Abandoned Hotel in Saint Louis MO


Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri
Date added: October 05, 2023 Categories:
Washington Avenue (north & east) elevations (1985)

In the 1890 census, St. Louis, with a population of 451,770, regained fourth place among American cities. Boosters predicted one million inhabitants within decades. Often characterized as conservative in comparison to arch-rival Chicago, St. Louis civic leaders in the 1890s made optimistic decisions to locate both a new City Hall and a new Union Station west of the established downtown. Attempts to bring the Columbian Exposition to the city were not successful but the American Magazine declared in 1897: "The trademark, 'Made in St. Louis,' is now almost as famous in America as 'Made in Germany' was at the Chicago World's Fair." St. Louis beer, shoes, meats, dry goods, stoves, chemicals, streetcars, millinery, tobacco products, clay products, art glass and a host of other finished products had captured regional (sometimes national and international) markets.

With the opening of Eads Bridge in 1874, the eastern leg of Washington Avenue became the location of jobbers, wholesalers and light manufacturing. Gradually, the westward expansion of the downtown and the emergence of new department stores pushed land values up and wholesale operations out. In 1899, The Brickbuilder observed:

Washington Avenue has become a center of the wholesale and light manufacturing interests. When buildings were erected in the vicinity of Ninth Street a few years ago, they were considered quite a risk, but almost the entire property to Twelfth Street has been built up with large buildings.

That same year the first large warehouses built west of 12th Street on Washington Avenue were erected on two corners of 13th Street. Four others were built in 1901-02 before construction for the World's Fair monopolized the building trades.

The October 21st, 1905 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch announced the purchase of more than 1200 front feet on Washington Avenue between Thirteenth and Eighteenth Streets. Described as one of the largest and most important real estate transactions in the history of the city, the $3 million dollar deal was negotiated by the McNair & Harris Realty Co. for a new syndicate composed of St. Louis capitalists. Less than a month later, plans for buildings to cost more than $5 million were reported by McNair & Harris in the November 26th edition of the Globe-Democrat. The largest was for the Ely & Walker Dry Goods Co. (then located at 8th and Washington) which was to occupy two city blocks with a south-side Washington Avenue frontage between Robbins Lane (to be vacated) and 16th Street. Immediately west, the Brown Shoe Company was scheduled to break ground on December 1st for the "White House," a steel frame structure faced with white glazed block and terra cotta that would cover another city block. Included in the drawings printed with the article was an ornate perspective by Mauran, Russell & Garden for a proposed new hotel to be built at an unspecified location between 15th and 18th Streets on Washington Avenue.

In March of 1906, incorporation papers were filed for the Marquette Hotel Investment Company; capital stock of $255,000 was fully paid. Members of the Board of Directors included Fletcher R. Harris of McNair & Harris, David D. Walker, Jr. and David R. Calhoun of Ely & Walker Dry Goods, George Warren Brown of Brown Shoe Company and Jackson Johnson of Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company which had just acquired property on the northside of Washington Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets. The commission for the new hotel design had already been awarded to Barnett, Haynes & Barnett rather than Mauran, Russell & Garden; the February 1906 issue of The Builder published an illustration of their design for the Marquette. Work began immediately. On April 15th, 1906, the Post-Dispatch forecast a record-breaking year for downtown St. Louis construction and remarked:

Not the least conspicuous of the buildings that are to grace the St. Louis wholesale district will be that constructed for hotel purposes at the southeast corner of Eighteenth Street and Washington Avenue. Here, in place of a one-story building, work has already begun on the new 10-story hotel with 400 rooms to cost $750,000. Two hundred rooms in this hotel will be set aside for visiting merchants, who will be charged a uniform rate of $1 per day each. For others, not in the mercantile trade, a slight increase will be made.

