Among the many forgotten, fallen Detroit hotels was the Palmetto, a building as large as it was grand. It also helped offer well-heeled African Americans a glitzy place to live at a time that they were restricted from where they could call home.

The Palmetto stood on the southwest corner of Hancock and John R streets. The building permit for the 10-story hotel was issued Aug. 8, 1923. It opened with 324 rooms in May 1924.

It was built for, and operated by, Charles H. Clements, the former longtime president of the Detroit Convention & Tourists Bureau and a past president of the Michigan Hotel Association. Clements, who began his career as a bellhop at the Biddle House, had previously managed the Metropole Hotel downtown for some 20 years until retiring in 1918. The opportunity to build and run his own hotel, however, brought him out of retirement after he lined up enough investors. George J. Hilsendegen of Grosse Pointe, son of real estate developer Valentine Hilsendegen.

The Palmetto was what was known as a residential hotel, offering rooms to both permanent and transient guests. Many of the amenities common with a hotel - such as housekeeping - were made available to tenants who called the Palmetto home.

“Families may, if they choose, live entirely to themselves - always with the satisfaction of having at their convenience the facilities of the finest hotel,” said an advertisement that ran in the Oct. 30, 1924, edition of the Detroit Free Press.

Another ad from 1924 boasted that “there are no limitations to the fine manner in which refined families may live at the Palmetto,” a 1924 advertisement claimed. “It has the luxuries and comforts of the finest homes without their responsibilities or inconveniences.”

A Palmetto palace

The concrete-and-steel building was designed by architect J. Will Wilson. The general contractor on construction was the Otto Misch Co. The furniture and furnishings were handled by Mandel Bros. of Chicago. The General Mosaic Co. was responsible for the terrazzo and tile work. Atlas Iron & Steel Co. performed the ornamental ironwork. The building’s cut stone was supplied by the Central Cut Stone Co.

The hotel cost $1.5 million to build - about $29.7 million in 2026, when adjusted for inflation - and another $200,000 was spent on furnishings (about $4 million in 2026). This was not a small hotel, with 166 suites comprising 324 rooms. Though its square footage has been lost to time, it stretched 167 feet along John R and 133 feet on Hancock.

“The owners are taking precautions to insure (sic) an abundance of light and air for all apartments by giving every apartment an outside exposure with unusually large rooms,” the Detroit Free Press wrote June 10, 1923.

Ads from around the opening touted the Palmetto as a “palace of comfort” and “a residential hotel that is without peer in Detroit, convenient to the heart of the city with every comfort conceivable.”

For residents, its amenities included a ballroom; an open-air roof garden; two passenger elevators (plus a third for freight); valet service; and a 100-car parking garage located a block away. As was common at the time, the building was advertised as being fireproof.

What was billed in newspaper articles as an “English basement,” the Palmetto had a large dining room of Italian and French design, as well as three private dining rooms for hosting banquets, parties and the like.

The apartments featured circulating cold water that served as a primitive form of air-conditioning, telephones, laundry and maid service. The apartments came outfitted with china, silver and glassware. They came in one-, two-, three- and four-room suites, with rents at the time of opening ranging from $75 to $345 a month - the equivalent of $1,486 to $6,837 in 2026 valuation, when adjusted for inflation.

But even those Detroiters who could afford those rents weren’t guaranteed a spot under its roof, at least at first. Ads for the Palmetto in its early years made it clear that “a distinction is carefully observed in the selection of resident guests,” and references were required.

It also had a restaurant, coffee shop, drugstore, a manicure and hair salon, and a cigar and newsstand. The restaurant offered 65-cent lunches (a bit less than $13 in 2026) and $1.25 dinners, though they were $1.50 on Sundays ($25 and $30 in 2026, respectively). The dining room was of Italian and French design. When the building opened, the Egyptian Room Coffee Shoppe looked to cash in on the Egyptian craze launched by the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922.

The lobby was 70 by 30 feet and heralded as the grand centerpiece of the building. Done in the Adams style, it was outfitted with marble, faience tile and terrazzo with Caen limestone side walls. The ornate plasterwork was the work of Theodore J. Beyne, and the painting was performed by Oswald Leitert.

