bricks used; 6,000 doors installed; 62 miles of panel molding placed; 40,000 barrels of cement employed; and 85,000 yards of carpet laid.
There was much more in the coverage, notably including Times columnist Alma Whitaker’s breezy female take on the male emphasis of the hotel’s accommodations. Hopefully, this post has provided a decent review of a project that represented an acme of purported progress, an epitome of luxury for the elite, and the heights of achievement during the peak year of the latest Los Angeles boom—save, perhaps, for the completion, a few months earlier, of the Coliseum. Moreover, we can place Walter P. Temple’s far more modest endeavors in Alhambra, El Monte, San Gabriel, his new Town of Temple (Temple City), and as a member of a syndicate in a pair of commercial structures a few blocks to the west of the Biltmore, in this more expansive (and expensive) context.
It appears that many of the grand structures in Los Angeles were erected in the 1920s, coinciding with the completion of the Biltmore Hotel, such as the Coliseum as mentioned in the blog. Most people are also familiar with some other notable landmarks from that era including the Rose Bowl and Hollywood Bowl.
While the 1920s successfully represented a period of burgeoning prosperity and glory for Los Angeles, with a population just surpassing one million, why haven’t we seen as many significant constructions in the 2020s, despite the population quadrupling?
Today, this city still adorns itself with the splendor of yesteryears, but unfortunately, the harsh reality is that this beauty has been fading rapidly over the past two to three decades
After learning from this blog about Motley Flint’s association with C. C. Julian and his death at the hands of a deceived stock investor, I delved deeper into his notorious oil stock Ponzi scheme. Interestingly, his name easily associates with the current renowned stock advisory report, Motley Fool, which drew naming inspiration from an honest character in Shakespearean comedy. Ironically, had they been aware of Motley Flint’s fraudulent deeds in the 1920s, they might have rethought their choice of the report’s name.
Hi Larry, thanks for the comment and there is no question that the 1920s dramatically altered downtown’s skyline. There are actually quite a few new buildings in what is generally called DTLA, but it seems like the main remaking of the area has been through renovations of existing structures, including many from the Roaring Twenties, and most into residential lofts, along with ground-floor retail. The cost of living has, of course, skyrocketed and homelessness a significant issue, though we have to consider the fact that the accelerating financial disparity of recent decades has returned us to an economic gap not seen since the Twenties. One term we hear frequently is that America is in a new Gilded Age of extreme wealth at the top of the pyramid and expanding poverty at the bottom, of which there are consequences.
Thanks again for your interest and good point about the use of “Motley,” which means incongruous, so we can draw whatever inferences seem to apply!