It’s October 1923. The Brown Hotel’s brick and mortar have barely set on the 16-story Georgian-Revival architectural beauty at Fourth Street and Broadway in downtown Louisville. The chandeliers sparkle in all their glory as they oversee party after party to celebrate the hotel’s grand opening.
During one of several grand-opening dinners and galas, toastmaster Judge Robert Worth Bingham pays homage to the hotel’s creator, J. Graham Brown.
“Success is never an accident but comes from courage, character, judgment and hard work,” Bingham toasts.
Maybe a bit of a temper could be added into the mix. Legend has it that, after Brown was refused entry to the nearby Seelbach Hotel due to a disheveled appearance, he immediately decided to build his own hotel. Just 10 months and $4 million later, Louisville welcomed another luxury hotel, one built in record time.
The hotel boasted 600 rooms when it opened, each having its own bathroom—a rarity at the time.
In The Brown Hotel and Louisville’s Magic Corner, author Kay Gill gushed over the hotel’s luxury and opulence.
“Everything that architectural science could furnish has been employed in building the hotel…Every modern appliance known to both America and the Old World in the way of service and comfort to mankind has been installed.”
Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was the first to sign the hotel’s guest book. Over the next 100 years, hundreds of celebrities, politicians, royals and people of note would fill the pages. Famous singer Lily Pons, who allowed her pet lion cub to roam freely in her suite, was among them, as were the Duke of Windsor and Queen Marie of Romania.
Throughout the decades, guests may have caught a glimpse, received an autograph or even had a conversation with Liberace, Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Bennett, Wayne Newton and, in later decades, Muhammad Ali, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Jerry Seinfeld, B.B. King, Dwight Yoakam, Taylor Swift and Prince, who played piano all night in the lobby.
The Brown has been used as a backdrop for countless photo shoots and movies. Cameron Crowe brought the entire cast and crew to The Brown in 2004 for the making of Elizabethtown starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon.
“People tend to like to book here because we have a longstanding reputation of being discreet and not appearing overwhelmed by those situations, and they know that we have a lot of experience dealing with celebrities,” said Marc Salmon, the hotel historian and human resources director.
The history of the hotel, including the origin of its signature dish, the Hot Brown (see sidebar the next page), is required learning for hotel staff.
“We spend a lot of time in our orientation and in every meeting that we have. You have to tell the history of the hotel; you have to tell the history of the Hot Brown. You have to tell what’s special about the Kentucky Derby,” said Salmon, a 21-year staff member. “So, we spend a lot of time drilling and training on our history. It’s my job to impart that to the staff.”
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As with any history as storied as The Brown’s, there have been some dark times through the decades. It opened during Prohibition, and it survived the stock market crash of 1929.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression took a toll on the hotel’s books. J. Graham Brown defaulted on the hotel’s loan. He managed to refinance to keep its doors open but not without asking his employees to work without pay for a time. (He paid them a bonus when the money finally came in.) The Great Flood of 1937 flowed through the first floors of the hotel. (A bell captain caught a fish off the grand staircase, and boats were said to row by in the lobby.) But it was also a place of refuge for those flooded out of their homes. Salmon said Mr. Brown let them stay for free.
When World War II hit, The Brown Hotel played host to many soldiers going to and from Fort Knox. It often was at full capacity with many soldiers and citizens enjoying the hotel’s menu at The English Grill and entertainment in the Crystal Ballroom and the Bluegrass Room.
Then, there was the suburban exodus of the 1950s and ’60s. Downtown Louisville was no longer the place to see and be seen. Add to that the death in 1969 of J. Graham Brown, who had never married and never taken a business partner or even a vacation. The hotel’s slow decline ended with its closing in 1971.
For the next decade, the building was the home of Jefferson County’s Board of Education and The Brown School.
By the early 1980s, the grand hotel sat empty. A group of local businessmen formed The Broadway-Brown Partnership and purchased the property to bring it back to its former glory. By the end of 1983, The Brown Hotel once again offered its legendary hospitality and Hot Browns to guests and travelers. Newly renovated rooms were expanded and modernized. As a result, the number of rooms dropped from 600 to 294.
In 1993, Ian Lloyd-Jones, owner of The Camberley Collection, purchased the hotel, now on the National Register of Historic Places. An avid art and antique collector, Lloyd-Jones adorned the halls and walls of the hotel with oil paintings and grand décor, including two large vases still standing in the lobby.
Ownership transferred again in 2006 to its current owners, Galveston, Texas-based 1859 Historic Hotels Ltd.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. The Brown Hotel remained open with limited rooms available—primarily to accommodate pilots and crew from airlines based at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
“We took advantage of the pandemic to do a very noisy project, and we redid all of our showers,” Salmon said. “They all have modern showers with glass doors and incredible tile. When we reopened in 1983, all of our rooms had bathtubs, and nobody wanted bathtubs and shower curtains anymore. It’s a project we could have never done at regular occupancy because it was so incredibly noisy.”
Today, The Brown Hotel continues to welcome guests at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway. The English Grill serves diners in impeccable style. Celebrities still are spotted in the lobby, and the original chandeliers in the Crystal Ballroom retain their magical sparkle.