Adam's Mark

Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts was a chain of upscale hotels in the United States. The company was headquartered in the HBE Corporation offices in Creve Coeur, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis.[1][2] Fred Kummer founded the chain in the early 1970s, as well as its parent, HBE Corp.[3]

History

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Adams Mark faced several civil, state, and federal lawsuits for racial discrimination against Black customers. It was the first hotel chain, in its entirety, to face a United States Justice Department inquiry into racial discrimination for violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the 1990s, Adams Mark settled multimillion-dollar racial discrimination lawsuits involving employees and consumers against individual hotels in Indianapolis and St. Louis.[4][5]

In December 1999, five African–American hotel guests brought a class action lawsuit against the hotel chain after attending the Black College Reunion in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1999. The suit alleged that Adams Mark "charged black guests higher rates, required them to wear orange wrist bands and prohibited black visitors." Additionally, the claimants reported that "rooms rented to blacks had been 'stripped down' and lacked such basic amenities as telephones and maid service; pictures had been removed from the walls and room mini-bars were locked."[5] The Justice Department agreed with the claimants in a nonmonetary settlement, finding that Adams Mark engaged in racial discrimination by "charging Black customers higher prices than Whites and segregating Black customers in less desirable rooms as part of a corporate pattern of discrimination."

Hotels

While once numbering more than 20 large hotels, the chain, because of financial difficulties and changing corporate strategies, sold all of its properties during the 2000s.

• In May, 2004, the Houston location, in the Westchase district, was rebranded as a Marriott.[9]
• In June, 2004, the Tulsa location was sold and rebranded as a Hyatt.[10]
• The Memphis Adam's Mark, originally built in 1975 as the Hyatt Regency Memphis, was sold in 2003, to a joint venture of Dallas-based Crow Holdings, manager of the real estate holdings of the Trammell Crow family, and Wilton D. 'Chick' Hill, the president of Memphis-based Davidson Hotel Co. The hotel underwent a $12 million renovation and reopened as the Hilton Memphis Hotel in 2005.[11]

See also

• List of defunct hotel chains