Conrad Hilton Father August. Conrad Hilton: The Great Life of a Great Man

I'm proud to be an innkeeper, I'm proud

Three thousand years of history behind you.

Our craft originated before there was

The Bible is written. Long before the pharaohs, before

How Samson met Delilah in the Sektor tavern

Gaza, long before the Greeks and Romans already existed

Caravanserai. Two thousand years ago Horace called

Us deceitful shinkars, and today from Houston to

New York, from Paris to Tokyo our managers

They are known as the fathers of cities.

Conrad N. Hilton

To date, there are not many people who have never heard of a chain of upscale hotels Hilton. Many people know the fact that a certain Conrad Hilton stood at the origins of their creation. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​assigning "stars" to hotels, and it was he who first opened the practice of selling essential items in hotel lobbies.

Over 2.5 thousand hotels, clubs and recreation centers in 75 countries of five continents and about 2 thousand gambling establishments and bookmakers with more than 600 thousand clients in 160 countries of the world. The number of employees is over 70 thousand people. Financial turnover - about 9 billion pounds. All of the above refers to one transnational company, the name of which is known to almost everyone. This is a Hilton company.

Conrad Hilton born in San Antonio on December 25, 1887, his parents were immigrants from Europe. Arriving in America, the elder Hilton opened a general store that provided a livelihood for the entire fairly large family. However, in 1907, during the economic crisis, August Hilton almost went bankrupt. The family was saved by the idea of ​​renting rooms in their capacious house to temporary guests. To date, it is no longer possible to find an answer to the question of who first came up with this saving idea, but it was Konrad who had to search for guests. Thanks to this undertaking, the family quite successfully survived the period of the Great American Depression.

Trying to please his father, Conrad received a good education and after graduating from college he continued his studies at the military institute in New Mexico. Returning home after studying, Conrad began to help his father in the maintenance of the store. Some time later, Conrad's father became a deputy, and he took his son as his assistant. Despite the prestige of the work, she quickly got bored with the younger Hilton, and as soon as the First World War began, he volunteered for the army.

While Conrad served, his father died in a car accident, and the younger Hilton, after demobilization, had to start his post-war life on his own, practically from scratch.

Having survived bankruptcy at the age of 31, Conrad Hilton moved to the small town of Cisco, Texas. After its liquidation, Konrad still had $5,000 left, and he was going to open a new bank or, if possible, buy a suitable one. But very soon his plans changed. In search of lodging for the night, he went to the local hotel Mobley. The banker-loser was struck by the people crowding in the lobby, who literally fought for free rooms. Crowds of clientele are the real dream of any businessman, Hilton thought at that moment. But the owner of the hotel was not at all happy with such pandemonium, and it turned out that he was not averse to selling his 60-room Mobley. That was enough to make Hilton forget about banks forever.

And after a couple of days, he already became the owner of his first hotel, having bought it from the owner

Acquisition of the Mobley Hotel cost Hilton not so cheaply. In addition to his own $5,000, he had to borrow $15,000 from friends and also take out a bank loan for $20,000. Now everything depended on Conrad himself. Mobley's main clientele were workers from the nearby oil fields, who rented rooms only for eight hours of sleep. The rooms cost $1 and $2.5 per night. And although Hilton himself called Mobley-type hotels nothing more than rooming houses, they were somewhat reminiscent of his first hotel experience in organizing a family boarding house during the depression of 1907. The first thing Conrad did in his hotel was to increase the number of beds in order to eliminate the seething crowd waiting for the night. Then he came up with the idea to entertain the visitors with something, while, preferably, for his own benefit. To do this, he placed several showcases around the columns in the lobby, in which every little thing was sold - from newspapers and magazines to clothes brushes and toothpaste. Hilton later said that each column brought him $ 8 thousand. To the surprise of friends and family, who knew how quickly Conrad's bank went bankrupt, things were going just fine in Mobley. A year later, Hilton bought another hotel in the town of Fort Worth, and then two more smaller hotels. By 1924, Hilton had 350 rooms and enough money to build his first hotel from scratch.

A year later, Conrad Hilton purchased another hotel and two small hotels. It was around this period that he came up with the idea of ​​how to entertain visitors, and with a good profit for himself. He placed several showcases in the hotel lobby, where they traded all sorts of useful little things. This business also brought him a good profit. And, as a result, a few more years later, Conrad Hilton created the first hotel of his own name.

From that moment on, Hilton never doubted that his main business was the hotel business. At one time, he studied banking well, which later served him a good role.

His 325-room Dallas-Hilton hotel opened in August 1925. By this time, Hilton opened at least 1 hotel in Texas annually, and when asked by journalists about when he first felt rich, he invariably answered that in those days when he spent the night in the park on a bench. Of course, this was just a joke.

Standing firmly on his feet, 38-year-old Hilton decided to get married. His chosen one was Mary Barron, who later gave birth to three sons. However, the idyll did not last long. After the stock market crash of 1929, he had to close his hotels. Despite the austerity received and a large loan, it was an absolute collapse. As a result, he lost ownership of his company.

Curiously, it was the same notorious Great Depression that saved him, which contributed to his ruin. The hotel business became unprofitable and the new owners of the Hilton empire tried to get rid of their purchases. They were bought by Conrad Hilton himself, who by that time was working as a manager in one of his former hotels. During the same period, he divorced his wife.

From that moment on, wiser, having survived the last major economic downturn in US history, Hilton continued to build his worldwide company, which was already in his dreams. And the tactics of acquisitions have not changed, just the hotels have become larger. For fifteen years, Conrad painstakingly bought up competitors' hotels and built new ones.