Barnett, Haynes & Barnett's Jefferson Hotel on 12th Street just south of Washington Avenue had opened on May 1st, 1904 as "the aristocrat of St. Louis." Touted by local supporters as surpassing the Waldorf-Astoria in grace and style, the Jefferson was the largest and most opulent of the permanent hotels built for the World's Fair. (Barnett, Haynes & Barnett had also designed a family hotel, The Hamilton, located at Maple and Hamilton in the West End, and the Mark Twain Hotel in Hannibal, Missouri, before undertaking the Marquette.) Barnett, Haynes & Barnett's 1906 design for the Marquette is closely related to the firm's 1903 design for the Jefferson. Both buildings employ an elaborate program of ornament to the forms and technical innovations perfected for Commercial Style office buildings. Both designs feature projecting bays which rise the height of the shaft. Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, however, chose only light-colored materials for the Jefferson in conformance with the contemporary vision of a monumental City Beautiful boulevard leading from City Hall to Washington Avenue. The carriage-trade entrance was placed on 12th Street. The most articulated elevation at the Marquette faces west toward 18th Street, the direct streetcar connection to nearby Union Station. In 1906, even the most well-heeled buyers arrived by train and the Marquette was designed to attract them. The Republic featured a large photo of the nearly completed hotel on January 27th, 1907, and provided many details of the sumptuous interiors:

The first floor is divided into parlors, dining room, palm room and buffet. The main dining room, facing on Washington Avenue, is 22 feet high and 80 feet long. It is finished in modern French style, the walls being hung with historical tapestries. The rotunda is designed after the style of Villa Vetta of the Pompeian Way and is constructed entirely of marble and embellished with beautiful mural paintings. It extends the length of the building, terminating with a beautiful palm room. The reception room on the first floor is finished in the style of Louis XVI, the walls being hung with silk damask. The basement extending under the entire building is divided into billiard rooms, bowling alleys, barber shop, etc. The rooms are finished in marble and hardwood. The woman's parlor is on the mezzanine floor overlooking the rotunda. It is designed in the style of Louis XV, and paneled with silk damask....All of the decorations in the building are the work of Durvea & Potter of New York.

The selection of Hungarian-born Julian Zolnay to design the terra cotta ornament at the 18th Street entrance also sets the Marquette apart from later hotels built primarily to house "commercial" guests; so did the choice of Cafe manager Tony Faust, Jr. Zolnay came to St. Louis from New York in 1903 and was in charge of the sculpture division in the art department of the World's Fair. He was a founder and early President of the St. Louis Artists' Guild. His St. Louis work includes the colossal lions at the Delmar entrance to University City, the statue of Pierre Laclede in City Hall Park and the Confederate monument in Forest Park. The Jefferson Hotel had hired the 350-pound Chef formerly aboard Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht. The Marquette brought in Tony Faust, Jr. who had managed his father's legendary St. Louis restaurants and the most popular restaurant at the World's Fair, the Tyrolean Alps.

Nearly half the population of the United States lived within a 500-mile radius of the Washington Avenue wholesale district when the Marquette Hotel opened its doors.

The most expansive part of the trade territory was the "bigger-South-than-ever": Arkansas, Oklahoma and especially Texas buyers figured prominently in a cartoon of Washington Avenue from the April 1907 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Marquette was managed by the Glancy and Watson Hotel Co. of Dallas, Texas where Barnett, Haynes & Barnett had designed the somewhat excessive Adolphus Hotel for St. Louis' Adolphus Busch. Thomas H. Glancy acquired the Marquette from the St. Louis syndicate in 1912 and moved to St. Louis. He was ably assisted in the management by Paxton Rondeau, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Missouri Hotel Clerks Association and an annual delegate to the "Greeters of America" conventions throughout the teens. Owner Glancy managed the Marquette until the mid-1920s when the property was acquired by Berberich Hotels, Inc. Ownership passed to the General American Investment Co. during the Depression; in 1940, the Marquette became one of the hotels in the Milner chain.

St. Louis and Washington Avenue survived the Depression better than cities dependent upon a less diversified economic base but the 1940s saw the beginning of the dispersal of light manufacturing to outlying areas in both Missouri and Illinois. The invention of "junior sizes" on Washington Avenue brought a short-lived boom to the fading district as Post-war policies encouraged further decentralization. Although building permits indicate 1944 repairs for fire damage, no major alterations to the Marquette were undertaken from 1907 until 1950. Other modifications occurred in 1968 when ceilings were dropped and the rooms redecorated. The hotel closed in 1977; furnishings and some fixtures were auctioned. Existing condition drawings were recorded in 1978 for a potential rehabilitation which did not proceed. The property was acquired by the City's Land Re-utilization Authority which eventually sold it for $100 to the current owner. Demolition for a surface parking lot, the fate of Brown Shoe Company's "White House," has been considered for the Marquette Hotel.

