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Hotel Tuller
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The Hotel Tuller, c. 1992
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| Location: | Adams Avenue West, Bagley Street, and Park Avenue |
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| Built: | 1906 |
| Governing body: | Private |
| Part of: | Grand Circus Park Historic District (#83000894) |
| Designated CP: | February 28, 1983 |
The Hotel Tuller once stood at Adams Avenue West, Bagley Street, and Park Avenue across from Grand Circus Park in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It was one of the largest luxury hotels in Detroit, and the first one to be erected in the Grand Circus Park Historic District.[1] The hotel was known as the "grand dame of Grand Circus Park."[2] The site is now the location of a parking lot next to the United Artists Theatre Building.
Composer Gerald Marks' band, the Gerald Marks's Hotel Tuller Orchestra, was based at the hotel. The band made several commercially successful recordings for Columbia Records in the mid-1920s.[3]
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The Hotel Tuller was originally constructed in 1906[2] by Lew Whiting Tuller.[4] The hotel originally had nine floors; four additional floors were added in 1914. An Annex to the west of the original building was added by 1923, and it was a popular site for conventions and banquets.[5] A final addition was made in 1929,[2] bring in the room count to 800, each with a private bath.[1]
Even by the 1920s, the Tuller had a difficult time competing with other Detroit hotels, and in the 1930s, the Tuller went bankrupt and was purchased by another owner. In 1940, the former boxer Kid McCoy was found dead in his room in the hotel.[6] In 1959, a fire at the hotel killed 3 people, who were trapped in an elevator when a fire broke out in the lobby.[7][8]
The hotel fell into disrepair and was shuttered in 1976 after having been a low-end, extended-stay property. The city of Detroit deemed this building beyond repair, demolished it in 1992, and the site has remained a gravel parking lot ever since.
Lew Whiting Tuller was born in Jonesville, Michigan in 1869.[4] His father was an architect and builder, and when he finished his schooling, Lew joined his father in business. He moved to Detroit in 1894, and built a number of apartment houses and other buildings in the city.[4] Tuller built the hotel that bears his name in 1906–07, and, being unable to lease the building, he began running it as a hotel himself.[4] His foray into hotel management was successful,[4] and he built three other hotels in Detroit: the Eddystone, Park Avenue, and the Royal Palm.
Lew Tuller died in 1957.[1]