Stay at a Hilton hotel, open the bedside drawer and, there next to the Bible, is likely to be a paperback copy of Conrad Hilton's autobiography, Be My Guest. Conrad Nicholson Hilton (December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979) died of natural causes at the age of 91 in Santa Monica, California.
He is interred at Calvary Hill Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in Dallas, Texas. His charming memoir gives a thorough account of who he was and how he became wealthy, with many pitfalls along the way.
Hilton was the second oldest of eight children and the oldest son. He grew up in the small mining town of Socorro, in the New Mexico Territory. He learned about hard work from his father (“a Viking of a man with energy to burn”) and about prayer from his mother. Aside from these two principles, he wrote, “To accomplish big things you must first dream big dreams.”
Hosting Paid Guests as a Child
The Hiltons lived in a large house across from the railroad station. As the family grew, August Hilton added rooms onto the house. When the children began leaving home, August got the idea of renting rooms to boarders for $2.50 a day. Conrad Hilton and his brothers would walk to the railroad station to greet visitors and carry their luggage back to the boardinghouse.
In 1912, New Mexico became a state and Hilton was elected to the state legislature as a Republican. He worked in the legislature for two terms, leaving out of frustration with red tape and underhanded deals. Hilton returned to San Antonio (New Mexico) and raised $30,000 to start a bank.
When the United States entered World War I, he sold the bank and enlisted in the army, where he served in France in the Quartermaster Corps. In 1919, Hilton was discharged, following his father's death in a car accident, and went back to San Antonio to take charge of his father's businesses. He soon became restless, and a dying friend advised him to go to Texas where business was booming.
His Start at the Mobley Hotel
His first hotel purchase was the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919. With $5,000 of his own to invest, he raised $35,000 from associates. This was the start of his skill as a master financier and cautious bargainer. In1938, he bought the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco, which cost $4 million to build, for $275,000.
Hilton discovered two principles; he referred to them as "digging for gold" and "esprit de corps." Digging for gold was making efficient use of space. At the Mobley, he cut down the front desk and added a newsstand. Because there were many restaurants in town and the hotel made little money on food, he converted the restaurant into guestrooms.
Years later, he created a room at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago, "out of thin air." He added the room by dividing a ballroom in half horizontally and building a new floor halfway between the original floor and the high ceiling. His second principle, "esprit de corps," involved motivating the staff to provide excellent service.
The first high rise hotel he built was the Dallas Hilton, which opened in 1925. That same year, he married his first wife, Mary Adelaide Barron, a marriage that ended in 1934, but produced three sons, “Nicky”, Barron and Eric. He wrote, “…our marriage was a depression casualty…”
During the Great Depression Hilton was nearly forced into bankruptcy and lost several of his hotels. He eventually bought some of them back. He expanded east in 1943 when he bought the Roosevelt in New York City. Other noteworthy acquisitions include: The Plaza in New York; the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York; the Stevens, currently known as the Chicago Hilton & Towers; the Palmer House in Chicago; and the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D. C. His business expanded internationally with hotels in San Juan, Madrid, Istanbul, Havana, Berlin, and Cairo. At the time of his death, the corporation owned 185 hotels in 38 U.S. cities and 75 in foreign countries.
The Hilton Hotels Corporation was formed in 1946, followed by Hilton International Company in 1948. In 1947, the company became the first hotel chain to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Hilton was the largest shareholder with $9 million worth of stock. When Hilton Hotels Corporation acquired control of Statler Hotels in 1954, it was the largest real estate transaction in the world to date. When he opened the Castellana Hilton in Madrid, Hilton adopted the motto, "World Peace Through International Trade and Travel." He hosted the first Congressional Prayer Breakfast in 1953 with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The Good Life, in Bel Air
While between wives, Hilton bought a 61-room, 35,000-square-foot home in Bel Air, California in 1950. Named Casa Encantada (House of Enchantment), the house was set on nine acres, had a swimming pool and five kitchens. (He was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor, 1942-1946, and Mary Frances Kelly, 1976-1979.)
His son Barron followed him as head of the company, which by the year 2000 had nearly 500 hotels around the world. At the end of the twentieth century, the company that Conrad Hilton had founded with $5,000 was worth $6.2 billion.
He left the bulk of his estate to his philanthropic organization, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation which provides support to various religious, educational, and medical non-profit institutions. In 2009, the Foundation distributed more than $80 million in grants. Since inception, it has awarded nearly $900 million in grants. Barron Hilton, son of Conrad, serves as Chairman of the Foundation board and Steven Hilton, grandson of Conrad, serves as President and CEO.
He also endowed the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston.
His first son, Conrad Jr., "Nicky" 1926-1969, died of a heart attack at the age of 42. He was the first husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor; the couple were married for seven months, from 1950-51. Barron is board chair and has committed the bulk of his personal fortune to the Hilton Foundation. This gift, which surpasses the amount bequeathed by its founder, will make Barron Hilton the Foundation's most significant donor.
Youngest son Eric was drafted and served as a radar specialist in the Korean War; he still serves on the board of the Hilton Foundation. A fourth child and only daughter, Constance Francesca, was born to Zsa Zsa before they separated in 1944.
For Further Information
- Be My Guest, Autobiography of Conrad Hilton (Conrad N. Hilton, Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1958);
- Inspirations of an Innkeeper (Conrad N. Hilton, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963).
- The silver spade; The Conrad Hilton story, by Whitney Bolton, (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1954) available used from Amazon.
- Biography - The Hiltons (A&E Home Video, 2008) Excerpt from product description: "…Most of Conrad's wealth was inherited by his son, Barron (Paris and Nicky's grandfather). From Conrad to Paris the name Hilton resonates across America as family members continue the innovative business endeavors which put them on the map.
- Conrad N. Hilton: Reveled in Hotel Deals, (Titans of Fortune Publishing, 2009).
- Biography - Conrad Hilton: Innkeeper to the World, (A&E Home Video, 2005).
- House of Hilton: From Conrad to Paris: A Drama of Wealth, Power, and Privilege, by Jerry Oppenheimer, (Three Rivers Press, 2007) A "thoroughly unauthorized portrait of the Hiltons", that includes "the many affairs and the nightclub-brawling, boozing, and pill-popping life of Paris’s great-uncle, Nick Hilton," according to the product description.
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