Mark and I wanted to take a weekend to get away to celebrate the end of harvest and just unwind from all the busy. We went down to Des Moines and toured the Salisbury House. We both found it very interesting and enjoyable. One of the most interesting bedrooms had satin walls! We ate at Splash seafood and stayed in the Hotel Fort Des Moines.
If the walls could talk, you would hear the voices of Grammy
Award winners, US presidents, famous entertainers, foreign leaders, and
athletes. Built more than a century ago, Hotel Fort Des Moines has stood as an
icon in the city's heart for decades, serving as a implies grave host prominent
guests, including for guests like Mae West, Elizabeth Taylor, and pilot Charles
Lindbergh, among others. Through the collective efforts of local visionaries,
Hotel Fort Des Moines' 11-storied modern hotel was raised up to alter both the
skyline and the culture of Des Moines. 
When the hotel opened in the summer of
1919, it was praised for its exemplification of modern American hotel
construction. The hotel's developers used impressive forethought to anticipate
how the "flying machines" would affect travel, and strived to create
a hotel that would elevate hospitality to new heights. The "crown
jewel" of downtown Des Moines has a habit of stealing the limelight, no
matter what era. During Prohibition, it was one of the foremost proponents of
freedom of expression and the speakeasy culture. All at once nostalgic,
inviting, and inspiring, it is a hotel of firsts- the first hotel to offer
private bathrooms west of the Mississippi, the first hotel in North America to
offer a car lift that could raise a car from outside to the second floor, and
the first hotel built by the city for the city. Its iconic history and style
remains perfectly preserved. Hotel Fort Des Moines' history is as illustrious
as its guests. What began as the most expensive hotel project in Iowa ever in
1918, costing $1.5 million, swiftly turned into an icon rivaling the greatest
hotels of the era in Chicago and New York. The Iowa caucuses have brought
esteemed politicians and beloved presidents to the hotel for more than a
century, from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton. The latter stayed in the
Penthouse Suite numerous times and liked gazing out of the window. Step back
into some of the hotel's most iconic moments through the years.
Carl Weeks once wrote, “If you dream it, you can build
it.” He and his wife Edith set out to do
just that. During a 1921 visit to
Salisbury, England, Carl and Edith encountered the Kings House, a
fifteenth-century manor. They knew immediately they had found the inspiration
for their Des Moines home. Groundbreaking took place in 1923. Five years passed before construction was
complete. Salisbury House remained home for the Weeks family—Carl, Edith and
their four sons—until 1954. At that time,
Salisbury House was purchased by the Iowa State Education Association
(ISEA), and served as their headquarters until 1998. During the late 1990s, the
house, grounds, and collections were purchased by the Salisbury House
Foundation. The property was then
converted into a historic house museum. Thousands have passed through the
house’s great arched doors and come away awed by its architecture and extensive
collections of artwork, rare books and artifacts. The halls of Salisbury House
are lined with great works of art from such acclaimed artists as Anthony Van
Dyck, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Joseph Stella, Lillian
Genth, Jean Despujol, George Romney, Eduard Charlemont, John Carroll, and Leon
Kroll. The Weeks' support of then-contemporary artists such as Stella and Genth
directly boosted their careers the 1920s. Stella's "Apotheosis of the
Rose" and "The Birth of Venus" are two internationally-acclaimed
works commissioned by the Weeks. Both remain in the Salisbury House &
Gardens collection. Three of Lillian Genth's paintings hang in Salisbury House
& Gardens as well, including a portrait of Edith Weeks. While the
remarkable architecture at Salisbury House may be the first thing to draw
visitors in, the exceptional collections contained within its walls are what
truly make this a one-of-a-kind historic house museum experience.
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