The main changes took place inside the Hilton hotels. In all hotels, the client was met with a standardized set of services. There was even an advertisement that showed a taxi with a single inscription: To the Hilton. To even more equalize his hotels, Konrad was one of the first to designate the class of the hotel with asterisks - like cognac. Another know-how of Hilton was the following: all purchases in hotels were made in advance, based on an analysis of demand and taking into account upcoming events. No customer requirement should come as a surprise. Conrad himself soon earned the nickname enthusiastic dealmaker (enthusiastic businessman) for his indefatigable energy in studying competitors. When he was going to buy a hotel, he personally studied the situation. For example, I watched how many men and women enter and whether they smile when they leave the hotel, what is the size of the lobby, and even how many light bulbs are on in front of the entrance and how many of them burned out. After the end of World War II, the turnover of his company grew so much that in 1949 he was able to fulfill the dream of his life (he constantly carried a photograph of this hotel in his purse) by buying the most luxurious hotel in New York - the Waldorf-Astoria. That same year, the first Hilton outside the United States opened. It was the 300-room Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico. And in 1954, Konrad paid $111 million for his main competitor in the technological equipment of hotels - the Statler Hotels chain. At that time, this transaction was the largest real estate acquisition in the United States.

By the early 1960s, Hilton had become the most technologically advanced hotel chain in the world, and its expansion was unimpeded. By the end of the 1960s, Conrad had about 40 hotels in the United States and the same number outside of them. Hiltons have become a natural fixture in London, Rome, Caracas and Barbados. In 1964, Hilton spun off all of the overseas assets into the Hilton Group, which has since held the rights to the Hilton brand outside the United States and Mexico. Conrad himself retired from running the company in 1966 at the age of 78. Management passed to his son Barron. After that, he indulged in the quiet old man's joys of a self-satisfied multimillionaire. For example, Konrad loved to speak to students at the opening of the hospitality departments. He also organized a Catholic foundation in his name and generously handed out prizes. Three years before his death, Hilton married a third time.

Conrad Hilton died at the age of 91, having bequeathed his entire fortune to the Hilton Foundation, but his son challenged this decision and the business remained in the family as before.

But the main innovations of the Hilton hotel chain saw the light after his death - when the world entered the electronic era. Following the precepts of the founding father, his followers were the first to occupy all the profitable niches that opened up, mainly due to the fact that work on the electronization of Hilton hotels and related infrastructure began long before the emergence of the now well-known concepts - e-business and IT technologies. Today, competitors are forced to rush through stages of technological restructuring that Hilton has long since passed. Back in 1973, Hilton Hotels was the first in the global hotel business to introduce the Hiltron information and reference system - with its help, the client could remotely obtain information about availability and book rooms along with rail and air tickets. The effectiveness of this system turned out to be above all expectations - it successfully worked for 26 years, and only in 1999 it was replaced by a more modern one - the Central Reservations System (CRS or Hilstar), which united more than 500 hotels around the world. In 1985, the corporation began operating another system - the marketing Answer * Net, which connected all regional offices and hotel complexes in the United States into a single network. And a decade later, the first in the industry opened the Internet portal www.hilton.com and, with the support of American Express, its own Hilton Optima credit card system. In 2002, the Hilton empire became one of the initiators of the creation of a unified WorldRes network booking system, which, in addition to Hilton itself, included the resources of two other leading players in the field of the resort and hotel business - Accor and Six Continents. Finally, the company recently successfully announced another innovative service solution - WLAN access based on Symbol Technologies wireless switches. This communication complex was first tested in the Frankfurt Hilton Hotel and immediately gained popularity with the administration and customers.

The main principles of Hilton hotels to this day are the following undeniable postulates:

1. The client must receive the maximum number of services free of charge.

2. Everything the client needs must be on sale at the hotel

3. Absolutely the entire space of the hotel should bring money.

The book "Be My Guest", written by Conrad Hilton, is still a kind of Bible for all hotels.

The guests buzzed like a thousand bee hives and annoyed Hilton. Someone proclaimed another duty toast for happiness to the grave, drunken laughter rang out at the other end of the table - they broke a bottle of champagne, then another, a third ... The young people were clearly tired of kissing and sat with distracted faces, looking in different directions.
Waiters in starched caps and aprons brought more and more new dishes. The abundance of dishes on the tables resembled an ancient feast. On the calendar - May 6, 1950. The founder of the famous hotel chain Conrad Hilton and his ex-wife Mary Barron were present in Beverly Hills for the wedding of their twenty-four-year-old son Conrad Nicholson Jr., nicknamed Nikki. He married eighteen-year-old stunning beauty Elizabeth Taylor.

The former Mrs. Hilton kept repeating, like a broken record, that young people have everything for happiness: youth, beauty, wealth.

You and I also once had all this, dear, - impolitely interrupted the ex-wife Hilton. - And what, it helped us a lot?

Mary was confused.

What then is needed? - muttered the aged, swollen woman, but once she was not inferior to the bride in beauty.

We need a stone bride, nothing else, - Hilton snapped and took a generous sip of whiskey.

Apart from Mary, hardly anyone was able to understand this enigmatic phrase, but she understood it.

I pray to God for one thing: that our son is not in you! snapped Mrs. Barron.

He's not into me, but if I were you, I wouldn't pray to God for such dubious things, - Hilton retorted with deadly irony.

When his three sons were still teenagers, and Conrad had already determined who would be good at business, who would not. Fifteen-year-old Nikki somehow showed up at home in incredible "alligator" boots, costing, as Hilton suspected, crazy money.

I have not allowed myself to buy such expensive shoes in my entire life until today! Conrad lashed out indignantly at his son.

A wry smirk appeared on Nikki's face.

But you never had such a rich father.

“This one will do everything in life by proxy,” Hilton thought about his son. Children do not understand from what zero he started once.

At the family council, Gus Hilton tugged at his beard and averted his eyes: he was ashamed in front of his sons and wife - for the first time in his life he did not know what to do. The collapse of the financial market in 1907 led to the fact that Hus woke up a beggar. Yesterday he was rich, cheerful and self-confident. He made his fortune selling coal mines. With disgust, Gus looked at the mountain of shares, which were now not worth a penny.

