Clarion inn surfrider resort10/30/2022 ![]() ![]() In 2005, Westin partnered with Nordstrom, which carried the mattresses and bedding in its stores. In 1999, Westin began selling the Heavenly Bed mattresses featured in Westin properties, and manufactured by Simmons Bedding Company, to the general public. Westin was the first hotel chain to introduce guest credit cards (in 1946), 24-hour room service (1969), and personal voice mail in each room (1991). In 2016, Marriott International acquired Starwood, becoming the world's largest hotel company. CLARION INN SURFRIDER RESORT FULLIn 1998, Starwood assumed full ownership of the company. In 1994, Aoki agreed to sell Westin to real estate investment firm Starwood Capital Group (parent of Starwood) and Goldman Sachs at an enormous loss, for $561 million, but by the time the sale closed in May 1995, the buyers had negotiated the price down to $537 million. Aoki immediately sold the Plaza Hotel to Donald Trump for $390 million. ![]() This strategy failed, however, and Allegis sold Westin in 1988 to the Japanese Aoki Corporation for $1.35 billion. In 1987, UAL chairman Richard Ferris announced a plan to reorganize UAL as Allegis Corporation, a travel conglomerate based around United Airlines, Hertz Rent a Car, Hilton International Hotels, and Westin and linked by Apollo. That same year, Westin opened a new corporate headquarters directly across the street in the Westin Building, which shared a parking garage with the hotel. The chain's flagship Washington Plaza Hotel in Seattle was the first property to be rebranded, becoming The Westin Hotel on September 1, 1981. On January 5, 1981, the company changed its name again to Westin Hotels (a contraction of the words Western International). Western Hotels also managed a floating hotel aboard the ocean liner QSMV Dominion Monarch, docked in Seattle harbor during the fair. The chain managed the restaurant atop the Space Needle from its opening until 1982. CLARION INN SURFRIDER RESORT TVCarlson's own napkin sketch of a tower with a revolving restaurant on top, inspired by his visit to the Stuttgart TV Tower, was the origin of the Space Needle. Įdward Carlson became President of the chain in 1960 and is credited with bringing the Century 21 Exposition to Seattle in 1962. In March of that same year, they opened the first hotel to be both constructed and owned by the chain, The Bayshore Inn in Vancouver. Western opened its first hotel in Mexico in 1961. Also in 1958, Western Hotels assumed management of three hotels in Guatemala, its first properties outside the US and Canada. ![]() After more than two decades of rapid growth, many of its properties were merged into a single corporate structure in 1958, focusing on bringing the hotels together under a common chain identity. Kaiser.Įarly management developed each property individually. Western Hotels expanded to Hawaii in 1956, assuming management of the Hawaiian Village Hotel, built by Henry J. ![]() It became the chain's new flagship, and the headquarters and executive offices were moved from the New Washington Hotel to a newly-decorated suite of offices on the 12th floor of the Olympic, in celebration of the chain's 25th anniversary. In 1955, Western Hotels assumed management of the landmark Olympic Hotel in Seattle. Due to the restaurant's success, Bergeron worked with Western Hotels to open Trader Vic's locations in a number of its hotels. Originally a small bar named The Outrigger, it was expanded into a full restaurant in 1954 and renamed Trader Vic's in 1960. Western Hotels executive Edward Carlson convinced Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron to open his first franchised Trader Vic's location in the chain's Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Seattle in 1949. Western added properties in Utah in 1949 and Montana in 1950. Western Hotels expanded to Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland, Oregon in 1931, to Alaska in 1939, and then to California in 1941, assuming management of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Its headquarters and executive offices were located in its flagship property, the New Washington Hotel in Seattle. The chain consisted of 17 properties – 16 in Washington and one in Boise, Idaho. The men invited Peter and Adolph Schmidt, who operated five hotels in the Puget Sound area, to join them, and together they established Western Hotels. The competing hotel owners decided to form a management company to handle all their properties, and help deal with the crippling effects of the ongoing Great Depression. Thurston and Frank Dupar of Seattle, Washington met unexpectedly during breakfast at the coffee shop of the Commercial Hotel in Yakima, Washington. ![]()
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