“The Palmetto lobby, with its rare beauty and distinction, impresses the visitor with a foretaste of luxuries and comforts at the command of the Palmetto resident guest,” an ad that ran in the Oct. 30, 1924, edition of the Detroit Free Press.

“Nowhere in modern building construction has real art been made more truly exemplified than in the building and furnishing of the new Palmetto Hotel, a structure that has been modestly termed a ‘notable achievement in hotel building,’” the Detroit Free Press reported in its May 11, 1924, edition.

And the Palmetto had plenty of competition.

‘A city of hotels’

By the end of 1924, Detroit had seen an unprecedented number of hotels and residential hotels open their doors over the preceding 18 months - averaging more than one a month in that stretch. Combined, the 20 hotels represented an addition of 5,900 rooms and an investment of $25 million - a little less than half a billion in 2026 money. Among them were the Book-Cadillac, Webster Hall, Eddystone, Park Avenue, Royal Palms, Paul Revere, Carlton Plaza, Addison annex and Imperial hotels.

“This activity is claimed to be the largest of any city the size of Detroit in the United States,” the Detroit Free Press reported Nov. 9, 1924. “It has placed the city among the foremost in being able to handle any great influx of visitors.”

As a result of all this hotel action, “Detroit has become virtually a ‘city of hotels,’ and her ability to accommodate large numbers is rapidly becoming known throughout the United States. As a result, it is expected the 1925 tourist season will be one of the largest in the history of the city.”

But it also meant that Detroiters had plenty of choices when it came to places to live. This was evident when the Palmetto slashed its prices fairly early on. Those four-room suites that were going for $345 in 1924 fell to $250 in 1926. Though that doesn’t sound like much in more modern times, when using inflation-adjusted numbers for 2026, that’s a drop from $6,800 a month to $4,700 in two years.

Rough times

In November 1924 - six months after the Palmetto opened - Reginald J. Meeghan, a 35-year-old clerk at the hotel, was charged with embezzling $1,423 from work, about $28,000 in 2026. He said he was driven to steal after a major losing streak at the horse-racing track.

He was caught in Lexington, Ky., "with one cent in his pocket and less than that quantity of hope," The Detroit News wrote Nov. 26, 1924. "He pawned his overcoat to pay his hotel bill."

Meeghan told police that he began betting his wages on Detroit horse books, "having heard the guests on the other side of his clerk's desk talking about winning," The News reported. "He lost his own money, he continued, faster than he could earn it. So, he began betting the hotel's money, little by little. Finally, being deeply indebted to Mademoiselle Chance, he took a pocketful of cash and went South with it, as far as Lexington." There, he let everything he had ride on a horse that came in last place.

He pleaded not guilty to embezzling. His defense based that plea on the explanation that the money was not embezzled from the hotel but given to Meeghan by hotel guests for him to place bets on horse races for them. Despite writing extensively about the case in the days leading up to the trial, searches of newspaper archives failed to turn up coverage of a verdict.

On Sept. 5, 1925, Palmetto resident and real estate broker Harry L. Applebaum, 35, was found dead on the city’s far west side with a bullet wound to the head and another to his chest. Police believed he was shot by someone in the car with him, and thought it was tied to the nonfatal shootings of two other men at a blind pig at 2959 Park Ave. Five men burst into the Green Front Cafe through a side door and started shooting. Two men were hurt, but a third man and two women dodged injury. Applebaum was believed to have been that third man and was said to have been seen running to his car after the shots rang out.

He was said to be deeply in debt, which was said to be a possible motive for murder. Other theories were that it was simply a robbery gone wrong. Finally, coroner Albert L. French ruled the death a suicide, citing powder burns on Applebaum’s clothing and skin. Being hunted by others, did Applebaum opt to go out on his own terms? The case, it does not appear from newspaper archives, was ever proved to be a murder.

Then there were the financial issues.

The Palmetto was owned in the 1930s by S.W. Straus & Co., which owned some 25 hotels and apartment buildings in Jackson, Mich., and Detroit, including Webster Hall and the Belcrest, Whittier and Imperial hotels, and the Goldine Apartments in Highland Park, Mich. Combined, its holdings totaled more than $20 million - about $492 million in 2026 value.