It's no joke, there are eight children in the family! Gus Hilton never thought he would let them go around the world. "Do any of you have any ideas how we can get out of this situation?" Gus finally asked. And then his thirteen-year-old son Conrad spoke up. “Yes,” said a skinny, lop-eared youth, whose family name was simply Connie, in a ringing voice. - We have ten rooms. Let's make a hotel out of five or six, and we ourselves will be accommodated in the rest. Mom and girls will cook for the guests, and I will take care of the luggage and other things, you can charge two and a half dollars a day from the residents. Gus looked at his son with curiosity: what a good idea! The guy's head is clearly in place. Their city of San Antonio, New Mexico, is really in dire need of hotels: there are so many of them, and they are all expensive, dirty, with monstrous cuisine.

But the initiative, as you know, is punishable. Connie had to work harder than anyone: he went to bed at ten, got up at midnight and rushed to the station to meet the night train, which could bring potential guests. With a wide benevolent smile, he picked up the suitcases of the guests, escorted them to their rooms, gave out carefully washed and ironed linen, not forgetting about soap and a towel. The guy quickly realized, although no one taught him this, that each guest needs to be given personal attention. Connie wrote down in a small notebook what time to wake up each guest and what to cook for him for breakfast. And he never confused anything. And two months had not passed, when in the vicinity of San Antonio one could hear such conversations: “If you are in our city, by all means go to the Hilton. It has the cleanest linen and the best food...”

Thanks to the help of his son, Gus Hilton very soon corrected his affairs. Contributed to this, of course, and the fact that the value of the shares went up again.

However, Connie, already at the age of twenty, gnawed at the thought that he was "a loser sitting on his father's neck." However, America itself at the beginning of the century tried to quickly get on its feet, "grow up" and surpass Europe. In that sense, Connie was a son of his time. Having served two years in the army, having not completed his studies at the Faculty of Mining, Connie felt: it's time, his time has come, he must act!

“You have nothing to do in New Mexico, Connie,” an old businessman once dropped. - With your requests, you better go to Texas. There is oil, and oil is gold and great opportunities.”

In Sisco, a small, nondescript town in Texas, Connie came with his friend Drawn in search of good luck. The young people went to the local Mobley Inn, where they were fed a disgusting vegetable stew, thin stew, and brought water that tasted of rancid butter. Connie called over a young waitress, "Don't you have clean water?" She shrugged guiltily: the guests, alas, were poured water from the tap, and the tap water here is all just like that. The next morning, the owner of the hotel told Connie and his friend that they had to move out: a lot of new guests had arrived. Mr. Mowbley provided a bed for each newcomer only for one night, after which he simply escorted him out - he saw justice in this arrangement. The whole day Connie plowed the narrow unkempt streets: there are few restaurants, all disgusting, in stores - he went to buy a new travel bag - they can neither serve nor advise. There were a couple of banks in the town, but, Connie thought, those banks clearly didn't care about the city's amenities. Sitting on a bench, the young man watched a crowd of people with heavy luggage, in dusty clothes, gloomy and tired from the road, pouring from the station. They flocked here for oil and earnings like flies for honey. And then Hilton was pierced by the thought: a hotel! That's what this town needs, that's what will bring a sure income. And, importantly, he, Connie, has some experience in this matter.

Ten minutes later, the restless Connie stood in front of the owner of the inhospitable hotel where they spent the night - "Mobley Inn".

Forty thousand in cash, - the owner of the establishment said sourly, - and this is your lair. I have long dreamed of getting rid of it and acquiring something more decent.

Connie whistled: forty thousand for such a large room with spacious rooms is mere trifles! This Mobley is a complete idiot, or this is not clean. Hilton asked for account books and sat behind them in Mowbley's stuffy, cluttered office until late in the evening. Oddly enough, everything was in relative order. Except, of course, that income can be tripled and service improved tenfold.

I agree to buy a hotel, - Connie and Mobley shook hands. - But it will take me a week to transfer funds from New Mexico.

And here he had to break his head. Connie had only five thousand of his own funds. The remaining thirty-five must be obtained somewhere. The mother (the father of the young man had died in a car accident by that time) immediately sent five thousand, two more acquaintances also entrusted Connie with five thousand each, there was nothing left to get - 20 thousand!

Connie was sharing his troubles with Drawn when his eye fell on the sign for "Bank Sisko".

Wait a second, Connie interrupted himself, I'm here.

Entering the bank, Connie resolutely went to the president - a bald, middle-aged man in horn-rimmed glasses - and, without any preamble, announced that he wanted to buy Mobley's hotel. He has half of the funds, and he would like to borrow from the bank - the other half. The bank president looked at the young man with curiosity: lend twenty thousand to the first person you meet? “Half the money you have is your own funds? he asked. Connie told it like it is. Namely: that own funds are only five thousand. The rest was borrowed by friends. The bald gentleman once more looked at the lanky figure of Hilton and suddenly said: "All right, I'll give you the required amount." Connie couldn't believe his ears: it was so easy! A stranger came from the street and immediately got a check for twenty thousand!

However, the next day, his joy faded when the news came that a check for five thousand from one of his friends could not be covered. Without a moment's hesitation, Connie rushed to the Sisko Bank. “There was a problem,” Hilton squeezed out of himself in a stricken voice, avoiding the piercing gaze of the banker. And he told everything honestly. The banker paused, and then noticed that such a beginning could greatly complicate the relationship of the bank with a new client. Connie hung his head; he knew that. “But,” the President continued after a short pause, “there is a way out. We'll get your buddy to cover the check." Soon the Mobley Hotel became the property of the Hilton. Connie was jubilant. A couple of years later, while having lunch with the president of the first bank in his life, he wondered why the banker had given money to a complete stranger. And he replied that, firstly, because Hilton had invested in the purchase all his capital, everything that he had; and secondly, because when the first troubles appeared, he did not hide, but immediately and honestly warned the bank about the complications. The president simply understood that such a client could be trusted.

Hilton learned these two rules for life and subsequently was true to them: start by investing your own money and be absolutely honest.

