Demolished Reno Hotel Mourned in Preservation Trust’s Memorial Ode

You can still spend the night at the Grand Hotel on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco or the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

If you’ve got the money, you can stay at any of the 168 historic hotels listed in the new annual directory issued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, except one:

“In Memoriam, Mapes Hotel, Reno, Nevada, Built 1947--Demolished 2000.”

Nearly a year after it was blown up on Super Bowl Sunday and its bricks were sold as $1 souvenirs, the former hotel-casino is being honored with a special tribute on the back page of the 2001 Historic Hotels of America guide.

It’s part of an effort by preservationists to make the most of their worst defeat in more than a decade, to declare that “never again” shall a historic treasure like the Mapes be lost to the wrecking ball.

“If it could happen to the Mapes, it could happen to other places,” said Richard Moe, president of the nonprofit trust based in Washington.

“It has been a sobering experience for a lot of preservationists because we have been so successful at staving off these kinds of threats,” he said. “But maybe we needed that.”

The tribute is the first of its kind in the directory. It notes that in the 11-year history of the trust’s annual listing of America’s Most Endangered Historic Places, the Mapes “is the first to be destroyed.”

Not everybody is pleased that preservationists are making an example of the Mapes.

“Let’s put it this way,” Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin said, “If we had another historic building to protect, I would not think of the national trust as the place to go.”

Griffin was among the city officials the trust painted as villains in the unsuccessful battle to “Save the Mapes.” The mayor said the organization should spend more time trying to protect buildings and less time pointing fingers.

“They have not been helpful at all. All they’ve done is be a constant reminder of what we did wrong, to continue to harp on what they considered to be a misstep,” the mayor said. “I don’t want to sound coldhearted, but it’s not going to bring the building back.”

The city still has no plan for the lot that remains empty where the Mapes stood along the Truckee River on South Virginia Street, a few blocks south of the Reno arch that welcomes visitors to “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

“It continues to be a big loss to our city,” said Toni Harsh, the president of the Truckee Meadows Heritage Trust who tried to save the Mapes and since has been elected to the Reno City Council.

“It’s just another empty lot at the center of our city. That orange plastic fencing around the lot isn’t doing anything for us,” she said.

Built in 1947, the 12-story luxury hotel “blazed a trail in the hospitality industry by being the first high-rise commercial structure to successfully combine full-service dining, gaming and lodging in one facility,” the tribute in the hotel guide says.

It became the place to see and be seen in the West. The window-walled Sky Room with its unsurpassed view of the Sierra Nevada once attracted musicians, politicians, high rollers and Hollywood’s elite--Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Bennett and Clark Gable.

But the Art Deco structure closed in 1982 and stood shuttered as various restoration plans came and went. City officials became concerned that a moderate earthquake would send it crumbling into the streets.

That nothing concrete is on the city drawing boards for the site is especially troubling to preservationists.

“We continue to hear from a lot of people who are just heartsick over this, and it’s compounded by the fact it’s still just a vacant lot,” Moe said from Washington. “Our studies show that if you tear down a historic building without a specific plan to replace it, it likely will remain a vacant lot or a parking lot for a decade.”

The new hotel guide explains that the list of America’s Most Endangered Historic Places highlights important symbols of American heritage facing many threats, from lack of maintenance and money to “insensitive public policy.”

A series of lawsuits and requests for restraining orders prompted a state review of open meetings laws related to the Reno City Council’s handling of the decision to demolish the Mapes.

But a Washoe County district judge cleared the council of any wrongdoing that would warrant delaying the implosion last January.

Griffin acknowledged there are still bad feelings between city officials and trust officers. Before the City Council voted to demolish the Mapes, he and other city officials hopped a plane to Washington to meet with Moe and others. They hoped to hatch a last-minute plan to raise enough money to save the hotel.

Moe and the others “implied they could help us” financially, Griffin said.

“But as I became aware of their financial status later, it was clear there was no way they could help. There was no white knight,” he said.

Moe disagrees. He said the trust joined in a national marketing effort to identify developers who had plans to renovate the Mapes.

“We brought a number of them to the table. At the end of the day, we thought we had three viable options to develop and reuse the Mapes,” he said.

“The City Council and the mayor just wanted to get rid of the issue. I understand they were tired of dealing with it, but they took the easy way out.”

Gary Kozel, a spokesman for the trust in Washington, said no building faces the sort of threats the Mapes was up against. He said the group had been worried about the fate of Abraham Lincoln’s summer home in Washington, D.C., known as Anderson Cottage, but former President Clinton recently ordered new protection.

More than 60 buildings also were at risk in Pittsburgh’s Fifth and Forbes historic retail area, “but the mayor there backed off and is working with local preservationists,” Kozel said.

Harsh said she’s pleased that the tribute to the Mapes is planned to appear in every future edition of the directory.

“At least that will be there forever,” she said.

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National Trust for Historic Preservation: https://www.nthp.org

Historic Hotels of America: https://historichotels.nationaltrust.org

City of Reno: https://www.cityofreno.com