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| For more than eighty years, the Book Cadillac Hotel has loomed over Detroit’s skyline. Once the tallest hotel in the world, it sat desolate and empty for many years. Only recently it finished undergoing a multi-year renovation at a total cost of $200 million. The new Westin-Book Cadillac is a success story for preservationists in the city who long opposed its demolition. It also marks Detroit’s first attempt to renovate one of its glorious skyscrapers, bringing it back from the brink of utter disrepair. The Italian renaissance-inspired look of the Book Cadillac was the work of architect Louis Kamper. Famous for building some of the tallest buildings in Detroit, Kamper also built the Book Building and the Broderick Tower. Working closely with the three Book brothers, Kamper turned their visions into reality. In 1917, the brothers had just completed the first of three phases in construction on the Book Building -- a colossal office building on Washington Ave. They also purchased the old Cadillac Hotel off Michigan Ave with the hopes of cornering a piece of the downtown hotel business. History intervened, however, and the project had years of setbacks due to material shortages caused by the war effort of WWI. | ||
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In 1923, construction was completed at a total cost of $14 million dollars. And for almost a decade the hotel was profitable and successful. During the Great Depression, however, the brothers went bankrupt and lost their prized buildings. The Cadillac was taken over by hotel mogul Ralph Hitz and managed by his national conglomerate. Hitz made the hotel profitable for a time after the depression, especially in the early forties when Detroit experienced a population boom from WWII engineering contracts. Even after the boom, it remained in business into the eighties, changing ownership several more times. The Cadillac Hotel finally closed in 1984 when the depressed auto market, and eroding tax base (among many other things), crippled Detroit. | |
Kamper was a visionary who changed the skyline of Detroit. Aside from thinking big he often used sculptures and statues in his designs. This touch gave many of his buildings an air of formality. The four statues that face south looking down Shelby Street toward the Detroit River are examples of that. Each statue represents a significant figure and time in Detroit’s history. When the Book Cadillac was constructed, the building contained more than 1,100 rooms. The lower five floors of the building were all public spaces consisting of restaurants, ballrooms and retail shops. In 1951, during massive renovations the Sheraton Hotel chain management decided to close off these spaces and convert them to offices and hotel rooms. It also made the decision to remove the hotel's signature grand staircase and replace it with a tacky escalator.
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Considered an “eyesore”, the Coleman Young administration lobbied to tear the Cadillac down. For years the dilapidated awning overhanging Michigan Avenue sheltered transients, leaving the front sidewalk blanketed with newspapers and garbage; all helping to contribute to the dingy image of the city. From the time it closed in 1984 until 1997, the city had guards posted to keep vandals and thieves out, but as the economy in the region shrunk, so did funding for security. Over the next six or seven years, the Book Cadillac was wide open. Chandeliers, copper wiring, plumbing, heating and cooling systems -- all were scrapped, leaving behind only a shell. In 2003, the Kilpatrick administration announced an ambitious multi-million dollar renovation plan. The project suffered set backs as well, both environmental and financial. It was during one of the frequent stoppages in work that I decided to take advantage of a large access hole along Michigan Ave.
