Staying Power: Follow the Leaders

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Do you have presidential dreams? While only FOPs are invited to the White House for slumber parties, the rest of us can still receive the chief executive treatment at U.S. hotels that have hosted presidents past and present. To celebrate Presidents' Day in patriotic style, get a room at any these six properties, order room service and toast our prezes and their fine taste in overnight accommodations.

-- Ben Chapman

Jefferson Hotel (Richmond)

HISTORY 101: In 1895, cigarette magnate Lewis Ginter built the Beaux-Arts hotel, which boasts such luxe details as a life-size Carrara marble statue of its namesake. The property nearly burned down in 1901, then was expanded in 1907 to include 300 new guest rooms -- and alligators that lived in the Palm Court's marble pool until 1948. After another fire in 1944 and much disrepair, the hotel closed in 1980; it reopened six years later.

PILLOW TALK: Presidential guests have included George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Franklin D. and Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, William Howard Taft, Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan.

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: Frank Sinatra, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and Elvis Presley, who finished his breakfast with a scoop of ice cream in a cantaloupe.

INFO: 804-788-8000, http://www.jeffersonhotel.com; nightly rates from $310.

Menger Hotel (San Antonio)

HISTORY 101: German beermaker William Menger opened the stone hotel in 1859 on the site of his brewery and 100 yards from the Alamo. A favorite haunt of cowboys, hunters and soldiers, the property is said to house the ghosts of 32 departed guests.

PILLOW TALK: McKinley, Taft and Dwight D. Eisenhower slept here. Teddy Roosevelt first visited the Menger on an 1892 javelina hunt; he returned in 1898 to recruit barfly cowboys as Rough Riders. Roosevelt's apparition allegedly has been spotted drinking at the bar.

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: Gens. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, Babe Ruth and Mae West.

INFO: 800-323-7500, http://www.mengerhotel.com; from $145.

Waldorf-Astoria (New York)

HISTORY 101: The original 19th-century Waldorf-Astoria started out as two hotels built by Astor cousins but was torn down in 1929 for the Empire State Building. The new 42-story art deco property opened on Park Avenue in 1931, at the time the world's tallest and largest hotel. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Hoover (who had delivered a radio broadcast message celebrating its opening) and Gen. Douglas MacArthur lived in suites on different floors of the hotel. The Presidential Suite was redecorated in 1969 to resemble the White House and contains items donated by presidents, such as a JFK rocking chair.

PILLOW TALK: The "White House of New York" has hosted every president since Hoover.

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Jesse Owens and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

INFO: 212-355-3000, http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/waldorf; from $299.

Congress Plaza Hotel (Chicago)

HISTORY 101: The Congress Plaza was built in 1893 to accommodate visitors to the Chicago World's Fair. In the 1930s, its Joseph Urban Room nightclub headquartered Benny Goodman's NBC Radio shows. During World War II, the government bought the hotel to station U.S. Army officers. In 1945, a group of Chicagoans purchased and reopened the hotel.

PILLOW TALK: Grover Cleveland, McKinley, Taft, Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Coolidge and both Roosevelts stayed at the "Home of Presidents."

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: Al Capone reportedly used the hotel for his criminal headquarters; his ghost has not yet checked out.

INFO: 312-427-3800, http://www.congressplazahotel.com; from $89.

Brown Palace Hotel (Denver)

HISTORY 101: Henry Cordes Brown, a carpenter-turned-real-estate-entrepreneur from Ohio, constructed the hotel in 1892 to bring some opulence to the rough town. The triangular building was designed in the Italian Renaissance style and features Colorado red granite, Arizona sandstone and 26 carved stone medallions depicting Rocky Mountain animals.

PILLOW TALK: Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, were frequent guests. In the Eisenhower Suite, Ike dented the fireplace molding with a golf ball while practicing his swing.

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the Beatles. Each year, the winning steers of the National Western Stock Show are led down a red carpet and displayed in the lobby.

INFO: 303-297-3111, http://www.brownpalace.com; from $249.

Mission Inn Hotel & Spa (Riverside, Calif.)

HISTORY 101: The inn, opened in 1876 by 22-year-old Frank Miller, began as an adobe boardinghouse. The decor shows off the eclectic styles Miller favored: The Court of the Orient holds a collection of Asian art, and the St. Francis chapel features an 18th-century Mexican altar and Tiffany windows from a razed New York church. Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis liked the chapel so much, each was married there.

PILLOW TALK: In 1903, Teddy Roosevelt planted an orange tree in the courtyard. When Taft visited in 1909 for a banquet, Miller commissioned a special chair to accommodate the 335-pound president; the chair now is on display.

OTHER FAMOUS SLEEPERS: Andrew Carnegie, Harry Houdini, Helen Keller, Henry Ford and Amelia Earhart.

INFO: 951-784-0300, http://www.missioninn.com; from $215.