Looking around his property with a master's eye, Connie noticed that there was a lot of unused space in the hotel, for example, too large a room was occupied by a restaurant - no more than twenty people gathered here at the hottest hours, and there were more than fifty seats. Hilton reduced the restaurant hall by half, but the hotel added several rooms. Later, this will also become a Hilton's strong point: the desire to use a “non-working” space that does not bring money. When, many years later, Conrad Hilton made one of the most important deals of his life - he bought the New York Waldorf-Astoria, he discovered that the famous columns in the hall did not serve as supports, but simply decorated the interior, and ordered them to be removed, placed on their place is a jewelry showcase. But it won't be soon.

In the meantime, the Hilton career developed rapidly: after the modest Mobley Hotel, Connie bought rooms at the Waldorf Hotel in Dallas for a huge amount at that time - 71 thousand dollars. But Hilton by that time had already accumulated some capital and, in addition, learned how to skillfully use bank loans.

Moving to Dallas, Hilton for the first time acquired a spacious house of his own and completely arranged it to his liking. His mother often came to visit him. Konrad spoiled the old woman with childish pleasure: he gave her golden brooches, expensive rings. “You need to get married, Connie,” Mrs. Hilton told her son. - And to give gifts to his wife.
However, what Hilton definitely did not know how to care for women. Having lived to the age of thirty-six, Conrad has never experienced a strong feeling.

At another Sunday mass in Dallas - Hilton was a Catholic - he noticed a woman sitting in front in a red hat, from under which bluish-black curls were knocked out. For some reason, Connie could not take his eyes off this hat for the whole service. The woman finally turned around - and he saw a young, pretty, very lively face and laughing blue eyes. Connie had never seen this girl here before. For the first time, a stranger made such a strong impression on the completely unromantic Hilton. Connie, not realizing what he was doing, pushed aside the parishioners slowly leaving the cathedral, hurried after the girl. He wanted to at least know where she lived. Hilton rushed after her, cursing every now and then acquaintances along the way, with whom he had to bow and exchange pleasantries. Usually emphatically polite Connie, probably, at that moment seemed very strange to many. He still missed the stranger in the red hat. The girl never showed up at the church either. And suddenly one day Connie ran into her nose to nose right on the street! The girl was accompanied by a friend of Hilton, a certain Mrs. Evans. She introduced her companion to Connie: "Meet Mary Barron, my niece from Owensboro, Kentucky."

The daughter of a not-so-prosperous merchant, Mary was more than ten years younger than Hilton. She, too, had taken a liking to this ridiculous, lanky young man, but the most charming thing about Connie Mary was his helplessness in love affairs. He did not know how to compliment the girl and was afraid to kiss her hand: he leaned over and, without touching her hand with his lips, kissed the air. Hilton made the offer also very wonderfully: “We can only get married when I open the first Hilton in Dallas.

“And if for some reason the hotel is not built, we will not get married?” Mary wondered.

In Owensboro, where Mary, at her parents' house, impatiently whiled away the time until the promised wedding, alarming news came. “Lenders refused the promised one hundred thousand. I'm desperate". “For every little thing, builders fight five times more than what I expected.” “I saw a handsome hotel in a dream. How good!” Mary was embarrassed to complain even to her close friends, who had long since married simple, kind shopkeepers, that the groom's dreams were not her blue eyes.

Conrad Hilton and Mary Barron did get married in the summer of 1925. This meant that the Dallas Hilton was finally built. The opening ceremony, which Mary attended, was nothing compared to the modest and rather hasty ceremony of the marriage that followed. Connie and Mary got married during a six-hour mass at Holy Trinity Church in Dallas.

Laughter gradually disappeared from Mary's once cheerful eyes. She cried for several hours when she discovered that the treasured red hat, a symbol of their love, was lying in the most cluttered corner of the closet. Mary Hilton already had three sons and actually had no husband. Connie, in turn, believed that everything was going as it should: his wife was with the children, he was in business. Hilton himself did not notice how he gradually turned into a real "hotel maniac." He spent all his time looking for more and more new hotels - so others indulge in a game of roulette. Mrs. Hilton, having put the children to bed, waited a long time for her husband to finally come into the bedroom. Sometimes, unable to bear it, she herself followed him into the living room and always found him bending over papers and drawings.

Mary, - without looking up from the records, Hilton once solemnly said, - I want to let you in on my plans. I decided to open one hotel a year!

On his wife's next birthday, Hilton cheerfully said: "I'm going to get presents for my lady!" Mary waited with interest to see what her husband would present to her. But Hilton came home empty-handed, sat down at the festively laid table and, kissing his wife, uttered a strange phrase: “How sensitive you are, dear, that you arranged such a holiday on the occasion of my girl!” Opened champagne. “I want to drink to my first lady! Hilton raised his glass. Mary blushed with joy: now her husband will finally say something nice to her and, probably, give her a gift. doubt, the first beauty in the city. I did not stint on decorations for her: today I bought the best drapery silk, magnificent dishes, excellent paintings. What else? .. ”Hilton, in the heat of the moment, did not even notice that Mary had long slipped out from behind the table.

The Great Depression of the early 1930s affected everyone, including Hilton. Banks have drastically cut construction loans. Hilton lost some of the hotels - he simply could not maintain them.

That unpleasant evening, Conrad returned home, singing a cheerful jazz tune and dancing. Three hotels were returned to him - in Lookbock, Dallas and Plainview - and, in addition, Maddy Bank issued a hefty loan. Mary saw his joyful face and announced that they were getting a divorce.

For Hilton, it sounded like thunder from heaven. First, he loves Mary and the children, he is quite sure of it. Secondly, he is a Catholic, and the word "divorce" tormented his ears with its unthinkability. In America in the mid-thirties, this was a serious stain on the reputation. As Mary wept, changing her handkerchiefs, Connie imagined Maddy Bank refusing to give him a loan because the divorce would make him a "morally unreliable partner." But things took a very bad turn: a few days later, the wife announced that the two eldest sons - Nikki and William - were staying with their father. Conrad never took part in the upbringing of children, it will do him good to restore mental balance. Otherwise, Mary argued, he would end up in a lunatic asylum. After that, Mrs. Hilton took her youngest son, leaving Hilton the older boys - eight and nine years old, and left for her homeland in Kentucky.