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I was just getting off work and really wasn’t prepared for such an excursion but I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Taking a chance that there wouldn’t be an easy way out I hopped the fence and headed down toward the large hole. I climbed down a partially built rebar wall into the basement. The sidewalk had been removed in order to take out the building's old equipment. The retaining wall was constructed with rebar rods woven together that created a structure to climb on so I could get back out after all. It was about 20 feet down to the floor below. After carefully scaling the wall, I reached the bottom, where I discovered that most of the basement had been gutted. Parts of the boiler were still intact, but it seemed workers had been in the process of removing the remaining portions when work ceased. A portion of the ceiling was charred black and covered in soot, evidence of a fire that had taken place during the construction. The stairwell led to another sub basement that was mostly flooded from rain. The lobby was not much different than the basement. In fact, with the exception of a leather couch sitting desolate in the waiting area, there was nothing of its previous décor left. The whole floor had been stripped down to concrete and steel. It appeared that the much talked-about contamination had also been cleaned up. None of the plaster walls remained, however. No wiring, no plumbing; just a bare-bones structure. Construction lights had been placed inside for the workers and a makeshift railing of 2x4’s lined the stairs most of the way up the building. Portions of the hotel were even being held up with temporary supports as the work was being done. The ballrooms on the second, third and fourth floors were all in the process of being stripped down. The Book Cadillac had an impressive array of ballrooms. The main room, the Woodward, had an imposing 7,600 square foot floor space accented with gigantic crystal chandeliers. The Italian Garden had an enormous skylight that illuminated the entire room which, in turn, was surrounded by fine Italian marble and offered guest several balconies overlooking on ballroom. |
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The main lobby on the second floor had a bank of five elevators for the hotel's guests, and in the far corner was another set -- service elevators for the hotel staff, a freight elevator, and a smaller private lift connecting the lobby and the penthouse, otherwise known as the Cleopatra suite. I headed to the area just above the ballrooms overlooking the courtyard. The hotel's massive broad face towered overhead. I looked up toward the roof; I had wanted to get inside this building for nearly ten years and now I was finally here. I moved on, stopping on every other floor. Several of the gutted areas were in the process of being outfitted with rough framing. Spray paint markings on the floor indicated where other new framing would go once the project was back underway. |
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Midway to the roof I found one-third of the building was still mostly intact, despite some large holes in the walls. I was very excited that I had not missed my opportunity to sift through some of the Book Cadillac artifacts. The faded yellow wallpaper and vintage bathrooms told a story of better times in Detroit. A story when Motown Records and the Big Three ruled the streets and the airwaves. Some of the rooms had the same pink and yellow wallpaper treatment. Other rooms were decorated with an ostentatious green reflective wallpaper from the 70s.  |
On one floor there was a hand painted oriental mural. This was a real treasure to find. It had obviously been painstakingly painted with the same level of detail as an expensive oriental carpet except on a wall, not the floor. Construction crews had knocked a hole in it while running power lines for their equipment. Regardless, the art was still very impressive. |
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Closer to the roof, the floors became barren once again. Work was started simultaneously from the top and the bottom of the building. The upper floors looked exactly like the lower, stripped and empty, only offering a better view of the city. The top floor allowed access to several penthouse suites. On the corners of the Book Cadillac roof there are copper pyramids, called ziggurats. The original copper on these ziggurats was, surprisingly, never stolen despite the inside of the hotel being thoroughly picked over. The copper was integrated back into the covering of the ziggurats during the renovation to preserve as much of the historic roof as possible. For the better part of the previous year I had been watching crews repairing and restoring the façade of the Book Cadillac to its original splendor. From up here, looking down into the courtyard, it was easy to see that the outer walls of the building had sustained much damage over the years. There was still much more work to be done on smoothing the scares left by decades of neglect. In areas where chunks of brick had fallen away from the building, new bricks had to be inserted. One place that needed extensive work was the Cleopatra suite. The suite is a two-floor penthouse that rises out from the north end of the building. This is easily the most lavish living accommodations in the hotel. Huge arched windows span two different walls along with an outside balcony for viewing the city below. Up here the Book Cadillac’s roof is your front yard and the skyscrapers in Troy, Mt. Clemons, and Southfield can be seen on a clear day. The Book Tower and the Eaton (Broderick) Towers, also designed by Louis Kamper can be seen piercing the sky to the north and west. The penthouse was recently renovated for $2 million in 2007. Originally, the hotel had only three penthouses, but during the renovation a fourth penthouse was added on the roof. |
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As you may be aware, The Book Cadillac hotel finally re-opened in October of 2008 as the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel. The renovation also included 67 permanent living spaces in the upper levels of the building. The Book Cadillac Hotel is listed in the national registry of historic places, meaning extra measures were taken to ensure the craftsmanship of a new renovation replicated that of the original construction. No major changes have been made to the façade, with the exception of a new ballroom on the ground floor, and an added penthouse. A new parking structure was also built next door on the former site of the Peoples Outfitter Building.
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