He Built New York's Most Private Hotel. He Never Saw It Again.

In 1904, John Jacob Astor IV opened a hotel that promised something no hotel had offered before: real privacy. The St. Regis cost five and a half million dollars to build, with a telephone in every room, individual heating and cooling in each suite, and a vacuum system built into the walls, years before any of that was normal anywhere. Astor built it to feel less like a hotel and more like an extension of an Astor family home. He enjoyed it for less than eight years. In April 1912, Astor and his young, pregnant second wife booked passage home from Europe on a new ship making its very first crossing. It was the Titanic. What happened on the deck that night, written down afterward by a first class passenger standing only a few feet away, says everything about the one thing all of his money could not buy. This is the story of the man who built America's most private address, the fortune and the scandal behind it, and the hotel that carried on without him. More than a century later it still stands on Fifth Avenue, and it still carries his name. 0:00 A hotel built on a promise no one had made before 1:05 The Astor who built instead of feuding 2:40 A bet on a changing Fifth Avenue 4:15 The strike and the license fight that nearly stopped it 6:00 The most private hotel in America opens 8:20 The luxury that scared millionaires away 10:20 A divorce, and a marriage that shocked New York 12:30 Passage home on the Titanic 14:20 Lifeboat 4 16:00 The will, and the condition attached to it 17:40 One hotel gone, one still standing 19:00 The King Cole Bar and a drink you already know 20:40 From Fifth Avenue to a sovereign wealth fund 21:40 Close If you have not seen it yet, the story of Astor's first hotel, the one he built in a feud with his own cousin, is here on the channel: the Waldorf-Astoria. Sources: St. Regis New York, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Reg... John Jacob Astor IV, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ja... Madeleine Astor, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madelei... RMS Titanic, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Tit... Fernand Petiot, the bartender credited with the Bloody Mary, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand... Marriott sells St. Regis New York to Qatar Investment Authority, Crain's New York: https://www.crainsnewyork.com Qatar Wealth Fund Buys St. Regis Hotel That Invented the Bloody Mary, Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com St. Regis New York Sells for $310M, Hotel Business: https://hotelbusiness.com Music, Footage, Images, Script and score: AI-generated Subscribe for more of the families and buildings that built, and unbuilt, America's Gilded Age.