Rogers, downtown visionary, dies

LITTLE ROCK — Many Arkansans knew Doyle Rogers Sr. as a real estate visionary in downtown Little Rock.

In 1982, he developed and opened Arkansas’ Excelsior Hotel - which later became the Peabody Little Rock hotel - and the adjoining Statehouse Convention Center. He also developed what eventually became the 25-story Stephens Building. And in 2005,when he compared the downtown area to “a black hole at night,” Rogers decided to light up the Metropolitan National Bank building, which he bought in 1983.

But those who knew him best remember a man who adored his wife, who built a tennis court at his Batesville home - despite living on a bluff - and who never missed a Rotary Club meeting, even when he traveled abroad.

Rogers, 94, died Monday morning of congestive heart failure.

“He loved me with all his heart,” said his wife, Josephine “Raye” Rogers, recalling how her husband would sing, “Here she comes, Miss America,” when she walked down the hallway.

The couple would have celebrated their 72nd anniversary on March 31.

Doyle W. Rogers Sr., born in Diaz on Oct. 20, 1918, and raised in Newport, attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

After college, he bumped into Raye.

“I’d always known him,” Raye said. “But he came back from college and saw me.He wanted to date me, and I never dated anyone else after that.”

They married 14 months later.

Doyle spent several years working at the Railway Express Agency before he enlisted to serve under both the Canadian and U.S. armies during World War II.

Raye said her husband wrote to her every day during that time. She did the same, matching letter for letter.

After the war, Doyle worked at several businesses before founding Doyle Rogers Realty and Insurance Agency, now known as the Doyle Rogers Co. The company, created in 1953, was among the first to offer Veterans Administration residential loans in the state. It also became known for its development of shopping centers throughout the state.

In 1979, as he and Raye drove through Little Rock, they passed the old Marion and Grady Manning hotels.

“Something needs to be done,” Doyle declared, eyeing the aging, early-1900s buildings.

Raye was skeptical. “You are a shopping-center builder, not a hotel builder,” she informed her husband.

But Doyle remained undeterred.

He bought the hotels and had them razed, making way for the Excelsior Hotel and Statehouse Convention Center.

“That was the biggest event on both sides of the river,” Raye said, remembering how people lined the banks to watch the implosion of the Marion and Grady Manning.

The couple lived in the penthouse suite of the Excelsior for 18 years but returned often to their home base: the house on the bluff in Batesville.

Lunsford Bridges, the president and chief executive officer of Metropolitan National Bank, described Doyle as both focused and persistent - traits that served him well in business.

Doyle took Bridges into the bank in 1985, naming him president.

“I don’t hire for the short term,” Bridges recalled Doyle saying.

“It’s been 28 special years to get to work for him,” Bridges said Monday afternoon. “It was not all work to him. He took a great interest in me and all of his employees.”

Doyle called women to congratulate them on the births of babies. He called on birthdays. He called on employment anniversaries.

“It takes someone with special caring to do that,” Bridges said, adding that Doyle and Raye were very much a team in their business endeavors.

“I think that’s how they stayed together - no, not just stayed together but loved each other. That is rare. When I think about him, yes, it’s sad, but I end up getting a smile on my face. He loved to tell a joke. He had a great sense of humor, a lot of one liners, a lot of zingers.” ROGERS AT HOME

Raye thought that surely her husband’s sense of humor was in play in the 1970s when he came home one day and told her he planned to build a tennis court at their Batesville home.

“Pray tell me where?” she inquired. “We live on a bluff.”

But Doyle was determined. Next to family, tennis was his great love. He began playing at age 7 and continued through high school and college and on into adulthood.

In the end, it took 66 different levels - composed of stairs and walkways - to get down to the tennis court, Raye said.

Going down wasn’t too bad. But after playing tennis, getting back up the bluff required just as much exercise and effort as the game, she said.

But Raye and the couple’s two children, Barbara and Doyle Jr., all played tennis, and as far as the family was concerned, the court was well worth the steep ascent.

“It was a wonderful court,” Raye said. “He put in lights for my birthday. We spent many happy hours there. We even had tennis dinners.”

The family loved to travel, and somehow, whether on board a ship or in another country, Doyle could always find a game of tennis or a Rotary Club meeting. At one point, he attended 1,000 consecutive meetings in spite of a heavy travel schedule, his wife said.

As he aged, Doyle had bypass surgery, but even in his mid-1980s, he continued to get up at 5:30 a.m. and walk three or four miles. He worked out at a fitness center. And he still played tennis. Singles, indeed.

Skip Rutherford, whose father befriended Doyle when the two played tennis against each other in high school, remembers Doyle as a man who, even in his 90s, maintained a keen interest in what other people were doing.

“No matter how successful he became, he never forgot from where he came, and he treated people and his old friends with the same courtesy and respect and loyalty that he did in his business ventures,” Rutherford said.

Bridges agreed, recalling how when he, Doyle and a group of friends met each Thursday for breakfast at the Excelsior, one employee after another would stop by to talk to Doyle.

“He knew every one of them,” Bridges said. “To this day, if I eat at a restaurant where ex-Excelsior employees work, they always ask, ‘How is Mr. Rogers?’ He loved everybody. You didn’t have to ‘be somebody’ for him to know you.

“Doyle was very strong with his thoughts but he was also very compassionate with his feelings. He was very tender with his love,” Bridges concluded.

Doyle is survived by Raye; daughter Barbara Rogers Hoover; son Doyle Rogers Jr.; six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

ROGERS’ ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Known as one of the pioneers of downtown Little Rock’s renaissance, Doyle was inducted into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame.

In 2005, he received the Golden Cross Award from the national Scottish Rite organization.

Doyle also was honored with the Vision Award from what was then the Lions World Services for the Blind, the Arkansas Children’s Award and the William F. Rector Memorial Award.

He was named Business and Professional Person of the Year by the Rotary Club and Arkansas Easter Seals Man of the Year. He also was a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International.

On Monday, the Downtown Little Rock Partnership released a statement saying that it had announced last month that Doyle would be the 2013 recipient of the Top of the Rock award on March 6.

“We sent him the letter, and he called immediately, excited and honored by our announcement and planning to attend,” Executive Director Sharon Priest said.

Doyle never lost interest in potential business endeavors, his friends and family said. And even in his 80s and 90s, he continued to envision new projects for his beloved state.

“When I was in charge of the Clinton library project and was getting beat up on a regular basis, he would regularly call me,” Rutherford said. “He would say, ‘You’re doing a good job. This is going to be good for Arkansas. You just hang in there.’”

And despite all of his business successes and world travels, Doyle was still the guy who would ask Rutherford if he’d eaten lately at the Bulldog Restaurant in Bald Knob.

“He lived life to its fullest, and I’ll tell you - most people think of him the guy who built the Excelsior, but I think of him as Doyle Rogers Insurance in Batesville, just sitting around telling stories about playing tennis in high school.

“Doyle would always end a conversation by saying, ‘Well, I’ll talk to you later, my friend,’ or ‘Goodbye, my friend,’” Rutherford said, then added:

“I’m really going to miss my friend.” More information about Doyle Rogers’ role in Arkansas real estate development and his business endeavors can be found http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/profiles/RogersDoyle/slideshow/rogersdoyle.asp for photographs and oral and written interviews with Rogers.