The boys... They gave him the heat. Hilton was returning home after a hard day's work, and he was greeted with surprises: the boys painted the front staircase of a neighbor's house with orange paint; shot from a slingshot beloved cat of a familiar old woman; Nikki was trying to cook dinner, which caused a gas explosion, it's good that his son survived.

In a sanatorium near San Francisco, where Hilton found himself a year later, a good-natured bearded doctor taught the businessman to live in a new way. “At six you finish the working day, even if the sky falls to the ground. And go... What do you like? Dance? ABOUT! I'm somewhat surprised. Great, then go waltz. Then - to friends. At eleven - in bed, and you will forget about heart problems. You are not even fifty, and you already feel like a ruin.

On the urgent advice of a doctor, for the first time in his life, Hilton allowed himself a vacation and bought a summer house in southern California, where there were mainly mansions of Hollywood movie stars. His neighbors in Malibu Beach were Lillian Tali van, Jack Gilbert and Gloria Swenson. Film celebrities found Hilton well-mannered, gallant and amiable. In California, the figure of Hilton, after acquiring the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco and building the Hilton in Beverly Hills, was very popular. Now even people who were far from business bombarded Conrad with questions. Is it true that he personally reviews the list of distinguished guests in his "top" hotels every day? Hilton smiled: “Really. I maintain a whole staff of people who delicately learn about the tastes of my guests. For example, former President Hoover secretly adored mints and green apples. Stopping one day at one of the Hilton hotels, he found these delicacies in abundance. And Mary Pickford was fond of alpine violets and Belgian beer. When she visited Hilton "for a visit", her room always had both. There was even a joke about Hilton that if, say, a famous writer stops at one of his hotels, then a third of the written novel will be waiting for him on the table. “Well, how do you satisfy the tastes of unnamed guests, Mr. Hilton?” Gloria Swenson inquired. But Konrad has long learned to find an approach to ordinary guests. In fact, he learned this in the first place. The idea is simple: an inexpensive room should have such elements of luxury that would make guests feel like they are at a higher level of society than they really are. For example, Hilton ordered to hang expensive curtains in cheap rooms and frame ordinary paintings in impressive gilded frames. These trifles "made" the interior. But these are all "secrets". As for the big one, everyone knows that Hilton was the first to equip rooms with air conditioners, doors with automatic locks, take care of convenient parking lots and the best chefs for restaurants ...

In April 1940, fifty-five-year-old Conrad Hilton experienced the biggest embarrassment of his life. Red as a cancer, he stood before the judge in the city of Santa Fe. A peppy, rosy-cheeked judge asked if he voluntarily registered a civil marriage with a young woman named Zaza Gabor, a Hungarian by birth. “Voluntarily,” Hilton mumbled in a barely audible voice.

At one of the dinner parties on the occasion of the opening of another hotel, the twenty-three-year-old blonde Zaza fixed Conrad with the burning eyes of a panther, busy hunting for the prey she liked. Hilton knew too little of women to understand the intricacies of such views. It seemed to him: he is irresistible this evening, his stories about the next hotel that has turned his head are witty as never before, and Zaza bursts into laughter from his successful jokes. Konrad drew himself up and, encouraged by the sly eyes of Zaza, launched into an endless narration of his successful transactions over the past year: loans, interest, shares, stocks, the convenience of guest toilets, an innovative ventilation system ... Gabor nodded enthusiastically and laughed. Hilton continued. Never before had he met such understanding from a woman!

Seeing Zaza home that evening, which, as far as he remembers, was extremely suffocating, Hilton decided on a compliment: “You are beautiful just like Francis Drake!” Zaza looked at her beau with a slightly puzzled look: "Do you like boys?" Hilton coughed embarrassingly, then squeezed out a smile: “I already thought that there was such an understanding between us that you were from the first word ... I would never have dared to say this to my wife: she was jealous of hotels! I told you, the Francis Drake is my hotel." Gabor burst into iridescent laughter, reminiscent of the ringing of small bells, and suddenly said, looking directly into Hilton's eyes: "I think I should marry you."

Once Conrad's sister Helen warned that his failures with women happen because he does not know how to show attention to them. Helen assured that harmony is impossible if a man does not find out the name of the first doll of the chosen one, who was her first love, what is her most cherished dream. Alas, all this information about the first wife, Mary Barron, remained a secret for Conrad with seven seals. But with Zaza, he decided not to repeat the same mistakes. It's like in business: you learn from your mistakes. Conrad meticulously compiled a short list of questions to ask the woman who had captivated his imagination, and kept repeating them to himself so as not to stray. But it was not easy to get clear, direct answers from Zaza. Conrad hardly understood that instead of her favorite dolls (Gabor preferred soldiers as a child), she has two sisters - Eva and Magda. Zaza first said that she had won a beauty contest in Hungary, then she clarified that Magda won the contest, and she herself received a special prize, then it turned out that she did not participate in this contest at all, because she considered it below her dignity to compare beauty with “Hungarian ugly ". Her cherished dream? Zaza was suddenly confused. If their relationship with Hilton develops, he will be the first to know about it. After all, they will trust each other ... Gabor is sure that Hilton will help her realize her cherished dream.

As for Zaza's first love... At first, Hilton had no doubt that such a young woman's first love would, of course, be him: at school, Hilton admitted, perhaps Zaza was innocently infatuated with some mathematics teacher, like all girls. “But I was married,” Gabor said, shaking her blond mop, and added: “We got divorced. He didn't deserve me. You know, you get to know a man best when you get divorced...” Gabor bit her tongue so as not to blurt out too much, but Hilton ignored the last words. "He didn't deserve you? You must have suffered a lot ... Divorce at this age can instill distrust in marriage for life ... "

Gabor's first husband was the Turkish Foreign Minister, much older than her. Zaza told Hilton that her husband brought her to Turkey, where everything was wild and unfamiliar to her, paid little attention, was very stingy with gifts. Zaza prudently kept silent about the fact that very soon she was comforted in the passionate embrace of the country's dictator Kemal Ataturk.

