Heritage, 2011, Volume 4 Page: 22
39 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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QUCCEN 9F THE GULF
By Gary CartwrightVisitors stroll the Galveston seawall, with the Hotel Galvez looming in the
background. Opposite page, upper left: The Hotel Galvez lobby. Both images
are circa 1911. All photos provided by Mitchell Historic Properties.To appreciate the Galvez in all its
grandeur-to understand why it is
called the Queen of the Gulf-one
should view the hotel from the side-
walk along Seawall Boulevard. The
Galvez dominates the eastern end of
the Island in the way a queen's castle
dominates her fiefdom. A six-story
stuccoed brick building with creamy
lime plaster, the hotel features a central
section that rises to eight stories under
a hipped roof. On either side are two
wings whose glassed-in semicircular
bays project outward toward the Gulf.
On the wings' gabled roofs are inset
mission-style parapets, which are key ele-
ments of the building's blended Spanish
Colonial Revival and Mission styles. The
hotel is one of Galveston's few buildings
showing Spanish architectural influence;
the style subtly evokes the state's colonial
Mexican heritage and was popular for
resorts and railroad stations in the early
20th century.
Looking around the lobby, a visitor
senses that not much has changed since
the hotel opened in 1911; today it looks
almost exactly as it did when it openedon June 10 of that year. Current owner,
preservationist George P. Mitchell, a
Galveston native with an outsized love
for the Island of his boyhood, has returned
the Galvez to the grandeur of its original
Spanish design (see sidebar on page 23).
The high ceiling of the lobby and
the bar area is crisscrossed with heavy
mahogany beams. The bar itself is a
huge and strikingly ornate piece of
handcarved wood, with a giant mirror
as its centerpiece. Mitchell purchased
the bar from the Old Galveston Club
when it closed in October of 1992. Ru-
mor has it that the bar, which dates to
1876, once graced the original Trem-
ont House hotel. The club bragged
that it was the Island's last speakeasy.
Its longtime bartender, Santos Cruz,
claimed to have invented the margarita
in honor of Peggy Lee when she played
the Balinese Room in 1948 (Margarita
is Spanish for Margaret, Miss Lee's
given name).
DOWN MEMORY LANE
Leading away from the lobby, the
twin loggias take visitors to the Galvez'stwo ballrooms: the wide-arched Music
Hall in the west wing, called the Gre-
cianRoom in the hotel's early days, and
the Terrace Ballroom in the east wing.
The loggias, sometimes called prom-
enades or sun parlors, are lined by great
arched windows and furnished with
heavy wicker chairs, couches, tables,
and potted ferns and plants, just as they
were a hundred years ago. In the spaces
above and between the loggia windows
are reproductions of the coats of arms of
Spanish nobles, in particular Bernardo
de Gilvez, a Spanish hero of the Ameri-
can Revolution for whom both this city
and the hotel are named. Descended
from a long line of Spanish military
men, de Gilvez was sent to New Spain
(Mexico), and was later assigned to the
faraway province of Louisiana in 1776.
On January 1, 1777-when he was
barely thirty years old-de Galvez be-
came Louisiana's governor. De Galvez
never saw the island of Galveston him-
self, but in 1785 he sent an expedition
to survey the Gulf Coast. Led by his
mapmaker, Jose de Evia, the explorers
discovered what turned out to be the
biggest bay in Texas. In honor of his
commander, Evia named it Bahia de
Galvezton, later altered to Galveston.
On a wall at the bend of the [hotel's]
west loggia, hangs a large portrait of de
Galvez, a regal figure in formal mili-
tary attire. The figure's dark eyes seem
to follow visitors as they move along
the loggia, giving rise to the legend
that the painting is haunted. The east
loggia winds around to the hotel's op-
posite wing, where it connects with a
companion corridor that has revived
the old Peacock Alley designation. The
name came from the 1920's generation
of visitors, who strutted through the
corridor dressed in finery that would
shame your average peacock. Men cus-22 TEXASHERITAGE I Volume 4 2011
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, 2011, Volume 4, periodical, 2011; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254223/m1/22/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.