No. 9 for Statler

Ever since the Depression caught U.S. hotelmen overexpanded, they have been chary of risking money on new hotels. In 20 years, only three big new hotels have gone up: Cincinnati's Terrace Plaza, Washington's Statler, Houston's Shamrock.

In Manhattan, big (6 ft.), drawling Arthur F. Douglas, president of the Hotels Statler Co., Inc., thought it was time for a change; the nation's growth had made the caution of hotelmen shortsighted. Last week he signed construction contracts for a new $20 million Statler in downtown Los Angeles. It will be the biggest new U.S. hotel since the Waldorf-Astoria.

The new Statler, ninth in the chain, will have an outdoor swimming pool, hotel shops on three levels; each of its 1,275 air-conditioned rooms will have an outside exposure and a built-in television set. Travelers who dislike the nuisance of parking their cars and entering a lobby in rumpled clothes, won't have to. They will be able to drive into a 475-car underground garage, register as they alight and take a special elevator direct to their floor.

Some rival Los Angeles hotelmen shook their heads at Douglas' "big gamble." They thought that his heart-of-downtown location was a "decaying" area, and his building costs were much too high (about $12,500 a room v. $9,000 for Washington's Hotel Statler built in 1943). But Douglas was counting on big convention trade, extra business from a big office building which will adjoin the hotel, and most of all on the nomadic U.S. people, whose travel has greatly increased. Said Douglas: "Our rates will be on a par with those of other leading Los Angeles hotels. And if we did not think we could make money on it, we wouldn't build it."

At 47, Art Douglas had proved that he generally knew what he was talking about. Like his better-known older brother, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, he had always had to scratch hard. Art Douglas worked his way through Washington's Whitman College (1924), earned a law degree at Columbia University (1927). In a Manhattan law firm, he did so well that he caught the eye of the Statler Co., which hired him in 1937 as secretary-treasurer. Within two years he was executive vice president, became president in 1945.

To the hotel "firsts" of Founder Ellsworth Statler, father of the modern U.S. hotel, Douglas added some firsts of his own, e.g., television sets in hotel rooms. He also boosted the income of the chain* by renting wasted ground-floor space to shops. Quiet and reserved, Douglas has none of the flamboyance of his chief rival, Conjad Hilton (TIME, Dec. 12). But last year Statler earned more money. It rang up a record gross of $49.2 million and a net of $4.1 million to Hilton's $42 million gross and $3.9 million net. (Hilton's Waldorf has since put him ahead.) Art Douglas still sees to it that Statler-men do not forget old Ellsworth's stern rule: "No employee of this hotel is allowed the privilege of arguing any point with a guest."

*Including: Hotels Statler in New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and Washington.;' Pittsburgh's William Penn.

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