Hotel
Hotel History
The Omni William Penn Hotel is located in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. Henry Clay Frick built the William Penn Hotel in 1916 to bring a "world class" hotel to the Pittsburgh area. It was built at a cost of six million dollars and was designed to rival the great hotels of Europe. On opening night crowds entered the Palm Court Lobby with its walnut pillars, floors of green Italian marble and magnificent ceiling, apparently copied from the Palace of Fontainebleau. Rooms went for $2.50 for a standard guest room to $50 for one night in the seven room State Suite. It quickly became the social center of the city and had such famous guests as President Theodore Roosevelt, President William Howard Taft, actress Lillian Russell, William Penn, America's sweetheart Mary Pickford, socialite Elsa Maxwell, socialite Flo Ziegfeld and composer Jerome Kern. During the Great Depression, however, Eugene Eppley lost the William Penn to bankruptcy (although he held onto the stock in the hotel). After struggling for years, the hotel opened the Chatterbox Supper Club once prohibition was repealed and music from the big band era filled the lobby and dining room. By the late 1930s the hotel was well established as a convention facility and center for social and business events. The William Penn Hotel was known over the decades as a hotel where service was perfected by every staff member from the elevator operators to the waiters. A bellman for 49 years remarked that "Service was an art then. Travel was leisurely and pleasurable - a luxury" (Lee, 1991, p. 5). During the Renaissance of the city of Pittsburgh, the William Penn Hotel also changed. Guest rooms were redecorated and enlarged, the Palm Court Lobby was transformed into the Garden Café and televisions and air conditioning units were installed in the rooms. Much later in 1984, the Westin Hotels and Resorts with Alcoa began a $30 million restoration of the hotel. Rooms were resized, electrical and plumbing components were updated and new windows installed. The Grand Ballroom was redecorated with new carpeting and draperies and the Palm Court Lobby was restored to its original cream colors. "The William Penn Hotel is much more than a place to eat or sleep. It is a promise to the future that, in spite of how the world may change, some things - perhaps those most taken for granted - will endure forever" (Lee, 1991, p. 7).
Source: Lee, Marianne. "A Grande Dame Named William Penn," Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, Spring 1991.