America’s Pink Palaces

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Their walls have ears if you've a bent to listen. Some of them are found in obscure places and are unknown to many tourists. They're the grand hotels of America, the great old dames, and the story they tell is the story of our is the story of our land. There's the St. Francis in Santa Fe where once more decisions were made in its lobby than ever legislated by New Mexico's pols in the old statehouse across the street. There's the Mount Washington in New Hampshire where World Monetary Fund attendees once decided the price of gold. And there's the Breakers in Palm Beach where Henry Morrison Flagler, built not only the hotel, the port and the railroad -- but Florida itself.

But none of America's  historic hotels are as glamorous, as exquisite, as romantic as its three pink palaces.

Royal Hawaiian, Honolulu, Hawaii

When the Royal Hawaiian opened in 1927 it virtually had Honolulu's Waikiki Beach to itself. The location was ideal. King Kamehameha I camped here for relaxation after he conquered Oahu, and Queen Kaahumanu had her summer palace in the grove where the hotel now stands. Built in 18 months at a cost of $4 million in the Spanish-Moorish style Rudolph Valentino's "celluloid Arab exploits" had made popular, the resort filled with families and their steamer trunks coming to the pink-painted resort the Matson steamship company had built them.

The Royal Hawaiian became playground to the glitterati: Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable and Al Jolson and, of course, the DuPonts, the Fords and the Rockefellers. Guests enjoyed Hawaiian serenades and concerts by Harry Owens' Royal Hawaiian Band and dining room programs by the Royal Hawaiian Girls' Glee Club as the sun went down. Displays of coconut palm climbing competed with extravagant luaus and starlit walks for guests' attention. Life was "swell." But the stock market crash and the subsequent world war surely impacted Hawaiian travel. And as aviation flourished in the 1950s the islands started seeing a different type of visitor: the Middle American tourist.

The old times may be gone but the Pink Palace still has its gorgeous beach and its beautifully landscaped gardens. Guests still get a fresh flower lei greeting and freshly baked Hawaiian banana bread on arrival, they still walk its cloistered pathways and chat to the hotel's multilingual concierges getting replies in any language. Life at the Royal Hawaiian is still swell.

La Valencia, La Jolla, California

Life is pretty good at La Valencia too. You can sit in the 10th floor Sky Room restaurant which has just 12 tables and admire a panorama as magnificent as any in Southern California.

And La Valencia -- "La V," as the natives call it -- has ambiance, too. It's like stepping into a Mediterranean villa: pink washed walls, hand painted wooden ceilings, wrought iron doors, tiled floors, bay windows, terraces, patios and sculptures. And flowers everywhere.

It has its stories, too.

A long time ago a couple returned to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They loved it so much they rented a suite and lived in the hotel for 40 more years. They had their own booth in the dining room, and even in their 90s they could be seen walking hand in hand through the corridors.

"La V," like all the Pink Palaces, has been a hiding place, too, for Hollywood personalities from Greta Garbo and David Niven to Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow -- and Robert Redford who was once refused entry to one of the restaurants because he was wearing shorts. Yet La Valencia's staff is like family: Manny, the maitre d' in the Whaling Bar was there for more than 30 years and Ray, the bartender for more than 40 years.

The Whaling Bar reveals another side of La Valencia. Long a favorite with local worthies and international celebrities, it was decorated with authentic antiques from the great age of whaling. A mural, above the bar, depicted the hunt to the death for whales. In the 1970s, the hotel manager paid a local artist to cover the original with a new painting of the whales escaping and man no longer  triumphant. A 1998 renovation restored the original. La V's guests wanted things left as they were -- practically perfect.

Don CeSar Beach Resort & Spa, St Petersburg, Florida

When Thomas J. Rowe built the Don CeSar Beach Resort in 1928, he was excited about the new sport of sunbathing. He added verandas and 13,000 panes of glass to allow the sun into what locals called Florida's Pink Palace, dreaming of rivaling Waikiki's Royal Hawaiian and building the most glamorous hotel on the west coast of Florida.

The hotel overwhelmed guests with its luxury. The price was proportionate: a 1930 room for $24 a night. The Depression changed everything. The hotel was flung into receivership. Despite this, Rowe made a profit of $84,000 in 1930 and deposited it in the Central Bank. Three months later the bank failed.

When Rowe died in 1940 his widow took over but Pearl Harbor put a stop to travel—and again the hotel faltered. It ended up as a Veteran's Administration office but faced with air conditioning costs that would have been prohibitive in 1969 the government moved out. The pigeons moved in.

The community, however, talked a Holiday Inn franchise owner, William Bowman, into taking over. He spent $3.5 million in repairs and reopened the Don CeSar in 1973. The interiors were redone in 1989 and a spa added in 1994 to restore the glory of Thomas Rowe's vision.

The Don CeSar has been host to both Bloomingdale and Gimbel; to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; to Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth; to Edgar Kennedy and Cary Grant; to Clarence Darrow and Al Capone; to Sally Rand -- and Dr. Walter Mayo who could never have expected the eighth floor penthouses would, in 1942, become operating rooms for the army or, in 2000, suites with a spiral staircase at $1500 a night for the American tourist.

Now, the everyday American wanders down corridors that were formerly the playgrounds of the privileged, where once strode the giants of industry -- rich railway magnates, cattle barons, business tycoons. Those days are gone. But the great hotels endure.