Lost Tables: Mayfair-Lennox

Mayfair-Lennox

Charles Heiss was born on January 19, 1883 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany.

Heiss started in the hotel business as a 15-year-old busboy at the Victoria Hotel in Heidelberg. He worked at hotels in Belgium, France, England and Canada before immigrating to the United States in 1912 to work as assistant manager of the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City.

Heiss was hired by the Statler Hotel chain to manage its hotel in Detroit. In 1915, he was transferred to St. Louis to manage the Hotel Statler on Washington Avenue.

A story is told that Heiss had an argument with Mr. Statler and declared, "Someday I'm going to build two hotels close to yours and they'll be better than yours."

Heiss kept his word. The Hotel Mayfair opened at St. Charles and Eighth Street, a block behind the Statler, in 1925, and the Hotel Lennox opened across Washington Avenue from the Statler in 1929.


Hotel Mayfair, 1925	Hotel Lennox, 1929

The Hotel Mayfair formally opened to the public on April 29, 1925. The name Mayfair was taken from an affluent area in the West End of London. The eighteen-story hotel had 400 guest rooms, each with a private bath. Charles Heiss was president and manager.

Heiss opened the 25-story, 400-room Hotel Lennox on September 2, 1929. The Lennox operated as a commercial hotel, catering to salesmen, with no ballroom or large banquet hall.

Both the Mayfair and Lennox had large dining rooms off their lobbies. Both lobbies were small; Heiss sought to discourage lobby-sitting and promote profits on food and drink. He was quoted as saying, "If the guests at the Mayfair and Lennox want to lobby-sit, they can go across the street to the Statler." Both hotels had coffee shops in their basement, which by 1932 were called coffee grills.

Edward P. Voegeli, often referred to as Gaston, was the celebrated head chef at the Hotels Mayfair and Lennox. Voegeli, born in Switzerland, was apprenticed as a chef at the age of 16. After working at such famous European hostelries as the Claridge Hotel in London and as a chef in the British Navy, Voegeli came to the Windsor Hotel in Canada and then worked at restaurants throughout the eastern United States. He became head chef at the Mayfair when it opened in 1925, taking on the same title at the Lennox when it opened.

Chef Edward Voegeli with restaurateur George Rector, 1940

Voegeli was well known in St. Louis. Starting in 1929, he had a Saturday morning "Famous Recipes" show on KMOX radio. In an October 9, 1931 St. Louis Star interview, Voegeli opined on the change in America's dining habits.

Americans are no longer eating with that nervous haste which formerly characterized them. They are paying more attention to what constitutes their meal and how it is cooked. The sandwich craze is on the decline, and European nicety of appetite is becoming increasingly evident in this country. Much of this change is due to widespread discussion of vitamins and balanced rations, and much of it is due to the fact that increasing numbers of Americans are traveling abroad. On this side of the Atlantic, however, menus are still confusing to the majority of the people, because of the French origin of culinary names.

During the past few years decided changes have taken place in the eating habits of Americans. Whereas, for a time, eating was considered more in the light of a necessity of life, it is now regarded more as a pleasure. People in America today are choosing their food with more care. They are enjoying new dishes which, for a time, they did not take the time to concoct.

This change in America's dining habits is reflected in the menus at leading hotels. It is the purpose of the chef today, not only to prepare savory dishes, but to consider always the well-balanced meal.

St. Louis Globe Democrat, May 4, 1932
(click image to enlarge)

Edward Voegeli was instrumental in changing American dining habits by originating the "salad plate" for lunch. He believed salads were more than greens with French dressing to serve on the side with a full course dinner. His salad plates were featured on early Mayfair and Lennox menus.

Some of the most popular of the salad combinations that Voegeli has devised (and he is constantly creating new, unusual combinations, preferring the inspiration of the moment to the standardized formulas necessary to suit a satisfied public which orders from menu cards) are: Chicken, peach stuffed with cream cheese, asparagus tips, potato chips; fruit salad with assorted sandwiches, garnished, of course, with pickles, olives, etc.; lobster with vegetable garnishes such as asparagus tips, tomatoes and possibly string beans, spiced pear or peach and fruit aspic.
His fruit salads are especially famous and they include the Mayfair Salad, a combination of various fruits in aspic, made with fruit juices: Tropical Fruit Salad, containing pineapple, pear, peach, orange, grapefruit, cherries and avocados; Panama Salad, featuring pineapple, orange and grapes with cheese.
With such fruit salads, Voegeli serves potato chips, olives and toasted cheese sandwiches to make the usual well-balanced light luncheon that more people are asking for every year.
St. Louis Star-Times, May 6, 1937

Another of the Mayfair-Lennox's colorful characters was "Count" Henry Hoffmann.

Hoffmann came to St. Louis at age 13 from Carlyle, Illinois. He worked at various jobs until he became associated with James H. McTague's famous restaurant in the Century Building. He was head bartender at McTague's for twenty-one years, acquiring a substantial following of friends and the name the "Count."

