Abandoned Hotel Savarine, Where Single Men Came to Stay & Play: 1920s
Near the corner of E. Jefferson and Lenox streets, there stands a behemoth – a relic of the 1920s and a favorite place to live by a number of celebrities.
It's the Hotel Savarine, a 525-room, nine story building where many sports figures and others would come to stay and party. It came to be known as a 'stag hotel' and 'bachelor hotel' thanks to the hotel's special catering to single men.
Many of the Detroit Tigers spent a lot of time there, as did famous author Jack Kerouac, who stayed there for a while in 1949; afterward, he penned the novel “On The Road” in the 1950s.
The Savarine opened in 1926 and was advertised as "a new hotel embodying those features which instill in the tenant a true feeling of 'home' and contentment." Not just famous people and sports stars stayed here, but it was also intended for male auto workers. What was the cost for a night's stay? Six bucks.
The place was well-loved and revered by single men – and Kerouac – who were all sports fans and wanted to hang out and booze it up with some of the Tigers.
In 1968, the hotel was re-named the Newport, with the amount of rooms shortened to 450 and $12.50 for a week's rent. All-night movies down the street, a bowling alley in the basement, color TVs, and the Poison Apple nightclub in the same building. Why would any guy want to leave?
In 1970 it was turned into a 183-unit apartment building, to help accommodate those who made low incomes. Another name change occurred a few years later and was now called the Winston Place Apartments ,used for low-income housing. In 2006, attempts were made to revamp into yet another apartment complex, but it never happened. Today, it sits like a ghost along the road.
It will always been known as “The Savarine”, no matter what else it may be called. Take a look at the insides of this historic Detroit hotel, now empty, crumbling, and full of debris (with images thanks to Pinetop Jackson)...
Abandoned Hotel Savarine, Detroit
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