Marrying a divorced woman didn't help her reputation, but Hilton is divorced himself...

“Most likely, I fell in love with her because she was my complete opposite, the antipode in everything,” Hilton wrote in his diary. “Logic against chaos, seriousness against frivolity, a buttoned-up coat against transparent negligees dangerously revealing all the charms, a 24-hour working day against 24 hours of idleness.”

Zaza was as dissimilar to her first wife, Mary, as a passionate tango to a measured minuet.

For a while everything went great. Hilton could be away for weeks on business, and at home he was always greeted by Zaza's cheerful chirping. For the first few months, Hilton diligently paid his wife's astronomical bills. Then it turned out that the losses were almost equal to the cost of another hotel. "Darling, we need to be clear about our monetary relationship," Hilton finally said firmly. In response - innocent eyes and resentfully pouted lips. "Do you want to be as mean as my first husband?" Conrad put his hand to his ear. Did he misheard? Stingy? Just as stingy? “I set you a monthly allowance. You spend it on anything, go to the hairdresser, order new curtains - in a word, this is your pocket money. But no more than that.” “Why should I spend my pocket money on curtains? - objected Zaza and suddenly asked, throwing a quick glance at her husband: - But what about my cherished dream? Conrad was worried. “My cherished dream is a collection of pretty fur coats. Small, only 30-40. Hilton had no idea how much “pretty fur coats” cost, and when he found out, he was dumbfounded: yes, for this money you can renovate several hotels! But he promised... Zaza's iridescent laughter no longer seemed like heavenly music to Hilton. He promised himself to fulfill his wife's cherished dream by twenty percent, while Gabor herself fulfilled it for the remaining eighty. By Hilton, of course. Calling out to her was like trying to reason with a statue in the park. She regularly spent tens of thousands that Hilton gave her, and even moreover she managed to spend 10-15 thousand for who knows what. Her sisters came to visit - Eva and Magda, the same beautiful twittering. They needed gifts, in their honor Zaza demanded to arrange magnificent balls, where Hilton invited the entire Hollywood beau monde.

Once, in a New York theater, Zaza saw actor George Sanders on the stage. In the evening, “at home” - in one of the Hilton hotels - she, curled up in an armchair like a cat, languidly stretched out: “It seems to me that we are getting a divorce. I'm marrying Sanders." “But we are expecting a baby!” exclaimed Hilton. Surprised, Konrad nervously crumpled the paper lying on the table. It turned out to be an important financial contract signed in the morning. Life collapsed again. And again, as with Mary, for a reason completely incomprehensible to him. In the world of business, cause and effect were tightly linked, while in Conrad's private life chaos reigned beyond his comprehension. “Women are aliens that a man cannot understand,” Hilton wrote a hackneyed thought in his diary. But no matter how beaten it may seem, its truth is indisputable: this is the second time he has broken his forehead because of a woman.

Zazu was not at all worried about the fact that she would soon become a mother: she was fed up with this tight-fisted Hilton with his always lean face and dark suit. And Sanders is handsome, leads a fun bohemian life, next to him she will feel the taste of real life. Isn't he as rich as Hilton? But Hilton is rich for everyone. Gabor divorced Konrad literally on the eve of the birth, and he had to give her a lifetime solid percentage of the profits.

After the daughter of Hilton and Gabor - Francesca was born, Zaza really married George Sanders. She imagined herself as an actress and starred in several films and serials.

Her most famous role was in the 1951 film Moulin Rouge. Zaza became a very remarkable figure in the Hollywood beau monde mainly due to the fact that, firstly, she changed husbands incredibly often - she married nine times; and secondly, due to the predilection for expensive furs and jewelry. Moreover, each new husband at first showed serious zeal to fulfill her “cherished dream”. No one else prevented Hilton from focusing entirely on his projects. Already in 1946, he founded the Hilton Hotels Corporation and began to build Hiltons abroad with might and main, starting with the first hotel in Puerto Rico. In October 1949, the cherished dream of Hilton himself came true: he got a luxurious, elegant and sophisticated beauty, the Waldorf Astoria, the most prestigious hotel on New York's Fifth Avenue. At the reception on the occasion of this transaction, Hilton appeared in the suit of the groom. “Today I am getting married to my most beloved lady and I hope it will be the most successful marriage of my life,” he solemnly said to a huge crowd of guests, among whom were the president, prominent statesmen, influential businessmen and movie celebrities. Many did not see a metaphor in his words and began to look for a bride in the crowd.

They bowed to Hilton, congratulated him, wished him happiness, broke glasses for good luck. The best New York orchestra played. The hero of the day shone like a polished gold dollar. Everything that happened really resembled a wedding. However, Hilton was no longer interested in women and resolutely refused to notice what efforts the ladies were making to attract his attention. Hilton, who was surrounded by three sons, brothers and sister, was approached in turn by several embarrassed ladies, each of whom clutched a large plush toy in their hands. Women coyly showed Hilton their dogs and cats, and each uttered the same cryptic phrase: “I named her Waldorf. It brought you luck." Hilton bowed politely. At last Sister Helen inquired what this masquerade meant. Conrad sheepishly explained that he had dined with each of these ladies a couple of times, and since, as you know, he does not have time to look after "mortal women while he is wooing immortals", he gave each toy, asking them to name it Waldorf. "Those poor things must have been hoping for something from you," Helen said sadly.

