PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW YALE
Even as late as the 1980s, the lobby was impressive, with lots of marble, brass, and rows of fancy chandeliers.
Dear Vance: What happened to the Hotel Tennessee? It was one of our city’s most popular hotels for decades. — D.C., Memphis.
Dear D.C.: The Hotel Tennessee was indeed popular, but not with the same crowds that reserved rooms at the Peabody, Claridge, King Cotton, Wm. Len, and other classic hotels erected downtown in the early 1900s. In fact, it enjoyed a rather unusual reputation — one that prompted a feature story in this magazine (“The Truth about the Hotel Tennessee,” March 1983). Writer Andrew Yale posed this central question: “Looking for a den of iniquity?”
Before I answer that question, I should tell you that the present owners, King and Union Acquisitions LLC, announced they were closing the old hotel in November this year. It had been operating as a DoubleTree by Hilton since 2007. Had they kept it open just two more years, the Tennessee could have celebrated its 100th birthday.
A vintage postcard shows the Hotel Tennessee shortly after it opened, with an exterior that was similar to that of The Peabody across the street. Later additions obscured most of the original entrance.
The building, erected at Union and Third (an area called “Five Points” because Hernando Street also juts into that intersection), has a convoluted history. I’ll try to focus on the highlights (with a few lowlights), beginning with an enterprising fellow named Herman Adler.
Born in Germany in 1872, he came to America when he was only 17, to meet his sister, who had crossed the Atlantic a few years earlier. Before setting down in Memphis, Adler lived for a few years in New Orleans, where he attended Tulane University and worked for sugar factories there.
He returned to Memphis in 1908 and became the proprietor of the Falstaff Cafe, tucked away in the back room of a drugstore on Main Street. After just a few years, he opened a rooming house called the Madison Flats. A year later, he opened the Adler Apartments, and in 1917 opened the Adler Hotel, at the corner of Main and Linden.
I mean no offense here, but let’s face it: These weren’t high-class properties. They were mainly designed for business travelers who only wanted a cheap place to spend the night and didn’t need (or couldn’t afford) the luxuries of the larger hotels just blocks away. Even so, they must have been profitable, because within 10 years, Adler had enough money to open his crown jewel, the Hotel Tennessee.
He purchased a lot in the heart of the business district, quite literally in the shadow of the newly opened Peabody Hotel. But, inside and out, this was considerably more eye-catching than his properties along Main. He hired one of this city’s top architectural firms, Hanker and Cairns, who created such Memphis landmarks as the Shrine Building, Chisca Hotel, and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, among others.
Only eight stories tall, with 200 rooms, Hotel Tennessee was certainly a handsome building, its red-brick façade complemented by fancy terra-cotta ornamentation. Inside, the lobby and ground level featured floors of gleaming marble, rows of brass chandeliers, and the latest styles of furniture.
Upstairs was a different matter. From opening day — September 2, 1927 — the Hotel Tennessee announced it was a businessmen’s hotel — quite literally, catering to men only, though years later they would relax that policy. The new hotel lacked meeting rooms, a ballroom, or even a rooftop deck. It did have a decent restaurant, the Tennessee Cafe, that offered such “businessmen’s specials” as veal cutlets, shrimp tartare, filet mignon, and fried frog legs, with nothing costing more than $1.65.
“I guess they had to sell the old hotel to get rid of all the old people,” Ruth Jackson, the night desk clerk for 14 years, told The Commercial Appeal.
Most guests planned to stay for only one night. A Commercial Appeal story described “a tired, baggage-laden couple who had missed their bus to Texas and didn’t want to sleep in the plastic chairs of an unfamiliar bus terminal. A 56-year-old merchant mariner from Seattle making his way home to McMinnville, Tennessee. A tour-bus driver, laying over in Memphis on Saturday night between tours.”
