LOS ANGELES – One of the great modern hotels, The Century Plaza, is potentially going to be demolished. I say potentially because the owner, developer Michael Rosenfeld, is only applying for permission to tear it down for another real estate development.

The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (click on the pool image above to make reservations! Please!) is one of those iconic hotels, embodying the spirit of California and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Designed by Minoru Yamasaki, he of the World Trade Center, and opened in 1996, it was the site of so many great events.

Above that, it is a VERY cool building, and a place that is pretty universally appreciated.

A bit from the National Trusts press release:

The hotel, which fueled the development of Century City and forged its reputation as a world-class destination, has been a gathering place for celebrities, politicians and world dignitaries since its opening day.  Once nicknamed the “West Coast White House,” the Century Plaza was a favorite of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.  Nixon hosted a celebration for the Apollo 11 astronauts here, while Reagan presided over two presidential victory celebrations in the hotel’s vast ballroom and conducted much of his business in the hotel’s Presidential Suite while in California.

Actress Diane Keaton is fighting to save the hotel, and has a good chance at saving this one. Here are the reasons why it can be saved:

1. The economy stinks and while some in the city administration foolishly think that demolishing the hotel will help the city, they are wrong. When hotels are demolished, even when replaced, every hotel room that heretofore had been producing MASSIVE amounts of bed and other taxes is gone. Hotels are some of the most taxed amenities in every city, and three years of missed revenue, minimum, will hurt tourism and prepared food taxes. Meanwhile, the attention the hotel gets in upcoming years with the preservation battle will bring attention and visitors to the hotel now. Is Rosenfeld doing a New Coke strategy on us?
2. It’s connected with conservatives. People think that that conservatives don’t like historic preservation, but the whole definition of conservatives is to conserve things, and they won’t let something connected to Reagan go that easily. Who do you think saved all the historical monuments and houses over the years? Liberals involved in the effort appreciate the history too, irrespective of party. At the Century Plaza, the Presidential Suite is a real presidential suite, not a pretend one. While conservatives aren’t as hip on Dick, Ron is another story. The hotel helps tell the story of Reagan in California.
3. California is going to be in the doldrums for awhile. Who knows how long, but things seem so much worse there than the rest of the country, and the high taxes are a challenge to small business. There is a great saying, namely that “poverty is the best preserver.” Charleston and Savannah were preserved through poverty, and so shall the Century Plaza.
4. The National Trust is in battle mode. Only recently has the National Trust been involved in saving modern structures, but they now have a smart and tenacious point person on modernism, Chris Madrid French. Her appointment, part of the Trust’s west coast office, gives full-time national support to saving significant modern structures. The effort is backed by the Henry Luce Foundation. Don’t do battle with Luce!
5. Minoru Yamaski’s buildings are now precious and connect us to something we lost in New York on that day. Yamasaki’s surviving buildings connect us directly to the optimism that the country felt when the hotel was constructed. In Richmond, Virginia, I would look often at the Federal Reserve, designed by Yamasaki, and think how nice it is to look at his buildings in the wake of September 11. Preservationists fought to save the Vesey Street Staircase of the World Trade Center. They did save it, but the state of New York missed the point when they moved them. (What was interesting about them was that they needed to be preserved in place.) History will judge our generation poorly if we lose this.
6. Destroying an iconic hotel confuses travelers. When people come to your city every other year or intermittently, they look for certain brands and hotel names. When the hotel is lost, they get confused. The Century Plaza has a “brand” that is unique to itself, and separate from the Hyatt brand. That would be lost in the demolition.
7. The developer doesn’t get it. Yet. One reason why people own hotels, other than to make money, is to be connected to famous people and influential events, and invite them to his hotel. If the hotel is demolished, that allure is lost. No one cares about coming to a new hotel. It takes time to build the history. Being owner of the hotel, and the West Coast White House, is power. Having Hollywood love you for saving something is power. The power at The Century Plaza comes from the history.
8. Hyatt’s brand is dependent on architecturally significant, minimalist modern hotels. Think Portman’s Hyatt in Atlanta. Hyatt customers are not used to fake Italian lobbies, or any other of the decorating schemes offered up in Marriotts. The Pritzker legacy still lives, and they need The Century Plaza for their brand.
9. That pool. The pool is amazing.
10. The minimalist design is actually easier to keep fresh looking than an ornate hotel. A good hotel needs what hoteliers call a “scrape” every few years. I think in a decent hotel lobby, you need new carpeting every TWO years. So having a simple, classic design brings attention to those changes of fabrics, carpets and interiors. Here in Sarasota, the modern-style Hyatt has a Lilly Pulitzer interior, just added. In two years when other colors are in fashion, it can change again. But the strong bones of the hotel survive.

