Hotel Tuller

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Hotel Tuller
Hotel Tuller, c. 1992
Location Adams Avenue West, Bagley Street, and Park Avenue
Detroit, Michigan
Coordinates 42°20′10″N 83°3′8″W / 42.33611°N 83.05222°W / 42.33611; -83.05222Coordinates: 42°20′10″N 83°3′8″W / 42.33611°N 83.05222°W / 42.33611; -83.05222
Built 1906
Demolished 1992
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]

History

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] bringing 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 Tuller

Lew W. Tuller

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]


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Historic American Buildings Survey, Survey number HABS MI-335
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Patricia Ibbotson, Detroit's Historic Hotels and Restaurants, Arcadia Publishing, 2007, ISBN 0-7385-5080-9, pp. 17 - 24
  3. ↑ Jon MilanDetroit: Ragtime and the Jazz Age, pp. 81-82
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Clarence Monroe Burton, William Stocking, Gordon K. Miller, The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Volume 3, 1922, p. 870
  5. ↑ Owosso Argus-Press - Sep 14, 1961
  6. ↑ New York Times, April 19, 1940, Friday, Page 23
  7. ↑ Miami News, Jan 18, 1959
  8. ↑ Los Angeles Times, Jan 18, 1959 p. 29

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