Word: conrades
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...hotels need nowadays if they hope to succeed: free parking to compete with the motels, expensive specialty restaurants to attract the high-livers, and lots of room for conventions to meet. It may be the last of its kind. "With perhaps an exception here and there," says Conrad Hilton, "we are not going to build any more large hotels in this country, and there are no more hotels in the U.S. that I want...
Hiltons are assembly-line hostelries with carefully metered luxuries-convenient, automatic, a bit antiseptic. Conrad Hilton's life is rooted in the belief that people are pretty much equal, and that their tastes and desires are, too. His hotels have made the world safe for middle-class travelers, who need not fear the feeling of being barely tolerated in some of the older European hotels; at a Hilton, all they need is a reservation and money...
Susceptible to Flattery. As the force that created this empire, Conrad Hilton might be expected to be as calculating, as antiseptic and as glossily sophisticated as his hotels. The surprise about Hilton is that he is so much like the guests he caters to. Boyish, candid, trusting, he never fails to be amazed and pleased-even astonished-by the world around him. He cannot get over the speed of jet planes or his possession of a $100 Texas-style Stetson, whose price he mentions to anyone who will listen. He is susceptible to even the most transparent flattery. "You know...
...tuna-fish casserole and tea served in plastic cups ("It's more sanitary."). Though his hotels pride themselves on the original works of art they hang in lobbies and guest rooms (the New York Hilton has 8,500 specially commissioned works), one of the least appreciative viewers is Conrad Hilton. "He wouldn't know a Rubens from a Ribicoff," says an aide. The decor of Casa Encantada gives the total effect of the main lounge of the Queen Mary...
Audacious Horse Trading. Still, there is a hard streak of practicality in Conrad Hilton. The son of a successful merchant in San Antonio, N. Mex., he put down his entire savings of $5,000 in 1919 to buy his first hotel, the bustling Mobley in oil-rich Cisco, Texas. He managed to put together a small chain in Texas before the Depression wiped him out, bounced back with shrewd and often audacious horse trading to collect a lineup of prestigious hotels. His first major move was to acquire the high-priced Town House in Los Angeles, but he really broke...