After Hilton got the Waldorf, what happened to many who achieved their dreams came true - he was overcome by black longing. Conrad still held the post of director in two corporations - American and international - "Hiltons Hotel". Waldorf's income was enormous: after the first year - a million profits. But Hilton lost the meaning of life: he successfully played roulette and won all the money in the casino. In the sons, as Hilton predicted, there was not that degree of true madness that makes a genius out of a simply successful businessman. Nikki, as you might expect, divorced Liz Taylor less than a year later and continued to squander money, indulging in empty passion for gambling. The middle son, William, immediately decided that hotels were not his calling, and started producing orange juice. “But if so, an orange should be sweeter for you than any woman!” - tried to instruct his father. But William clearly did not have a sizzling passion for oranges. Having entrusted affairs to an assistant, he married early, had five children and was mired in a household routine. Nevertheless, in 1966, Conrad Hilton nevertheless bequeathed to William the post of director of the American corporation Hiltons Hotels, he did not want to give this place to strangers, and the middle son of all children was at least the most reasonable. The youngest son of Conrad - Eric went to study at Cornell University at the faculty of hotel business and management, but dropped out. Father only snorted to himself: no one taught him anything; learn by scent, by intuition, by practice, looking into the eyes of competitors. Is it possible to learn such a living thing from lectures and textbooks?

Eighty-eight-year-old Hilton, who settled in retirement in southern California, began to visit regularly biographer Daryal Hotton. He raised a microphone to the old man's mouth and tried in vain to talk the magnate. Hilton, with trembling hands, thrust into him what he wrote at night: on many pages the character of each of his hotels was painted. "Las Vegas Hilton" - absurd, capricious, easily accessible ... "Chicago Hotel" - proud, scornful pettiness, with an eagle profile. The biographer, reading these notes, shrugged helplessly. At a certain hour, an elderly woman appeared in the office where they “worked” and brought tea and small sandwiches on a tray. It was not a servant, as Hotton first decided, but Hilton's last wife, Mary Francis. He married her at eighty-eight. Why she needed this old billionaire, it's easy to guess, but him? “Mrs. Hilton is the spitting image of Dallas Hilton,” the old businessman kindly answered the biographer's question. - Poured out. The same neatness, thoroughness, even the same posture - you look closely. And it's as cozy as the Dallas Hilton," the old man chuckled.

After much persuasion, Daryal persuaded Hilton to show his diaries: since the conversation does not work, the diaries will serve as a serious help in collecting material about the life of the famous interlocutor.

... “I told my confessor in confession: my whole life has been a game. Is it a sin? Hotton read the entry in his diary. - And the confessor explained to me an amazing thing: God is always on the side of those who win and make a profit. God loves those who profit. I was comforted by this fresh theological idea, because my poor mother taught me something very different. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was believed that God loves the losers and the poor, but now the opinion at the top has changed. Well, it will be easier for me to die.”

Conrad Hilton died in 1979. It is said that his last words were: “Take care of my ladies. I beg you."

“A man who knew how to make money literally from nothing” - this is how the famous American entrepreneur Conrad Hilton can be described. The son of a modest grocer, he became the founder of the world's largest hotel chain Hilton and made an invaluable contribution to the development of the hotel business.

Conrad Hilton was born at the end of 1887 in a small town in the southwestern United States in a family of emigrants from Europe. From childhood, the boy showed business acumen, helping his father in the store. At the same time, Konrad dreamed of a career as a banker who turns millions. And this desire has only grown stronger over the years.

In the summer of 1919, fate threw Hilton (who had already suffered several financial failures by that time) to Texas (Cisco), where he soon acquired the Mobley Hotel, which was in a deplorable state. Could anyone then have imagined that this provincial hotel - a simple rooming house for local miners - would be the beginning of the fantastic success of Conrad Hilton?

Of course, the path of the great hotelier was full of difficulties. But people who changed their lives - and Hilton, of course, is just such a person! - are famous for their ability to turn even the most hopeless situations into good. Conrad Hilton said that winners never give up, because success comes to those who continue to go towards the goal, despite the difficulties; movement is the key to success.

Mr Hilton's Achievements

Hilton's hotel business survived the years of the Great American Depression, and in 1949 stepped outside the United States - Caribe Hilton was opened in Puerto Rico. The Hilton Hotels empire has begun its victorious march around the world. All this became possible thanks to the entrepreneurial talent of "Papa Conrad", who believed that every meter of the hotel should bring money. It was Hilton who first came up with the idea of ​​organizing the sale of essential goods on the territory of the hotel, using a system for remote ticket booking, automatic control of entrance doors; developed a system of discounts for regular customers; proposed a 5-star classification of hotels in accordance with a set of standard services, etc. But, perhaps, the most daring and at the same time the most successful idea of ​​Hilton is to combine the hotel business with the gambling business, placing a casino and a hotel under one roof.

The Hilton Empire: Our Days

Today, the network of high-tech hotels Hilton, which employs more than 70 thousand people, covers 5 continents, more than 70 countries. In total, the number of rooms is almost half a million. The financial turnover of the corporation reaches 15 billion dollars. A few years ago, the Hilton family business was sold to the Blackstone Group.

Faith in success, business acumen, diligence and healthy adventurism helped Conrad Hilton realize his dream. Therefore, for those who want to change their lives, where should they start? - right, from the study of the biography of the great hotelier.

Conrad Hilton, 23, was admitted to the Menninger Psychiatric Hospital in Houston, Texas for treatment. The younger brother of Paris Hilton was arrested on May 7 by the Los Angeles police for breaking into the house of the mother of his ex-girlfriend Hunter Daily Salomon, whom the court had previously forbidden him to approach, and also for stealing her father's Bentley, Tyson Salomon. On Wednesday, May 10, a court session was held at which Konrad shouted and tried to rush at the accusers. The court ruled that Conrad be released on bail of $90,000 on the condition that he be placed in a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment, writes TMZ.

Conrad Hilton and Hunter Daly Salomon were together for some time, but in June 2015 the couple broke up. Conrad took the breakup hard and began blackmailing Daly with suicide. After another quarrel, he tried to enter the ex-lover's house, then the court forbade Conrad to approach Daly.

