By Brenna Eller
HUTCHINSON, KAN. — The Landmark Hotel, located on the corner of 5th and Main Street has recently been purchased by Michael and Laura Meyer Dick of Hutchinson. The two closed on the purchase of the Landmark building in March of this year and plan to restore it and make it into moderate-income apartments.
“There will be one-bedroom apartments, two-bedrooms, and studios available,” Laura Dick said. “On the first floor we plan to have retail or commercial stores.”
Last year, a couple from Kansas City, Mark and Phoebe Davenport almost bought the Landmark, but they backed out when Laura and Mike Dick became serious about buying. The historic building had caught their eyes, after they had just bought the Hoke Building located at 25 East First Avenue in Hutchinson. The Davenports are still currently making progress on renovating the Hoke building and are sharing updates on Facebook as they go.
“It piqued my interest last summer,” Laura said about the Landmark.
She and her husband knew that going into this, they would need to request funding to help with the renovations, so they applied for a historic tax credit and KHRC Housing grant.
Laura and Mike are hoping to start renovations soon, but they are still waiting to find out about the grant.
“We’re hoping to receive word by the end of the month,” Laura said.
Not only was she interested because she wanted to help preserve the building, but Laura also got the idea to purchase the Landmark because she is a part of a group that is dedicated to improving and driving business to downtown Hutchinson.
“Hopefully this can do a lot to help the downtown area,” she said.
Wray & Sons Roofing are currently fixing the roof on the building, which Laura hopes will help with the majority of the leaks.
“We wanted to stabilize it [the building] from further decay,” Laura said, “Water was causing structural decay to some of the floor.”
If they don’t get the grant, she said she and her husband will regroup and come up with something else. Either way, they are determined to see their new venture through.
Laura has also been asked about the plants growing from one of the sides in the window on the first floor. She said that it will have to stay as it is for now since she doesn’t have a key for that side yet.
“We’re excited to get things started,” Laura said.
History of the Landmark Hotel (research done by John Green of the Hutchinson News Jan. 4, 2022)
The hotel, originally named the Stamey Hotel, was constructed back in 1923 in Renaissance Revival style architecture according to the Hutchinson News. It had 125 rooms, including 65 with either a bathtub or shower tub.
On Aug. 23, 1923, The Hutchinson News celebrated the hotel’s opening day with advertisements and detailed feature articles of rooms throughout the building.
The hotel was opened in time for guests arriving in town for the 1923 state fair.
Paul Hogan, a former worker at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, was maitre d’hotel. The kitchen could serve 1500 to 1800 at each meal, with two shifts of five cooks. Ceilings were described as wooden-beamed and carpets were thick and had mulberry or ash-rose hues.
The guest rooms had a circulating ice water system, which were the first in Kansas, and all were provided goose-down pillows.
Many local firms participated in the hotel construction, including Pegues-Wright doing draperies and window shades, Rorabaugh-Wiley laying 3,000 yards of carpeting, and Winchester supplying choice meats to the coffee shop.
C.W. Stamey, Charles Mackey and William Earl Hulse were partners in building the hotel. Stamey was a major regional road builder. Hulse, who designed the building, also designed the Reno County Courthouse and seven other courthouses in the state, as well as the Reno County Post Office.
Widows Bessie Cohn and Mollie Goldstein, who lived on the top floor, assumed ownership of the property at some point, and their nephew, John B. Quigley, managed.
In April 1939, W. “Bill” Ryan Cross of Beloit and Larry Beck purchased the hotel operation, but not the property itself, and did an extensive remodel. Eventually, they became owners of the property as well.
Other owners included Cleve Stamey and the Gano family of grain elevator family, according to the “Historic Resources Survey of Downtown” published in 1990.
Guests during the hotel’s glory days reportedly included Howard Hughes in 1930, Rin Tin Tin III in 1949, and movie producer Saul Wurtzel who made it his headquarters while filming “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie” in 1951.
In December 1957, Hutchinson developer Menzo Hainline traded about 45 building lots he owned in the Prairie Village Addition north of 30th and Plum and a factory building at 209 N. Monroe for the hotel property and its furnishings. Hainline planned to convert most of the building into apartments but leave part as a hotel. He told The Hutchinson News he was renaming it the Landmark Hotel because “there’s usually a landmark in every town, and this building is just that.”
Within a few years, the entire building became apartments. Hutchinson realtor Terry Messing purchased the building in 1978.
The property has had several remodels over the years, such as repairs after a 1974 fire in a third-floor storage room, a $25,000 project when Messing first purchased it, and a $1.04 million project in 1990 split between the Landmark and Leon apartments funded in part by a Community Development Block Grant, according to news accounts.
In 2012, Manske and Associates of Wichita applied for tax credits to help fund a $4.5 million proposal to convert the building into 28 apartments for low-income elderly people, but it didn’t make the cut. A second tax credit application in 2014 also failed.
By 2007, the building was being used for low rent housing, in unhealthy and decrepit condition, with its then-owner quoted as saying he would not wish to spend a night there.
At least 20 percent of the apartments were uninhabitable because of the leaking from the roof, resulting in mold on the ceiling and walls. Insurance wouldn’t cover the damage, according to Hutchinson News. The owner told the paper in 2014 that he couldn’t afford to make the repairs because of the low rents.
Dennis and Danielle Sanders of Wichita purchased the building in 2014 and evicted the few remaining tenants with plans to remodel the building, and it has remained vacant since.
Another water leak on Jan. 16, 2015, this time from plumbing, caused significant damage throughout the building. A Hutchinson Fire Department release at the time noted arriving crews found water coming out of windows on the second, third and fourth floors of the building.
The Sanders created a Facebook page about their plans to renovate the building and still intended to convert it into loft apartments in 2016, and wanted to rename the building Stamey Lofts. In early 2017, they made a post on their Facebook page indicating asbestos inspection and removal was done by a state contractor, and in January 2018 they were working with the city on parking and coordinating with street reconstruction, with plans to be “done by summer/fall of 2019.”
No posts were made after that according to Hutch News, so that brings us to the present.