About the author: Writer and editor Garland Pollard is a former boardmember of Historic Richmond Foundation in Richmond, Virginia and has led numerous successful preservation efforts in Richmond.

PALM SPRINGS – Any person who owns a silly little motel by the side of the road ought to look at Hope Springs Motel Resort in Palm Springs, California. It’s an utterly nondescript motel that has turned into a Travel & Leisure favorite. The recipe? A hip approach, minimalist design and ultra clean rooms.

While not all motels are situated near the hipster/hepster crowd of Palm Springs, any average person on the road will appreciate a place like Hope Springs if its clean and friendly. So what if they miss the Eames and Saarinen chairs?

Across the nation, there are hundreds of these motels that are undervalued, and sometimes valued less than replacement costs. Tourism officials in destinations often want a new Sleep Inn, but a potential gem like Hope Springs gets lost.

Let’s dust off some old motels, put up some fresh paint and find a few IKEA bedspreads to bring these old motels back to life.

BEVERLY HILLS - Hilton Hotels Corp. announced Wednesday, Jan. 21 that it would move its headquarters from Beverly Hills to the Washington D.C. area, either the Maryland or Virginia suburbs. As a former Virginian who would love to see Hilton in the Commonwealth, I still think it is a horrible idea for Hilton, as it will make the family of Hilton brands far less interesting.

Frankly, Hilton has brand mystique. It’s not just the legacy of Conrad Hilton, who founded the company. It’s the whole arc of the Hilton family story, with Conrad and wife Zsa Zsa Gabor, son Nicky being Elizabeth Taylor’s first husband;  and of course Paris and the most current Nicky, Nicky Hilton the “heiress, designer, and trendsetter” who, sadly, was unsuccessful at her own hotel brand, Nicky-O. The family name has been totally preserved by the reputation of William Barron Hilton, who led the Hilton company to further greatness and who appears to be even more brilliant at selling his company, at a premium and for cash, at the top of the market. And even though Paris and Nicky are tabloid fodder, they do function as a sort of ersatz advertising for the Hilton brand.

Before Embassy Suites and Hampton Inns were purchased by Hilton, they were good, decent, mid-priced, high value brands. Customers loved the brands and the free breakfasts, but they didn’t have the pizazz of a Hilton. Hilton always had something extra, and that “extra” bit of glitz comes from being located near Hollywood.

It’s a brand thing

Very often, companies discount the effect that their geographic headquarters has on their brand. This is not just window dressing. Where a company is headquartered goes to the core of each company’s brand and national identity. It’s the reason why DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace kept the Reader’s Digest address in Pleasantville, New York. A hotel company headquartered in Beverly Hills operates one way; a company located in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia operates another way. Certainly, the administrative and executive staff will move to the D.C. area. But the influences on the company will change, drastically. Frankly, great hotels are about show business, and you want your execs to be close to it.

In a statement, CEO Christopher Nassetta said that they were moving because the “cost of operating here in Beverly Hills is really high.”

Ya think so? Duh? Of course it is high. It has been “high” since, well forever, and Blackstone knew that when they bought it. Beverly Hills is actually synonymous with expensive, and expensive has been part of the Hilton mystique. We can assure the company that no Hilton guests are bothered that the Hilton headquarters is in Beverly Hills.

Instead, moving headquarters to Washington signals that something else is “high,” namely debt service. Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) bought the company with borrowed money. Like every company, Hilton is in a cost saving mode, and Hilton’s leveraged buyout has imposed debt-service costs on the company. Yes, it might save a few dollars here and there, and yes, the company was once headquartered in Chicago. But the expense, as amortized over Hilton’s 3,200 hotels and 545,000 rooms, is small.

Don’t get us wrong. We love Hilton. We hope Blackstone can pull it off, and we understand there will be cost savings. There always are cost savings. But be careful with the Hilton brand. It needs to keep some glamour and glitz, because with the state of the economy, it might need every trick in the book.

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS – The West Virginia resort The Greenbrier is apparently losing $15 million a year for its parent company CSX. The railroad (NYSE: CSX) is considering everything, according to the January 2, 2008 Wall Street Journal. Goldman Sachs is apparently coming up with options.

What to do? Well, I am not sure the folks at Goldman are the best ones to tell CSX CEO Michael Ward. He could find out what to do, as well as find some options, with two telephone calls; one to Bill Marriott and another to Stephen Bollenbach. You’ll learn the options faster, and time is NOT your friend. But you won’t sell it for a good price at this time; why not set up a joint venture with a hotel company that can run it?