On May 5, 1935, requests for reorganization were filed under federal bankruptcy laws. Clements, who apparently was asked to continue operating the hotel after it entered receivership, retired in 1936. Homer Warren & Co. was appointed by trustees of all Straus properties and was to operate them.

The Berry factor

The Palmetto would soon fall into the hands of Louis Berry, a prominent Detroit real estate man, who would have his hands in its building for years - however, when exactly he took over and how he came to hang onto it is complicated, and how and when he came to own it is conflicting.

Louis Berry came to Detroit from Liverpool, England, in 1923 at age 20. His father had died when he was 16, and it fell to him to start anew for his family. He chose Detroit because, he told the Detroit Free Press for a May 14, 1973, profile, he wanted “to get some of that gold that was supposed to lie on the pavement” in the Motor City. He got a job as a toy salesman at People’s Outfitting Co. and, before long, he was involved in real estate.

“I remember when they started to build the Palmetto Apartments and how impressed I was with the big new building,” he told the paper. “Then, one day, in 1939, I heard it was for sale, and I had to buy it. People said I was foolish because the housing market was so depressed, but right at that moment, Hitler invaded Poland, and pretty soon everything changed, and it became a very good investment and people were saying how smart I was.”

On Nov. 15, 1955, The Detroit News interviewed Berry, and he told the same story about the Palmetto: “I had to have it,” he said. “I remember watching them build it when I was younger and thinking, ‘My! A man must be a real success to build something like that.

“They wanted $10,000 for possession. I didn’t have it. I gave them a $500 deposit and started borrowing. People found out about it and came up to me and said, ‘Lou, you’re a nice young fellow just getting started, and we hate to see you involved in this. The place isn’t even paying taxes and the boilers are shot. Be smart. Forfeit your deposit.’

“It was Sept. 7, 1939, and I was going to give up, writing it off to the enthusiasm of youth and ignorance, but I heard on the radio that a madman, Mr. Hitler, had done into Poland, and I decided to give it another whirl, figuring on war production making places to live hard to get. In the next three years, the place earned $250,000, and everyone is telling me I’m a smart guy.”

It’s a great story, but that timeline doesn’t line up with what was reported in the newspapers at the time.

On April 3, 1939, almost four years after bankruptcy reorganization proceedings began, it was reported that the Palmetto was sold to a New York syndicate for $259,000 (about $6.3 million in 2026). That meant creditors accepted about 20 cents on the dollar.

On June 7, 1940, newspapers reported that Berry, the president of Palco Inc., announced that his company had leased, not purchased, the Palmetto through an agreement with bondholders. In 1943, it was finally reported that Palco owned the building.

But here’s the thing: Hitler had invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 - and the building was still owned by Straus’ creditors at that time and didn’t have any association with the building until the following summer. Nevertheless, Berry trotted out the story about the Palmetto and how wise he was to take it on ahead of Hitler’s invasion.

The Palmetto went back under federal trusteeship around 1944, and was operated by the trustees until it was sold a year later, on March 19, 1945, for $305,000 ($5.8 million in 2026). The buyers were Louis Schulman, a former Detroit builder living in Los Angeles, and George Seyburn and Betty Berry, Louis Berry’s wife. So, even though Palco had lost the building, it remained under Berry control.

Berry would go on to buy more apartments and office buildings in Detroit, including the Wolverine Hotel and the David Stott and Fisher buildings along with his business partner George Seyburn. They also owned hotels from North Carolina to New York to Florida.

But it was with the Palmetto that the Berrys and their fellow owners would take a step toward improving equality in Detroit.

A symbol of Black mobility

Just days after Berry acquired the Palmetto, the Michigan Chronicle reported on March 24, 1945, that “it has been rumored that Negro families will occupy the hostelry, which at one time was one of Detroit’s most exclusive apartment hotels.”