No crystal gleamed more brightly than the glassware behind Hoffmann's bar; no white jacket was more immaculate than his; no smile more radiant for arriving guests. He could down incalculable quantities of soft drinks just to be sociable when someone wanted to buy for the crowd, but he never touched liquor himself.

With the advent of Prohibition in 1920, McTague's was forced to close. While Hoffmann could no longer use his bartending skills, he served as master-of-ceremonies at private parties.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the "Count" was hired by Charles Heiss.

Remember this genial smile?
Of course you do! Who could think of old McTague’s without remembering "Count" Henry Hoffmann. Half the pleasure of a foaming stein was in receiving it from him!
The "Count" is back in all his glory – eager to dispense the stein that cheers – to welcome old friends and meet new ones at Hotel Mayfair and Lennox. Stop in for lunch, dinner, after the theatre. The finest food and service awaits you whether you order beer and pretzels or a full course meal.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr 14, 1933

Hoffmann was hired to usher back a more formal manner of dining, lost during Prohibition, as he articulated in a December 14, 1933 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

The sandwich, I believe I read in Ripley's "Believe It or Not," was invented by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so taken up with gambling that he slapped a piece of roast beef between bread rather than sit down to dinner like a gentleman. During prohibition, it was natural for Americans to follow the Earl of Sandwich. Dinner degenerated into a hasty period of filling up. Men in the hotel business began to feel like gasoline filling station attendants, instead of restaurateurs.
But it is all coming back. Wine, liqueurs and civilized dining will be here soon. And it is up to some of us old fellows to tell the public how to serve wines with meals, how to enjoy themselves, how to live like civilized people.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec 14, 1933

Hoffman was initially hired as wine steward at the Hotel Mayfair. When The Hofbrau opened off the Mayfair lobby in 1933, the "Count" became its manager.


Hotel Mayfair, 1939	"Count" Henry Hoffmann, 1931

The Hofbrau was a place to get a "sandwich and a cold stein" or a bedtime snack. It was decorated with German murals, a reminder of the hotel's European influence. Vibrant stained glass windows showed lute players, imbibing gentlemen and bashful maidens. "Count" Henry Hoffmann presided over the Hofbrau's long bar – guide, philosopher and friend to its patrons.

"Count" Henry Hoffmann and his bartenders, 1934

The Hofbrau, 1934

Baseball was Henry Hoffmann's grand passion; he seldom missed a game. He was known to baseball men and sports writers in every major league city.

In the winter of 1936, Hoffmann developed a heart condition. His doctors advised him to avoid excitement.

On April 29, 1936, Hoffmann attended a game at Sportsman's Park between the Cardinals and the New York Giants. The game went into extra innings, with the winning run crossed the plate for the Cardinals in the bottom of the seventeenth. As the crowd cheered, "Count" Henry Hoffmann's head dropped to the shoulder of the man beside him. He was dead.


The Hofbrau Menu, circa 1950

Shortly after The Hofbrau opened in 1933, the Hotel Mayfair branded its main dining area, dubbing it the Mayfair Room.

The Mayfair Room was among the best restaurants in the country for many years and was the first five-star restaurant in Missouri. From 1956 through 1962 it won the Holiday Magazine award for Dining Distinction.

Dark woods, old prints and crystal candelabras gave the Mayfair Room a stately, comfortable appearance. It had sparking crystal and two white linen tablecloths on each table. Its enormous silver serving pieces were called "the family jewels" by the hotel manager.

Mayfair Room

Steak Diane was a Mayfair Room specialty. Named after the Goddess of the Hunt, the prime sirloin cut was described on the menu as seared and sautéed in butter, along with shallots and mushrooms, after which the entrée was flamed with brandy.

According to Marian O’Brien, St. Louis Globe-Democrat food editor of the time, "There sometimes is so much brandy aflame in the Mayfair Room that one can’t help but hope that it won’t get out of hand!"

Steak Diane prepared at the Mayfair Room
Better Homes and Gardens, 1963

The Prosperity Sandwich was also a fixture on the Mayfair Room menu. Described as "turkey on toast, creamed mushrooms, bacon, au gratin," it was created by Edward Voegeli.

Edward Voegeli did not create the Mayfair Room's famous salad dressing. There are reports that the creamy anchovy based dressing was developed about 1935 by chef Fred Bangerter. However, Bangerter was working at the Claridge Hotel at that time, and wasn't at the Mayfair until the late 1940s.

C. Gordon Heiss, the son of Charles Heiss, took over the Mayfair-Lennox organization after his father died in 1956. In a June 25, 1995 St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview, Heiss stated he had "developed Mayfair Dressing in the 1950s when Waring Blenders became household appliances." In the same article, Heiss divulged the recipe for the dressing, which had been a carefully guarded secret.


Mayfair Room Menu, 1957 (click image to enlarge)

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, hotels were scurrying to outfit venues where alcohol could be served. At the Hotel Mayfair, Charles Heiss converted an old KMOX radio studio on the second floor into a rathskeller for the anticipated return of beer. At the Hotel Lennox, he had much grander plans. The main dining room, two steps down from the lobby, was remodeled and reopened on April 10, 1934 as The Rathskeller.

