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If it were possible to cap the human ego like a gas well, and to pipe off its more volatile byproducts as fuel, Houston's multi-millionaire wildcatter Glenn McCarthy could heat a city the size of Omaha with no help at all. Whether he would allow his rampant psyche to be dedicated completely to so prosaic a project, however, is doubtful—several million cubic feet would undoubtedly be diverted to a McCarthy Memorial Beacon which would nightly cast its glare as far west as El Paso.
As it is, the works and pomps which Glenn McCarthy has raised in honor of McCarthy have taken a more solid form. There is McCarthy's Houston mansion, a white-pillared, $700,000 pile surrounded by vast lawns and trees bearded with Spanish moss. There is the 15,000-acre ranch on which he admires his blooded cattle and occasionally shoots deer, goats and turkeys. There is McCarthy's Colosadium (so far, only on paper), a 110,000-seat stadium for Houston with a sliding roof in case of rain. There are McCarthy's airplanes, which include a four-engined Boeing Stratoliner.
Most imposing of all is McCarthy's showy and opulent new Shamrock Hotel. In causing its white, glass-tiered, palm-bordered bulk to rise above the Texas coastal plain, McCarthy endowed Houston with the Southwest's most luxurious hostelry—a soft-carpeted, $21 million palace which boasts French cooking (filet mignon: $11), air-conditioned bedrooms with both push-button radio and Muzak, afternoon tea served to string music and big-name dinner entertainers like Edgar Bergen and Dorothy Lamour.
Wearing of the Green. In its purest sense the Shamrock is less a hotel than a kind of Versailles, and it is almost impossible to enter without being reminded that its Louis is none other than Glenn McCarthy. A large oil portrait of the proprietor hangs on a wall flanking the lobby elevator doors; framed there, with folded arms, tumbled hair and an expression reminiscent of both Maxie Rosenbloom and Barrymore's Hamlet, he stares austerely at all who enter. The portrait's eyes are said to soften slightly when McCarthy confronts it in the flesh.
McCarthy's iron will and lordly tastes are reflected by other aspects of the hotel. There is the color scheme, for instance, which boasts 63 different shades of green and encompasses walls, rugs, the bellhops' emerald & lemon uniforms and the grass-hued ink with which guests sign the register. McCarthy makes all public announcements concerning the hotel (George Lindholm, whom he hired away from Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria as manager, resigned quietly last week).
The Acquisitive Eye. In an age when most businessmen allow themselves to be governed by politicians, unions, directors, psychiatrists, the threat of ulcers and the precepts of Emily Post, McCarthy holds himself accountable only to McCarthy. Both in his bull-like determination to make himself Houston's first citizen and in the conduct of his business empire—which includes vast oil holdings, Houston's radio station KXYZ, a chemical works, 14 neighborhood newspapers and a swank men's shop—he often seems a throwback to the lustier days of the 19th Century.