Dallas and I have history. It’s where I spent my last two years of high school and I still have family there—a younger brother, his wife and the first grandbaby of our clan. During my mother's visit over the summer, rumors of “first time parents syndrome” surfaced. Whisper mode was enforced anywhere in the two-story house if the baby was asleep or trying to sleep (which occurred throughout the majority of a 24-hour day). A hyper-vigilant germ mania was also in effect. But even before the birth of my nephew, history had proven that when any two members of my family gather under one roof, tension flares.
This Thanksgiving marked an historic first for me: rather than stay with my brother at his house in Dallas, I decided to get a hotel room while visiting the family. I thought this would come as an insult to the rest of the family and was preoccupied with how I might couch the news. Before I could come up with anything good, I was informed that only my mother would stay at my younger brother’s new home in a suburb of Dallas and that my older brother and I should find a hotel. I’d show them. I wouldn’t stay just anywhere, like the dull, homogenized extended stay motel my older brother would book. I’d stay in the finest the city had to offer: The Adolphus—a hotel that, like me, had history in Dallas.
Built in 1912, by beer baron Adolphus Busch who spared no expense in creating what would be touted, “the most beautiful building west of Venice,” the hotel was the tallest building in Dallas (at 21 stories) when it was erected. It was the first hotel in the world to have central air conditioning (if anywhere in the world you need air conditioning, it’s Texas in the summer). Busch poured $1.87 million into the place, which back then was a lot of beer money. An $80 million dollar renovation took place in 1981 and more recent renovations are currently occurring, room by room—all 428 of them, including 21 suites and 31 different floor plans.
The bellman assisted me with my luggage up the escalator to the elevators and proudly pointed out the ornately carved Steinway piano in the lobby. “It’s from the Guggenheim home in New York and was supposed to be placed on the Titanic when it returned from its voyage to Europe had it not run into that little bit of trouble.” He winked. What a showpiece it was with a tuxedo-clad pianist perched at its bench playing Beethovan’s “Fur Elise.” It set an elegant tone in the baroque-style lobby filled with an impressive, museum quality collection of fine art and prized antiques including a bronze Dore Gueridon table and a pair of early Flemish tapestries.
My own memories of Dallas in the 1980s are of a city not bashful about flaunting its wealth. The city is divided by money—old and new. And the Adolphus smelled like old money—fitting given that the hotel sits in the heart of Dallas’ financial district on Commerce Street. Pretty much anyone who was anyone passing through Dallas laid his or her head on an Adolphus pillow. A lengthy roster of historic figures and celebrities dating back to its early days include the likes of Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, political figures like FDR and royalty including Queen Elizabeth II. She didn’t actually stay the night but stopped off for a catnap en route somewhere important.
The bellman pressed the elevator button for the nineteenth floor and escorted me down the dark green hallway to one of the skylight suites with a vaulted angled ceiling. It would be too cliché to say everything’s bigger in Texas but certainly this is the largest suite of any hotel in the world where I’ve stayed. It had a spacious living room, dining area, study, wet bar, master bedroom, and enormous bathroom complete with a bidet. I felt like I was in a Manhattan penthouse apartment and savored that idea as I ran a bubble bath and soaked off the day’s tension. Larry King Live piped through a special TV speaker in the bathroom. I love thoughtful details like that.