Hotel Lennox, 1939

The Rathskeller was a downtown favorite for both lunch and dinner. The dark paneling and rich accoutrements made it warm and comfortable. Three murals depicted exploration of the Western world. They illustrated DeSoto at the Mississippi River, Balboa at the Pacific Ocean and Christopher Columbus discovering America.

A 30-foot bar was installed along the east wall and built-in seats lined the west wall. At its peak, six bartenders zigzagged behind the long bar mixing drinks for a packed house. Nightly entertainment changed every two weeks.

The Rathskeller Bar, 1937


The Rathskeller, 1940s	The Rathskeller Menu, 1944 (click image to enlarge)

The Rathskeller, 1952

Tom McMahon was a bartender at The Rathskeller in the late 1930s.

I used to work there, before and in the early days of the war, and I'll never forget it. It was, at the time, the best bar I've every seen, not only the best I ever worked in.
I can remember Mr. (Charles) Heiss, the owner, standing around the bar and watching us to make sure that everything was freshly done and that we poured the right amount of booze. It was one of the few places I ever worked where I'd get bawled out for not putting enough of the stuff in the glass.
But it was a glorious place.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 28, 1973


The Rathskeller Menu, 1960 (click image to enlarge)

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In 1959, C. Gordon Heiss and the Mayfair-Lennox Corporation opened Nantucket Cove, a fresh seafood restaurant, in the Frontenac apartment building on North Kingshighway. Heiss opened a second Nantucket Cove in Chicago in 1967.

I have tried to turn the company away from the accommodations and more in the direction of Nantucket Cove. Perhaps eventually we may get out of the hotel business entirely and concentrate on the one thing that we have that is unique – the fresh seafood restaurant.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 20, 1967

In 1969, the two downtown hotels Charles Heiss had built to compete with the Statlers were sold by his son to a real estate developer.

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Over the next two decades, the Hotels Mayfair and Lennox had multiple owners, multiple renovations and multiple identities. Their dining areas follow suit. St. Louis Post-Dispatch restaurant critic, Joe Pollack, did his best to keep track.

It was planned as a simple expedition, but before it even began, it produced all the eerie and surrealistic qualities of a Michelangelo Antonioni movie. Before it ended, it provided a touch of nostalgia, a mood of extreme sadness and, thankfully, a pretty good meal.
It was a Monday, and as a pre-theater activity, a party of four decided on dinner at the Rathskeller of the Lennox Hotel, long a downtown landmark and, for many years, a top dinner location. A reservation was made for 6:15 p.m., not the height of the dinner hour, but not an uncommon time to dine.
The Room was empty . . .
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 28, 1973
For many years, the Rathskeller at the Lennox Hotel gleamed like a downtown dining beacon, both for lunch and for dinner.
Then disaster struck, and the property, at Ninth Street and Washington Avenue, drifted downhill with the slow, steady pace of a boat on a sluggish stream, until it finally closed.
Now, with a renaissance in downtown, the Lennox is alive again, and the Mayfair will be following suit very soon. The Rathskeller is alive again, too, and though it has not yet regained its one-time excellence, it is recovering and is slowly gathering momentum.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec 7, 1977
In terms of spatial relationships, there is no theater-restaurant combination more convenient than that of the Mayfair Hotel Dining Room and the American Theatre, less than a block apart. For the last two years, the dining room and the bar above it have been part of the members-only Gaslight Club, but in the last few months, the dining room has been open to the public, and though there are a few weak spots, the meals have been generally admirable.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr 24, 1980
There's hardly a restaurant in St. Louis that comes close to providing an aura as glamorous as the Mayfair Room in the Mayfair Hotel.
Over the last decade, there have been ups, and there have been downs, with the latter holding a slight lead.
Now, under new ownership, there again seems to be a determined effort to bring the Mayfair Room back into the top class.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 25, 1982
When it comes to St. Louis restaurants, I don't know any that is more elegant than the Mayfair Room in the Mayfair Hotel.
Unfortunately, the dining experience at the rehabbed and reopened Mayfair also includes the meal. Two recent visits rarely climbed above a level of good, with several dishes in the unsatisfactory-to-poor range.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 6, 1991
When it comes to dining memories of decades past, the old Mayfair Hotel downtown has more than its share. It's now the Doubletree, but the new management has worked diligently to keep the mood of the Hofbrau alive in what it calls the Mayfair Bar and Grill, and it has come close to matching the ambiance of yore.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun 15, 1992

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A story is told that Charles Heiss had an argument with Mr. Statler and declared, "Someday I'm going to build two hotels close to yours and they'll be better than yours."

Heiss kept his word. The Hotel Mayfair opened at St. Charles and Eighth Street, a block behind the Statler, in 1925, and the Hotel Lennox opened across Washington Avenue from the Statler in 1929.

The Magnolia Hotel is now at St. Charles and Eighth Street, with Robie's restaurant off its lobby. A Courtyard by Marriott occupies the Lennox building, with dining at the Washington Avenue Bistro.


Charles Heiss	Hotel Mayfair, 1939