Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Stanley Bard's Amazing Revolving Rooms
Bard was also famous for another of his management tactics. He employed it when a tenant
had to leave, whether by choice, by Stanley Bard's decree, or to answer the Grim Reaper's
call. Bard was expert at instantly getting house painters and carpet guys in the room and
prepping it for the next person in line with a checkbook. But some rooms took more work
thanothers.Roomsthathadseenalotofpartiesmighttakealittlelonger,orroomsoccupied
by eccentrics who hoarded animals.
One of the most challenging tasks was to take a room where a dead body had lain for a
week or two. How did one make such a room as fresh as a daisy?
ROBERT CAMPBELL
This is what Stanley would do. If somebody was found dead and rotten in their
roomforaweek,hewouldcleantheroomoutandrentitthenextday.Ifsomebody
slit their throat and there was blood all over the walls, he would paint it and rent it
the next day. So one day, for some reason, he got mad at my friend Umberto. This
was during a really busy weekend, when Stanley was making a lot of money. But
the hotel was full and Stanley needed one more room to make even more money.
And here's Umberto, the Italian count with the wife Schizo, who had two rooms.
One room he owed thousands on, and on the other room he owed about the same.
Stanley decided that he wanted to rent out the second room. And remember, there
wasn't ever a room in the Chelsea Hotel that Stanley couldn't rehabilitate pronto.
Stanley told Umberto, “You're going to have to get out of that room right now
because I have to rent it out.”
Umberto said, “I think you better look at the room, Stanley. I don't think you
can rent this room out right away.”
“Bullshit!” Stanley said. “Any room can be turned over fast. Take me up there
now.”
They went up to the room, and Stanley walked in and looked at it. Umberto
hadpaintedonewallblue,anotheronegold,andanotherred.Thenthelastwallhe
painted this wimpy whitish green that didn't go at all with the other bold colors.
Then Umberto had taken a paint roller and painted the carpet turquoise blue, the
same color he had painted his shoes. Then he took this mirror that he had broken,
and shaped a Phoenix out of the broken pieces. It started down in the carpet. Into
the carpet he had cut holes the shapes of the broken pieces of mirror so they could
be inlaid into it. The phoenix stretched all the way up the wall to the ceiling.
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