Photos from the court session

The younger brother of Paris Hilton has repeatedly had problems with the law. In July 2014, he made a scandal on board a plane en route from London to Los Angeles. Conrad loudly shouted insults at the passengers and came into conflict with the flight attendants. The crew had to use force to restrict their freedom of movement. Then Conrad was sentenced to 750 hours of community service, ordered to pay a fine and undergo treatment at a clinic for people suffering from drug addiction, according to Fox News.

Barron Hilton II, Nicky Hilton-Rothschild, Paris Hilton, Conrad Hughes Hilton

Note that Conrad is the namesake of his famous great-grandfather, American tycoon and owner of the world-famous Hilton hotel chain Conrad Hilton. Conrad Sr. survived World War I, the Great Depression and became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. His contribution to the hospitality industry is undeniable. In addition to the hotel empire, he founded the Conrad N. Hilton Charitable Foundation, which rewards organizations that help people.

Below is a video from the courtroom:

Now everyone knows that there are hotel chains with the same name and the same level of service all over the world - be it London, Paris, Moscow or the Cayman Islands. But the first hotel chain was created by the American Conrad Hilton, who gave all his hotels his own name and offered them a standard set of services. It was he who first came up with the idea of ​​assigning "stars" to hotels (by analogy with cognac) and was the first to start selling everything that customers might need in the halls of their hotels. Conrad Nicholson Hilton was born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1887, in San Antonio, New Mexico. His father, August, immigrated from Norway and his mother, Marie, from Germany. Conrad had no doubt that he should become an entrepreneur. He was attracted to banking (while working with his father in the state legislature, he had to thoroughly study banking legislation). But the first attempt to organize his own bank was not successful. And during the second attempt, the decision to become a hotelier suddenly came. It happened in 1919 in the small town of Cisco, Texas. Acquisition of the Mobley Hotel cost Hilton not so cheaply. In addition to his own $5,000, he had to borrow $15,000 from friends and also take out a bank loan for $20,000. Now everything depended on Conrad himself. To the surprise of friends and family, who knew how quickly Conrad's bank went bankrupt, business at Mobley was going just fine. A year later, Hilton bought another hotel in the town of Fort Worth, and then two more smaller hotels. By 1924, Hilton had 350 rooms and enough money to build his first hotel from scratch. Soon Hilton was buying up hotels that did not show promise and turning them into gold mines. HILTON hotels provided sparkling clean rooms, these hotels had motivated employees who provided exceptional service to guests. The HILTON organization has created a unique system for minimizing costs and maximizing service - the likes of which have never been seen before. Conrad Hilton's PERSONAL LIFE was not so successful. First wife Mary Barron left Hilton during the crisis, apparently not believing that he would be able to get out of the quagmire of financial failure. Hilton had three sons by his first wife, Mary Barron: Conrad Jr., William Barron, Eric Michael. He also broke up with his second wife, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who spent huge sums on clothes and jewelry. From his second wife, Za Za Gabor, Conrad Hilton had a daughter, Francesca. However, failures in marriage did not prevent Hilton from having offspring; in his long life he became the father of eight children. Conrad Hilton retired from running the company in 1966 at the age of 78, passing his life's work to his son Barron. A year later, Conrad Hilton's autobiography, Be My Guest, was published. The multimillionaire continued to lead an active lifestyle: he spoke to students, worked in his foundation, and married for the third time. He died on January 4, 1979 in Dallas, where he once built his first Hilton, at the age of 91. Conrad bequeathed his entire fortune to the Hilton Foundation. Son Barron had to spend nine whole years to challenge his father's last will and keep control of the American part of the Hilton empire for the family. Barron Hilton (Paris' grandfather)
Barron Hilton himself married Marilyn June Hawley back in 1947, with whom they were together until her death in 2004. In this long marriage they had eight children: William Barron Hilton, Jr., Hawley Anne Hilton, Stephen Michael Hilton, David Alan Hilton, Sharon Constance Hilton, Richard Howard Hilton, Daniel Kevin Hilton, and Ronald Jeffrey Hilton. The 79-year-old patriarch of the Hilton clan, Barron Hilton, was beside himself when the tape of Paris' sexual pleasures hit the Internet. And her recent 23-day jail sentence seems to be the last straw. "He was, and still is, very unhappy with how Paris got the Hilton name dirty," says Jerry Oppenheimer, author of the Hilton family biography. Grandpa Hilton, the only member of the family who still has a significant stake in the huge hotel empire, has indicated that he is going to donate about $ 2 billion, which he received from the immediate sale of his company to Blackstone, to charity. The money will go to the Conrad Hilton Foundation, the founder of the family business. Conrad Hilton Jr. was born July 6, 1926. Brother of Barron Hilton. He and his stepmother Zsa Zsa Gabor were in an intimate relationship, even before his father's divorce from Gabor, which he later publicly admitted. In 1950 he married Elizabeth Taylor, in 1951 the marriage was annulled. Conrad Hilton Jr. and Elizabeth Taylor In 1958 he married Patricia McClintock, in this marriage they had two children. In 1962, at 43, he died of a heart attack. With actress Betsy von Furstenberg (1951) Richard Hilton (1955) is the most famous of the eight sons of Barron Hilton and the father of the notorious Paris. In 1978 he graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in Hospitality and Restaurant Management. Rick got his start in the real estate business when he joined the New York office of Eastdil. He specialized in securing the participation of institutional investors and pension funds in various real estate transactions. In 1984 he formed Hilton Realty Investment. For the past 25 years, Rick has specialized in residential real estate sales in the Los Angeles communities. In addition, he is an exemplary family man and father of 5 children! David Jacques Pierre Cogordan Hilton (born 1973), who did not know the identity of his true father until 2008. Paris Hilton (born 1981) Nicky Hilton (born 1983) Barron Nicholas Hilton (born 1989) Conrad Hughes Hilton (born 1994) Older brother Paris Younger And finally, this is what the hotel built by Conrad Hilton in 1939 looked like. And one of the many hotels in our time