Building Description

The ten-story Marquette Hotel is located on the southeast corner of 18th Street and Washington Avenue at the western edge of St. Louis' Central Business District. Designed in 1906 by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, the 150 by 116-foot building is "fireproof" construction with steel frame skeleton, tile, and concrete floors and roof. Twelve-inch curtain walls of pressed red brick are embellished with a variety of ornamental terra cotta and stone detailing derived from Classical and Baroque models.

The base of the nine-bay Washington Avenue and 18th Street elevations is articulated in a similar manner. On the first floor, transomed plate-glass storefronts were defined by piers covered with terra cotta blocks scored and glazed to imitate limestone. The piers are enriched with egg-and-dart moldings superimposed with terra cotta straps embellished with stiffly pointed leaves. Originally, the corner pier marked a recessed commercial (possibly the cafe) entrance. Although painted white, the terra cotta piers are intact; storefront openings, however, were infilled with perma-stone and metal panels prior to the closing of the hotel in 1977. The Washington Avenue entrance to the hotel is centered on the north elevation. This entrance is distinguished by a heavily molded half-round terra cotta architrave featuring a scrolled keystone enframed by pronounced voussoirs. A marquee of recent vintage has been installed just above the original terra cotta blocks announcing "Marquette" in bold letters.

Highlighted by rich terra cotta ornament designed by George Julian Zolnay, the Woman's Entrance on 18th Street featured a bacchanalian theme replete with horned and bearded masks and draped grape leaf garlands enframing a cartouche with the Marquette Hotel monogram. Engaged pilasters embellished with stylized grape cluster pendants and a projecting foliated band further distinguish this entrance. Scrolled brackets at the base of 'each pilaster were punctuated by a flow of leaves that wrap around the base of the large terra cotta-covered piers defining the entrance bay. As evidenced by heavy scarring, however, portions of these original pieces have been removed.

Above the first story, paired bands of limestone trim wrap around both elevations establishing a strong horizontal element and providing lintels and sills for all openings. The rhythm is punctuated on the Washington Avenue elevation by three-sided projecting stone and terra cotta bays which rise from the third through the eighth story at each corner. Terra cotta blocks act as quoins, visually attaching the light-colored bays to the red brick walls. Four identical bays appear on the 18th Street elevation. Supported visually by terra cotta corbels, all bays feature ornamental terra cotta panels with a central lion's head. Spandrels of the bays are covered with terra cotta blocks. Each bay is culminated by a heavily molded half-round architrave with pronounced voussoirs (similar to that found above the Washington Avenue entrance) topped with tablets enframed by scrolled cartouches. The bracketed terra cotta cornice and roof cresting have been removed.

The western bays on the alley elevation continue the ornamental projecting bays established on Washington Avenue and 18th Street. Simple openings at the eastern bays employ stone lintels and brick sills. The central, three-story section once terminated the palm court at the end of the lobby. Above the third floor, interior rooms faced a deep light court above the lobby roof. Openings at the eastern elevation also employ stone lintels and brick sills. Most of the one-over-one windows throughout the building above the second story have been removed. Although much of the marble in the lobby is intact, most of the other original interior finishes are gone. The form of the dramatic public spaces, however, has defied easy remodeling or vandalism. Existing condition drawings prepared in 1978 before the building was boarded document the survival of the basic first-floor plan.

Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri Photocopy from April 1908 Builder (1908)
Photocopy from April 1908 Builder (1908)

Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri 18<sup>th</sup> Street (west) elevation (1985)
18th Street (west) elevation (1985)

Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri Washington Avenue (north & east) elevations (1985)
Washington Avenue (north & east) elevations (1985)

Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri 18<sup>th</sup> Street Entrance (1985)
18th Street Entrance (1985)

Marquette Hotel, St. Louis Missouri Alley (south) elevation (1985)
Alley (south) elevation (1985)