Marriott Motor Hotel At 2100 South Braeswood Blvd.

[liammclaren]

I remember staying here with my family as a kid when we would come to Houston to go to Astroworld and the Dome. It was located at 2100 South Braeswood at Greebriar, and I don't recall seeing it in quite a while. Anyone know what happened to it?

[bcnet]

Not sure of the history of it, but look like it saw the wrecking ball from this aerial. Click "bird's eye view' from this link.

Old Marriott site

Edited January 19, 2008 by bcnet

[JLWM8609]

It was closed and torn down in the mid/late 90s.

[FilioScotia]

It was closed and torn down in the mid/late 90s.

It's sad, very sad, sometimes, to see a spot of bare ground where a nice hotel once stood.

My memories of the old Astrodome Marriott include meeting a lot of pro baseball players in town to play the Astros. Back in the 60s and 70s, visiting teams stayed at that Marriott, and I frequently encountered them there on Saturday mornings when I went to get a haircut at the hotel barbershop.

That's where I once spent a very enjoyable hour there visiting with Yogi Berra, who was manager of the NY Mets at the time. He came in for a shoe-shine, but he wasn't in a hurry so he hung around to shoot the bull with all of us in the shop. He told some great stories about those great Yankee players and teams of the 50s, and he allowed as to how catching Don Larsen's perfect game in the '56 World Series was the greatest day of his life.

Yogi is one of the nicest, most unpretentious and down to Earth celebrities I've ever met. And I can tell you he's not the amiable dummy a lot of people think he is.

I had a similar experience with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, when I interviewed them in their suite at the Astrodome Marriott one day in the late sixties. They were in town to be the headline guests at the Livestock Show and Rodeo, and the words "nice", unpretentious", and "down to Earth" could have been invented to describe them.

I had them to myself for an hour. No PR people, no handlers, just Roy, Dale, and me, getting the most enjoyable and memorable interview of my entire life, and having the time of my life talking with one of the most famous and most loved show business couples in the country. I'll never forget how Dale kept bustling around in the kitchenette keeping our coffee cups full, while sharing stories of their lives and careers.

I have a lot of regrets, but losing the tape of that interview is one of my biggest, and as a radio reporter, I didn't think to bring a camera. As someone who grew up with their movies in the 40s and their TV show in the 50s, I wept genuine tears when they passed away.

The Astrodome Marriott Club is also where I took my wife-to-be on our first date, and spent the evening enjoying the music of Ray Rogers and the Bojangles, with their special guest, a talented young local singer named Lisa Hartman. Today I can look down at that bare spot of ground in that photograph, where that hotel once stood, and say I had some very very nice times there, once upon a time. So sad.

Edited January 19, 2008 by FilioScotia

[liammclaren]

It's sad, very sad, sometimes, to see a spot of bare ground where a nice hotel once stood.

My memories of the old Astrodome Marriott include meeting a lot of pro baseball players in town to play the Astros. Back in the 60s and 70s, visiting teams stayed at that Marriott, and I frequently encountered them there on Saturday mornings when I went to get a haircut at the hotel barbershop.

I once spent a very enjoyable hour there visiting with Yogi Berra, manager of the NY Mets at the time. He came in for a shoe-shine, but he had so much fun shooting the bull with me and the others in the shop he lost track of the time and was almost late for an interview at one of the TV stations. Yogi is one of the nicest, most unpretentious and down to Earth celebrities I've ever met. And he's not the amiable dummy a lot of people think he is.

I had a similar experience with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, when I interviewed them in their suite at the Astrodome Marriott one day in the late sixties. They were in town to be the headline guests at the Livestock Show and Rodeo, and the words "nice", unpretentious", and "down to Earth" also apply to them.

I had them to myself for an hour. No PR people, no handlers, just Roy, Dale, and me, getting the most enjoyable and memorable interview of my entire life, and having the time of my life talking with one of the most famous and most loved show business couples in the country. I'll never forget how Dale kept bustling around in the kitchenette keeping our coffee cups full, while sharing stories of their lives and careers.

I have a lot of regrets, but losing the tape of that interview is one of my biggest, and as a radio reporter, I didn't think to bring a camera. As someone who grew up with their movies in the 40s and their TV show in the 50s, I wept genuine tears when they passed away.

Today I can look down at that bare spot of ground in that photograph, where that hotel once stood, and say I had some very very nice times there, once upon a time. So sad.

Fascinating post. Posts like that are why I come to this site.

