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The Big Deal. Probably the only man to dampen the buying zeal of Trader Hilton is red-faced, reticent ex-Bricklayer Stephen Healy. A contractor at heart, Healy was an uneasy owner of the $28,000,000 lakefront gargantua. But Hilton's obvious passion to own the place made Healy stifle his own eagerness to sell. First, he wanted $500,000 clear profit on the $5,281,000 he had paid the Army for the Stevens, and the $800,000 he had spent on furnishings. Then he coolly upped his profit demand to $650,000, then to a million, finally to $1,500,000. Hilton groaned and swore, but Healy stood fast.
Soberly last week, the man who loved the biggest hotel in the world
emerged from the office of the man who had jilted it. "I stood four
raises," Hilton said, wonderingly. "Now how could a bricklayer have
done that, do you suppose?"
*The Hilton string, excluding the Stevens,
Plaza, Roosevelt and Town House: the Hilton hotels in El Paso, Lubbock,
Plainview, Longview and Abilene, Tex.; the Hilton in Albuquerque, N.
Mex.; the Long Beach, Calif. Hilton; the Dayton Biltmore in Ohio; the
Rosslyn in Los Angeles, and the Palacio Hilton in Chihuahua, Mexico.