Among those living at the Palmetto in the early 1950s was Joe Battle, owner of the legendary Detroit record store Joe’s Record Shop at 3530 Hastings St. in the city’s Black Bottom. He is considered to be one of the first, if not the first, Black independent record producer in the United States. Besides recording and producing records for the Rev. C.L. Franklin - famous pastor and father of singers Aretha, Carolyn and Erma - his label - JVB Records - produced blues and early rhythm and blues records. You can read more about Battle on his daughter Marsha Battle Philpott’s website, here.

For reasons that aren’t clear, the announcement took seven years to be made, but on Feb. 15, 1952, an ad ran in the Detroit Free Press trumpeting the reopening of the “new Palmetto,” offering unfurnished apartments to “selective high-class colored clientele.”

On June 7, 1952, the Detroit Tribune reported that within a few days, a big press preview would be held. By mid-June, fewer than 20 apartments remained unspoken for. Popular civic leader Willie Mae Johnson served as the Palmetto’s manager.

This was a huge deal, as for decades, African-American Detroiters were relegated to living in lesser-quality apartments in less-desirable neighborhoods, restricted by racial housing covenants that barred people of color from living in certain areas. This policy became widespread in Detroit in the 1920, and affected most of the city.

"During the boom periods of the Roaring Twenties, and the Arsenal of Democracy era of the 1940s, African Americans were coming to Detroit in high numbers, mainly to find higher-paying jobs in the factories and to escape Southern Jim Crow," said Jamon Jordan, official historian of the City of Detroit. "Many found those great factory jobs in Detroit, but they also ran into Detroit's own Jim Crow - school segregation, job discrimination, police brutality, housing discrimination and segregation in public places like hospitals, restaurants, bars, department stores, nightclubs and hotels.

"As African Americans combated these issues with lawsuits, boycotts, political pressure and establishing their own businesses and institutions, more white-owned establishments took note and began opening their doors first to wealthy and prominent African Americans - lawyers, doctors, professors, ministers, businessmen and celebrities - and then to African Americans in general," Jordan continued. "At a time when racially restrictive covenants blocked African Americans from owning, renting and leasing property in many parts of Detroit, and businesses, including upscale hotels, barred Black people from becoming guests, the Palmetto Hotel joined the growing chorus of establishments that was moving away from racial apartheid and embracing African-American customers and guests."

Downfall

On Dec. 21, 1962, police busted a numbers ring at the Palmetto that, police said, previously had operated out of the nearby Gotham Hotel. Detroit police raided the Gotham a month earlier, on Nov. 9, and some of the 2,100 slips confiscated at the Palmetto used the same code as some seized at the Gotham.

The nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral sought to buy the building in the late 1970s to convert it into senior housing, but the City of Detroit wanted new construction around the corner at East Forest and John R. instead. This led to the construction of what is now called Cathedral Towers.

The Palmetto remained relatively well-occupied through the 1970s, especially by senior citizens thanks in part to its location across the street from what is now the Detroit Medical Center.

In the fall of 1984, the City of Detroit sought developers to acquire and renovate the then-114-unit Palmetto. At the time, units were going for $170 and up, the equivalent of $562 in 2026.

But a deadly pre-dawn fire on Nov. 18, 1984 led to the building being closed and its residents evicted. Around 5 a.m., a two-alarm fire started in the lobby and extensively damaged the building. It also killed 40-year-old Lawrence Johnson and hospitalized his wife, Renee, and their 2-month-old daughter, Wanda, with smoke inhalation. The blaze may have been started by a careless smoker, investigators said, and took firefighters some two-and-a-half hours to extinguish.

In 1989, the vacant Palmetto was being stripped.

“In broad daylight, two men with a ladder spent a couple of weeks chipping 16 stone lions from the third-story facade,” the Detroit Free Press wrote June 29, 1991. “They told curious neighbors the man who owned the building wanted the lions. Neighbors called police, who they said didn’t come.”

But at the time, Medical Center Associates and First Holding Corp., not “a man,” owned the building. The theft left extensive damage to the building.

The City soon after took the pillaged Palmetto for back taxes. It would sit empty until being demolished in the early to mid-1990s. The site of the Palmetto has been a parking lot ever since.