[ssullivan]

It was quite a nice hotel in its day. My family stayed there a lot when I was a kid and we were in Houston visiting relatives. The buildings were still there until sometime in 2000 or very early 2001, when it was all torn down. It became a Ramada (I think) in the early/mid-1990s, and in the end, had some generic name like the "Braeswood Hotel."

[Disastro]

I used to go to some record conventions there during the early 90's...

I know what you mean about feeling sad over bare plots of land like that. That's exactly the way I feel when I pass the place where Astroworld used to be. Seeing the crossbridge that goes over 610 S to where it was (the only "piece of Astroworld" still left) still standing really adds to the melancholy....

[FilioScotia]

I know what you mean about feeling sad over bare plots of land like that. That's exactly the way I feel when I pass the place where Astroworld used to be. Seeing the crossbridge that goes over 610 S to where it was (the only "piece of Astroworld" still left) still standing really adds to the melancholy....

I talked with Dene Hofheinz Anton a few weeks ago, and she said she cries every time she drives past the site where Astroworld used to be. Recall she helped her father Roy Hofheinz build Astroworld in the late sixties, and was the park's Marketing-PR director for some years after it opened. She personally created and designed most of Astroworld's array of shops and attractions.

Dene is the one who wanted a huge glass globe outside the front gate but she couldn't find a glass company that could make one that wouldn't cost a fortune. Then she remembered the old Weather Eye that stood atop the old Conoco Building in downtown Houston, at Main and Polk, next door to First Methodist Church.

It had been taken down in the early sixties because of complaints that the blinking light was a hazard for airliners coming in to Houston International (now Hobby) Airport, but it was just the right size and precisely what she had in mind.

She tracked it down to a local warehouse, painted the outline of a world map on it, and moved it to the front gate of Astroworld, where it sat greeting park-goers for many years. Now you know.

Edited January 20, 2008 by FilioScotia

[mkultra25]

Dene is the one who wanted a huge glass globe outside the front gate but she couldn't find a glass company that could make one that wouldn't cost a fortune. Then she remembered the old Weather Eye that stood atop the old Conoco Building in downtown Houston, at Main and Polk, next door to First Methodist Church.

It had been taken down in the early sixties because of complaints that the blinking light was a hazard for airliners coming in to Houston International (now Hobby) Airport, but it was just the right size and precisely what she had in mind.

She tracked it down to a local warehouse, painted the outline of a world map on it, and moved it to the front gate of Astroworld, where it sat greeting park-goers for many years. Now you know.

There's a discussion of the globe originally being the Weather Eye in this thread at SixFlagsHouston.com - someone says that was not the case, and claims that the "weather ball" (sic) wasn't decommissioned until the early 80s. That doesn't sound right to me, but at any rate I'd think Dene Hofheinz would certainly be in a better position to know the globe's origins than just about anyone else.

[plumber2]

The old Marriott site is now owned by Methodist Hospital. It had been planned as a site for their ourpatient facility, however, after the internal divorce with BCofM a few years ago, the board decided it would be easier to attract new physicians, and patients to a facility closer to it's Main campus.

[Vertigo58]

Fascinating post. Posts like that are why I come to this site.

Me too!

[Willsatx]

Funny about this place is that one summer in the early 80's we stayed there, and i totally forgot about it.

[Willy the Texan]

I used to work at the Marriott Astrodome Hotel on Braeswood in the late 1980's. A few random memories:

I seem remember the employee cafeteria was run by a nice woman by the name of Irene, I believe. The cafeteria was named after her for her many years of service and called "Irene's Cantina". She made the best spicy dirty rice and all the lunches were free! I remember Ford Motor Company showing off their new Ford Capri convertible in the ballroom. I also remember how the hotel booked a group for a local dog show. For better or worse, we were a pet friendly motel by then. The Accounting office was located right next to the kitchen dishwashing equipment and HR by the back dock.

There was a really nice old style pub in what appeared to be an old house around the corner, but it appears to be gone on google maps. I sure wish I could remember the name of that place.

Was sad to recently research the hotel, only to find it had been demolished many years ago. I checked the satellite image and see that the ground is still undeveloped and a few palm trees are left as a reminder.I did some research and found a Houston Chronicle article from March 30,1994 which said, "An Astrodomain hotel group has bought two more hotels in the area, giving the organization six near the Astrodome.A joint venture of Patriot American of Dallas and Gencom Interests of Houston purchased the 285-room Residence Inn by Marriott-Houston Astrodome, 7710 S. Main, and the 330-room Ramada Hotel Astrodome/Medical Center, 2100 S. Braeswood.The Ramada, which operated as the Marriott Astrodome until a few weeks ago, was purchased from Host Marriott"

Thanks so much for reading my post!

[sevfiv]

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