Historic Detroit

The Hotel Pontchartrain is a legendary Detroit hotel, the cradle of Detroit’s auto industry and ushered in luxury hotels in the city.

The Pontch, as it was known, was built on the site of another landmark hotel, the Russell House. The Russell had opened Sept. 28, 1857, and was the center of Detroit’s social scene for decades. “It is first class … (with) comfortable elegance everywhere abounding,” the Free Press wrote at the time of the Russell’s opening. “In all respects the house is creditable to its projector, to the city and the West.” But as the 20th century rolled around, the Russell was woefully antiquated. It closed Nov. 19, 1905. Mr. and Mrs. John Baker were its last guests.

Work on the Pontchartrain began Jan. 15, 1906. It was designed by architect George D. Mason, who is best known for the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and Detroit’s current Masonic Temple. The hotel opened Oct. 27, 1907. The contractor was Westinghouse, Church & Kerr.

Seven presidents stayed there. Auto barons met in its bar. Other well-heeled Detroiters would pony up to the famous solid mahogany bar, 32 feet long and 28 inches wide.

But the hotel was built at the wrong time as a number of new innovations would render it obsolete almost immediately. When the Statler Hotel opened on Grand Circus Park in 1915, it boasted that every room had its own bathroom. Others had a primitive form of air-conditioning, supplied by ice water running through pipes. All of the old-style opulence that had made it the place to be for its first few years quickly made it the place to avoid by 1917.

The hotel was sold to First and Old Detroit National Bank in March 1919, and it was announced the then-12-year-old behemoth would be leveled and replaced by an Albert Kahn-designed office tower.

The Pontch closed its doors for good Jan. 31, 1920, and demolition began almost immediately and was wrapped up by that June.