Palmer also knew William J. Gray loaned Tuller the lot and money to build the hotel. It was a risk, as the area was a rather swampy, undesirable location up until that point. It was far away from the Detroit business district, and ridiculed his move. Tuller got the last laugh. Tuller's hotel would become known as "the Grand Dame of Grand Circus Park" and the property would become the heart of the hotel district.
Out-of-towners boasted that they had stayed at the Tuller during trips to Detroit, and it was said that mail from distant parts that was addressed to residents at the Hotel Tuller without any city indicated would still reach guests.
At nine stories, the Tuller Hotel was said to be the tallest concrete building in the nation at the time. When Tuller couldn't find a hotelier to lease his new hotel, he opened it and ran it himself. The European-plan hotel was advertised as being fireproof and "a delightful home in the summer" in the "center of business. Strictly first class. Good music. Special after-theater parties and banquets. The Tuller Prescription Pharmacy was on the ground floor.
Claire on Monroe and Randolph. As the first hotel and biggest structure built on Grand Circus Park to that point, the Tuller helped to usher in tremendous development in the area. The Statler Hotel would open across Bagley from the Tuller in The S. Kresge Co. The David Whitney Building went up in Fyfe Shoes would build what was then the world's tallest shoe store along the western half of the park in As Detroit grew, so did the Tuller, as it was expanded several times to meet demand starting in , when Lew Tuller added five stories to the original building.
Four years later, the automobile business was thriving and the city with it. In , he bought the Church of Our Father -- a Universalist church built in -- next door and planned to level it for an addition. Objections were raised, citing deed restrictions that said the land could be used for only a church, but Tuller got his way, and built a story annex of rooms on the site. By , Detroit had doubled in population, and demand for rooms so great, Tuller added another addition, pushing the hotel's occupancy to rooms -- each with a private bath, a novelty at the time.
Meyers, who lived in the hotel from on, told the Free Press in He was 70 years old at the time and still a traveling salesman for a furniture company. The addition gave the Tuller a rather mismatched look to the front -- some said it looked something like a half-ironed pair of pants -- with the original building having curved window bays, and the southern addition having a boxier appearance. Unfortunately, none of the original plans have survived for the original building or the and additions, so the architects of these projects cannot be confirmed.
The building permits for the Tuller's two main buildings list Lew Tuller as requesting them, but those alone do not guarantee he designed them. A advertisement for a building supplier in Domestic Engineering lists Tuller as the architect, and a statement from Tuller's attorneys in also says that the Tuller Hotel "was larger than anything he had contemplated in the building line and after careful consideration he drew plans and erected what was then one of the finest hotels in the country.
This Web site gives Tuller credit for the and buildings, but with an asterisk. William H. Both buildings were 13 stories tall and made of red brick. The Tuller's lobby was outfitted with marble, fine furnishings and crystal chandeliers. Duke Ellington played the wood-paneled, Moroccan-style Arabian. The ground-floor rooms were adjoined to the Peacock Alley, a wood-paneled space named after a space in the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
Like the city's other hotels, the Tuller offered conference rooms for businessmen. Off the lobby was a writing room "decorated in blues and creams where visitors to Detroit could write postcards and letters home," Patricia Ibbotson wrote in "Detroit's Historic Hotels and Restaurants. When they finished the top stories, the Tuller Roof Garden became the most sought-after place in town.
People would bring in their flasks and the hotel would furnish the set-ups. Lew Tuller gambled again. He hired architect Louis Kamper to design three large residential hotels north of Grand Circus Park, all 13 stories: the room Eddystone at Park Avenue and Sproat, which opened in December ; the room Park Avenue, which opened in next door to the Eddystone; and the room Royal Palms at Park and Montcalm, which also opened in They were all built within a year and gave Lew Tuller more than 1, rooms in the city.
In 20 years, Tuller estimated that the land on which the Tuller Hotel sat had increased in value 30 times what he paid. But Detroit was humming too much: the city added more than 20 hotels between and Lew Tuller completed the expansion of the Tuller Hotel with an addition in , which included a large dining room and guest rooms, so that Tuller could boast that he had rooms, each with a private bath.
Lew W. Tuller's career as a builder and hotel operator peaked following his success with the Tuller Hotel. However, by the late s, Lew W. Tuller had lost heavily in Detroit real estate deals and in , he lost control of the Tuller Hotel, when the courts turned it over to a receiver. There were even serious rumors in that the Tuller would be razed to permit the building of a new story, 1, room Biltmore Hotel on the site.
The Tuller lost money during the s and was constantly delinquent in paying property taxes to the City of Detroit. With major renovations completed in , the Tuller prospered in the s. The Biltmore company planned to build a 34 story, room Detroit-Biltmore Hotel on the site.
The Stock Market crash proved the Tuller's salvation. Rather, the Tuller was modernized and expanded in The Tuller spent much of the 's in the hands of the growing Albert Pick Hotels chain, which would later operate the Fort Shelby.
Business slumped throughout the depression. In an attempt to revitalize the hotel, extensive modernization's were begun in In the process much of the original decor and public spaces, save the Arabian Room, were removed. In their place when slick new 'art moderne' interiors for the postwar age.
Ultimately these renovations did not help the Tuller regain its lost glory nor help prevent a deadly fire in The Tuller survived through the 's and 's serving increasing numbers of senior long-term residents and traveling groups. As profits declined the once posh hotel became more and more run down and obsolete.
Business slumped in the 's and by the Tuller was a shabby haunt for prostitutes, panhandlers, and female impersonators. Citing rising operating cost and lack of profits the owners closed the Tuller in that year. Ironically, its dependence on lower clienteles in later years had allowed it to actually outlive the more modern Statler.
A number of renovation schemes for the "ghost hotel" were floated. These included a plan to turn the Tuller into the Golden Harp Castle, a room hotel, apartment complex with a 14 story atrium and Jazz Age theme. Nothing ever came of these or other plans. The Tuller was finally pulled down by the City in as it was considered "beyond saving".
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