WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : GERMANS RUN AWAY TO RICH AND FAMOUS

Elton John stays there. Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner stayed there during the filming of “JFK.” President Clinton stayed there last March when his brother Roger was married. Margaret Thatcher stays there whenever she visits Dallas. And Larry Hagman has a room there named after him--the J.R. Suite--at $1,350 a night.

Add to that list the German national team, which took over an entire floor of the exclusive Mansion on Turtle Creek, one of the country’s nicest hotels, according to one of the travel magazines that rates such things.

Foreign reporters, leaving nothing to chance, wanted to know if the players were staying on the eighth or ninth floor, and whether they were staying one or two per room.

For security reasons, they were told, the floor number was not available. But they were staying one to a room at $188 per night. The usual cost per room is $355.