Meanwhile, I’ve got some suggestions about The Greenbrier brand.

1. There is good news. We hear an average luxury occupancy rate is a piddling 60 percent in luxury hotels these days. If The Greenbrier has 721 rooms, that means about 157,000 room nights in a year. So dividing that by $15 million, it means that if each room had $95 more income, you could break even. In a luxury hotel, that’s TOTALLY do-able.
2. Don’t blame the meltdown. First, recognize that these losses in 2008 were not all made by the Wall Street Meltdown. The loss was for ALL of 2008. How come we didn’t know about this sooner? The Greenbrier needs to be able to function in all economic climates. Somehow, it made it through the 1970s. To justify $275 a night, you need to give folks some meals.
3. Ratchet down the luxury. Most great resorts, through much of the 20th century, were not super luxury resorts, with all manner of strange spas and extravagant communities surrounding them. They were, instead, well-run family resorts with impeccable service. They were not nouveaux riches, but instead were affordable to upper middle class families who wish for a three-meals-a-day vacation on the old American Plan. While they were pricer than your average hotel, they were always sensible, as you could predict your costs for a vacation, much like Club Med.
4. Hook up with a chain. Certainly not one of Marriott’s brands, like Ritz-Carlton (NYSE:MAR). It needs to be a chain like Intercontinental (NYSE: IHG), that allows very different types of properties to be a part of the system.
5. Stop worrying about Mobil. Define your own Greenbrier service. Invent your own rules. There is only one Greenbrier.
6. Exploit the quiet. The falconry probably has to go, unless it pays its own way. That is fine. Because in a place as gorgeous as White Sulphur Springs, people are content to just sit and relax on the porch.
7. Listen to your old-time customers. Many customers that have left because it was unaffordable. Come up with affordable packages for them that that keep the lights on. Think of The Greenbrier like an airline. While Singapore Airlines has the world’s greatest first class, it also sells discount seats. The discount seats might even lose money, but they help pay for the airline’s fuel and overhead. Your gravy then comes from your top 5 percent of customers, who want and need all the frills.
8. Lay off the conventions. Conventions have RUINED many a great old hotel. Why? Because by concentrating on conventions, you RUIN the experience for the rest of us chumps who are paying full rate. You sell masses of rooms, at a discount, to people who do not eat in the restaurants, and do not mingle with the other guests. Right now, because you are desperate, you might have to book a few conventions. But realize that every drunken creep at a sales convention with a laminated hanging name tag makes the regulars realize its not a place for them. Convention hotels belong in Orlando and New York. But resorts as unique as The Greenbrier? Realize that your dependence on conventions caused a crisis; when the corporate bookings dropped you lost a major chunk of business. Meanwhile, your regular independent traveler has been scared off by the expense account folks.
9. Keep the CSX connection. There needs to be some connection to the railroad, even if it is sold. Perhaps CSX makes it a joint venture, and takes a share of a new resort company? Whatever happens, the connection with the railroad makes The Greenbrier special. Plus, the real benefit of the hotel is in its influence. It allows CSX to have a powerful connection to the powerful. While CSX can’t bribe politicians with rooms, it can certainly make sure that important guests are taken care of properly.
10. Lay off the kooky spa crap. In this climate, who is going to pay nearly $3,000 per person for a mother/daughter spa trip? Green tea wraps just won’t do it. This spa thing at resorts has gone nuts with New Age claptrap. The place that invented it, The Greenbrier, needs to bring it back to its roots, namely the medicinal need for warm, sulfur-infused water.
11. Pay attention to service, not sycophancy. We are all tired of the crazy telephone answering routines, and the over-trained staffs. Make sure that a reduced staff is doing sensible things. We need sensible.
12. A sense of great style. The whole Dorothy Draper design for the hotel was a sensation, but it was cheap, and all about paint, fabric and style. It wasn’t about expense. To sell the Greenbrier brand, you need leadership that understands what this means.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

The resort was founded in 1952 by John “Doc” and Edy Wilkinson. Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley of California, Doc Wilkinson fell in love with the healing qualities of Calistoga, and created Dr. Wilkinson’s Hot Springs Resort.

Today, his children Mark and Carolynne are the owners, and have run the mud zone for two decades, preserving not only the volcanic mud process but the resort’s original neon sign. The resort marries funky alternative medicine with roadside culture, regional cuisine and California travel. The recipe for the mudbaths is secret.

They advertise themselves as one of Calistoga’s oldest spas, and the only local facility that still operates under founding family ownership.

Dr. Wilkinson’s Hot Springs Resort, 1507 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga, CA 94515, 707-942-4102, www.drwilkinson.com