These obviously weren’t customers (or families) who intended to spend a week and enjoy the amenities of a four-star hotel. At the Hotel Tennessee, rooms were small and plain, with cheap-looking furniture. Bathrooms (toilet and a tub) were usually down the hall.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW YALE
The guest rooms were nothing special — small and cheap-looking.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with economical lodging. But the Hotel Tennessee seemed to develop an unsavory reputation from its early days. Just one example: A 1930 Commercial Appeal article extolled the Peabody’s new roof garden, with its “twinkling stars, cool breezes, marvelous dance floor, and lilting, syncopated dance music.” Meanwhile, a traveler looking for the Hotel Tennessee in that same newspaper would come across a small news story about an unfortunate stabbing victim, telling how the police captured his assailant who had been rooming for weeks at — yes — the Hotel Tennessee.
The hotel changed owners over the years. In 1965, Phil and Ann Mueller purchased the property, hoping to crack down on trouble-makers. “They’re very religious people,” retired businessman John Forrester told the author of this magazine’s 1983 story. “They won’t let them sell beer or whiskey in the restaurant, and won’t rent space in the front for a whiskey store.” The Muellers even posted a huge lighted marquee over the entrance, displaying a different Bible verse every week.
Yale focused on how normal the place actually was: “Of the 239 rooms in the building, about 90 are occupied by permanent residents paying by the month. More than half are retired: former businessmen and schoolteachers rub elbows with ex-sailors, salesmen, and railroaders. Then there are working people: cab drivers, painters, and dishwashers. The balance is a strange miscellany of people in transition: recent college graduates seeking their first break, a few disabled veterans, even an unemployed nightclub comedian.”
Life went on in this way for years, until 1985 when dramatic change came to the Hotel Tennessee. A group called KSI Real Estate Enterprises purchased the property for $24 million and announced an affiliation with the Radisson hotel chain, which operated more than 100 upscale properties across America.
What they had in mind was more than a renovation; it was a transformation. In addition to upgrading all the old rooms (adding bathrooms was a priority), demolition crews pulled down turn-of-the-century buildings east of the hotel, making room for a modern, 12-story tower linked to the old hotel by a glass “bridge” at the sixth-floor level.
Even more impressive was the six-story garden atrium at the Union Avenue entrance. Visitors who stepped into the ultra-modern courtyard were confronted by something out of the past. When the developers demolished the 1903 Banner Laundry building, located to the south of the old hotel, they preserved every brick, beam, and cast-iron ornament — and then rebuilt the façade inside the atrium. At the very top, a terra-cotta figure of a woman’s face, wreathed in an anchor-and-chain oval, gazed down on guests. (What this image had to do with laundry, no one ever discovered.)
“Our intention was to preserve the integrity of the past as we built something new,” Mike Richmond, the new general manager, told reporters. He hoped the “sea maiden, a goddess of the past,” would be “the signature of the hotel,” used as a design motif throughout.
The new hotel, now with 278 rooms, was a hit. The Radisson added an upscale restaurant called The Veranda, with specialties including rabbit, pan-fried quail, and barbecued venison. A nightclub called Players featured live music, and on the ground floor of the old hotel, in the space once occupied by the Cafe Tennessean, TGI Friday’s opened a downtown location.
Not everyone was happy with the change — especially the people who had called the Tennessee home. “I guess they had to sell the old hotel to get rid of all the old people,” Ruth Jackson, the night desk clerk for 14 years, told The Commercial Appeal. “But it makes me sad because we have no moderate-priced hotels for people who come to Memphis, or get stranded at the bus station and can’t pay $40 or $50 a night.” Maybe so, but the newspaper insisted, “The Tennessee had a rough reputation. Sitting next to the bus station and across the street from two peep-show theaters, it was at one of downtown’s rawest edges.”
Meanwhile, when this magazine’s writer, Andrew Yale, paid a visit, he answered the question: It was hardly a “den of iniquity.” Anyone registering for the night, he wrote, “may go back to his room and wonder when the action is going to start. But it never will, because the truth about the Hotel Tennessee is as different from the notoriety it enjoys as the rising sun is removed from the twilight. Residents laugh at the idea that their home is a hotbed of sin. They very quietly and definitely let anyone know that the Hotel Tennessee is not only safe, quiet, and clean, but upright as well.”
As we go to press in November 2025, the future of the former Hotel Tennessee remains uncertain. But in its heyday, the 98-year-old property certainly made an impression — good and bad.
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Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis Magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101
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