When the Crest first opened, it was called Wilbur Clark's Crest Hotel.
Quote:
Crest Hotel - New Dream Coming True
Wilbur Clark of the USA, born in Texas and once a 19-year-old hotel bellhop will be in Austin on Tuesday to start another dream coming true.
Wilbur Clark Hotels are up, going up or planned in many cities. He will be in town Tuesday for the ground-breaking of one the likes of which Austin hasn't seen before.
The 12-story main hotel flanked by a four-story garage at First and Congress includes a convention auditorium seating 750 persons.
Decorative precast arches costing $100,000 will screen the sun and eliminate exterior maintenance.
Architects A. Carroll Brodnax and Associates of Houston with aid of Hotel Designs, Inc. have planned a spacious lobby with a "sumptuous Spanish decor."
Highly polished terrazzo floors of large black chips will reflect rich gold leaf ceilings. All wood surfaces will have Spanish finish.
A coffee shop seating 125 persons just off the lobby.
A formal dining room seats 90 persons. Colors are burnt orange and old gold with Spanish-stained beams.
The swimming pool will be in a tropical area. Hospitality suites have individual pools.
A private club on the second floor features a huge crystal chandelier hung from a raised ceiling supported by four slender columns and silver capitol structures.
A dark parquet dance floor overlooking Town Lake has "an extraordinary bandstand resembling a French Temple of Love."
Austin's gradual and steady rise in population, Wilbur Clark said, the increase in business outlets and industry over the past years, as well as an influx of Air Force personnel and government employees; friends and relatives of University of Texas students, college football enthusiasts, plus the fact that Austin is the capital city of Texas and near the home of President Lyndon B. Johnson as well as a centrally located convention city with a tremendous recreational area filled with lake facilities -- all this will serve "to assure the new Crest Hotel success."
Clark also says its proximity to the new multi-million Municipal Auditorium and the convention center just across Town Lake from the Crest is a "terrific asset."
He says the hotel will be a real boon to the seasonal influx of senators, representatives and lobbyists during legislative sessions that have put a terrific strain on present accommodation facilities in the past.
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Source:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/487725834620731028/
Source:
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The newspaper article mentioned that Wilbur Clark was in town for the ground-breaking and that LBJ was President, so the article must have been from late 1963 or sometime in 1964.
I wonder if this is the same
Wilbur Clark that built the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. If it is, I wonder if he lived long enough to see the Crest Inn completed. He died Aug. 27, 1965.
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