PHOTO COURTESY MEMPHIS & SHELBY COUNTY ROOM, BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY
Dear Vance: What happened to the old Claridge Hotel? It’s rarely mentioned in any discussion of the grand old Downtown hotels along Main Street. — G.T., Memphis.
Dear G.T.: I am as guilty of anyone of this oversight, but I prefer to blame my readers. After all, I merely answer questions they send me, and even though I’ve written several times about the Peabody, King Cotton, Chisca, Gayoso, and even the William Len hotels, I believe this is the first time anyone has even raised the subject of the Claridge.
That’s rather surprising, since it opened the same year (1925) as The Peabody, and with 400 rooms it’s almost the same size as that more well-known property. It’s certainly hard to miss — a 17-story limestone-and-red-brick tower at Main and Adams looming over City Hall, just across the street. But even the authors of Memphis: An Architectural Guide give the Claridge only a few lines in their book, acknowledging its “large and ornate lobby with splendid coffered ceilings” but barely mentioning the exterior, only noting “some rather thin ornament spread around its top.”
“The moment you walk through the Claridge entrance, you'll find an atmosphere as refreshing as a breath of spring.”
Even so, if the hotel wasn’t considered grand-looking from the outside, it certainly had plenty of distinctive features — including “the largest open-air roof garden in America,” according to a promotional booklet archived in the Lauderdale Library.
The Claridge was constructed and operated by a St. Louis company called the Tri-States Hotel Corporation, so named because it built three almost identical properties at the same time: the Claridge in Memphis, another Claridge Hotel in St. Louis, and the Mark Twain Hotel in that city. The name — Claridge, not Mark Twain — was apparently “borrowed” from the older and considerably more famous hotel, Claridge’s, in London, which has attracted travelers the world over since the 1850s. Perhaps the Tri-State owners hoped the Memphis and St. Louis versions would enjoy the same success.
The hotel here included two separate eateries, the Claridge Tea Room, “where the culinary art of the Old South is maintained with all its rich traditions,” and the Claridge Tap Room, “where you can quaff domestic and imported ales in an atmosphere that harks back to the famous eating and drinking places of England.” I’m quoting from that promotional folder, you understand.
The Starlite Roof Garden often drew 1,000 guests to enjoy the big bands of the day.
But two areas of the hotel really set it apart from others around town. “Seventeen stories in the clouds” (they must have been rather low-hanging clouds), the Starlite Roof Garden offered “a glorious setting for the crowds that throng nightly during the summer season, with a seating capacity of 1,000. Nationally famous orchestras provide evenings of unique and thrilling entertainment, while you dine and dance your cares away in the happiest retreat of the Southland.” Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and other big-bandleaders of the day made regular appearances here.
Much closer to street level (safely below those clouds), the second-floor Twentieth Century Room was the hotel’s main attraction. Designed in the finest Art Deco style, this huge ballroom with a raised stage stretching across one end was “a mecca for smart, sophisticated Memphians, featuring America’s outstanding dance orchestras and floor shows.”
“Smart” seems to have been the catchword of the Claridge in its early days. The Twentieth Century Room was promoted as “the South’s smartest supper club” and the entire building was proclaimed “Memphis’ Smartest Hotel” in all of its literature. According to a newspaper article, celebrities who called the Claridge home whenever they happened to visit Memphis included Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Imogene Coca, and Liberace.
An old promotional brochure for the Claridge Hotel shows the Twentieth Century Room before it was transformed into the Balinese Room.
Even the most jaded travelers were impressed by the Twentieth Century Room, but in 1940 the management transformed it into the supper club that some readers may recall to this day — the Balinese Room.
That’s right. A Memphis hotel replicated the culture of an island in faraway Indonesia. Well, one room, anyway.
Gone were the Art Deco embellishments, including 3,000 feet of blue neon, which had given off a “garish blue glow” (it sounds quite wonderful, actually). In its place was a more subdued atmosphere, created by Oscar Nordstrom of Chicago, hailed as “one of the foremost hotel designers in the country for the past 40 years.”
First of all, Nordstrom replaced all that neon with something novel at the time — hidden fluorescent lighting — so arranged that “after dinner, no light penetrates above a few feet over the heads of those present, and the ceiling is not even visible.” This must have created a strange effect, I have to admit.
He also added special touches, including six hand-painted murals of Balinese life, “executed by Virgil Quadri, noted painter and sculptor of Chicago,” according to an old Memphis Press-Scimitar article, along with mirrors on all columns and walls — including one panel that measured 15 feet wide. Getting that into the hotel and installing it must have been quite a feat.
What little bit of wall that wasn’t mirrored “was tufted in cream leather and studded with brass nails.”
Other walls “are of zebra wood, cut thin and placed on canvas so it will go around corners,” that article continued. “The tables are round, with rounded, built-in seats covered in leopard skin.” Even the bandstand got special treatment, with “draperies of cream satin, an upper curtain of rust satin with a crystal fringe, and a background of sparkling crystal cloth.”
Everything “was designed to harmonize, carrying out the Balinese motif.” Now look, I know it’s really hard to picture all this, especially if you haven’t traveled to Bali as often as I have, but I don’t have a picture to show you. I can only do so much, sometimes, even as a Lauderdale.
In 1954, not yet 30 years old, the management embarked on a $500,000 upgrade, designed to offer guests “a host of new and exciting features unmatched anywhere.”
The Balinese Room also attracted big-name entertainment, though some of those names might not be familiar to present-day readers. According to that newspaper article, “The Eddie Rogers Orchestra, well-known on the networks, has been chosen to open the new Balinese Room. Supplementing the music would be two floor shows nightly, featuring the Kurtis Royale Marionettes, dancer Dolly Arden, and the dance team of Billie Burns and Dennie White.”
Not a word about what kind of food such a place offered, though I certainly hope they offered Balinese specialties — whatever those would’ve been.
A promotional brochure from the late 1950s shows the new lobby and entrance of the Claridge Hotel.
At any rate, the Claridge joined the other “classic” hotels along Main Street, and all of them drew customers and tourists. In 1954, not yet 30 years old, the management embarked on a $500,000 upgrade, designed to offer guests “a host of new and exciting features unmatched anywhere.” My pal Wayne Dowdy, manager of the Memphis and Shelby County Room at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, was kind enough to share with me a brochure for the property (above), now calling itself “Memphis’ Most Modern Hotel.”
The improvements included a gleaming new lobby, with pink marble walls and mosaic tile floors, all-new meeting and banquet facilities, and “fingertip weather control in every room.” In other words, the guest rooms had air-conditioning, a novelty in the mid-1950s. The “world-famous” Balinese Room was left relatively untouched, but otherwise, the hotel presented an all-new experience. According to that brochure, “The moment you walk through the Claridge entrance … you’ll find an atmosphere as refreshing as a breath of spring.”
In the 1950s, by the way, room rates were just $2.50 for a single and $3.50 for a double. Like other Downtown hotels, it had regular residents as well, who could rent rooms by the month.
The 1968 death of Dr. Martin Luther King changed everything. Downtown businesses and hotels closed, including the Claridge. In December of that year, newspapers announced the property would be demolished, though nobody seemed to have definite ideas about how to replace it. One plan involved building a 25-story “office-motel” on that corner, whatever that means. Why would that be any better?
None of this happened. Instead, the former hotel was ultimately converted into condos and office space. Big bands no longer perform at the Starlite Roof Garden, but the rooftop is open to residents, and the former Balinese Room is now commercial space, complete with an indoor swimming pool. The building has certainly gone through some changes over the years, but the Claridge House, as it’s now called, still anchors the north end of Main Street Mall.
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Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38103
