Flames sweep old Majestic Hotel

Correction: The oldest part of the Majestic Hotel in Hot Springs was built in 1902, on a site where another hotel had opened years earlier. The first year of the Majestic was incorrect in coverage in Friday’s paper about a fire at the hotel.

HOT SPRINGS - The historic Majestic Hotel in downtown Hot Springs was in flames late Thursday night, and firefighters were not sure exactly how to extinguish it.

The blaze, which began about 5:30 p.m., appeared to have started in the center section of the fifth floor of the oldest part of the hotel, and then spread to the north and south ends of the structure and to lower floors as the blaze burned through floors and ceilings.

Shortly after the fire was reported, Hot Springs Fire Chief Ed Davis said the blaze was on the fifth floor of the hotel, which has been closed since 2006 and was boarded up earlier this month. Initially firefighters were unsure how best to fight the flames in the structurally unsound building.

The oldest part of the Majestic was built in 1902, according to the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. That part of the hotel, at 101 Park Ave., was reportedly added onto in the 1920s, 1950s and 1960s.

Hot Springs City Manager David Watkins said the Fire Department determined that because of structural weaknesses in the building, sending firefighters inside to fight the flames would have been too risky. They decided to fight the fire from the outside using aerial equipment.

As Thursday evening wore on, firefighters from the Lake Hamilton, 70 West and Middleton volunteer fire departments arrived with aerial trucks and additional equipment. At one time, three aerial trucks were spraying water into the fourth and fifth floors as hundreds of people gathered nearby to watch one of Hot Springs’ most historic and iconic buildings burn.

Firefighters also doused adjacent buildings to prevent flames from spreading to them. Watkins said late Thursday that he had been texting Davis, who said the firefighting strategy appeared to be working.

Damage to the hotel was major, Watkins said.

“I’m not in the business of declaring total losses, but I can’t imagine it being anything but,” he said.

The city announced late Thursday night that the 100 block and 200 block of Park Avenue would be closed today because of the fire.

“I think everyone who understands the history of this community will be saddened” by the loss of the hotel, Watkins said.

“But, I think it’s also an opportunity to look at this and see what happens when you don’t maintain buildings.They are going to eventually fall apart or catch fire. I think it’s an opportunity for the community to come together and commit itself to making downtown Hot Springs what it can be,” he said.

District 3 City Director Becca Clark said the blaze saddened her. “I’ve stayed in that building. It looks like it’s going all the way down,” she said late Thursday.

District 4 City Director Pat McCabe, who has lived in Hot Springs since 1985, said the fire is “not good for the community.”

“There’s a lot of memories of the Majestic over the years. It’s not going to be a good night. There’s a very significant blaze through the roof right now, and I think the firefighters have their job cut out for them,” he said.

McCabe said the fire may send a message not just to the owners of other downtown buildings, but to the community as to how important the downtown area is.

“These buildings are right on top of each other, and this flame is getting bigger right now. It’s going to be a long night,” he said.

Marsha Jones, who has lived in Hot Springs for 33 years and said she had frequently taken friends to the Majestic for drinks, was at The Ohio Club near the hotel when emergency personnel first responded to the fire.

“I was sitting here …when a firetruck drove by,” she said via phone, noting that a crowd of people had gathered across from the hotel to take pictures of the blaze.

Don Gooch, Hot Springs area community president of Arvest Bank, called the blaze “a tragedy.”

“I don’t think it was easily reparable, and it’s going to require vision and money. But seeing the bones of the city going up like this is a tragedy,” Gooch said.

Local developer Rick Williams, owner of The Atrium at Serenity Pointe, also was saddened to see a piece of Hot Springs history go up in flames.

The hotel “had dignity. Rehabilitation would have been the best thing. I hate to see it happen this way,” he said.

Watching the historic building, which had 250 rooms and suites, burn saddened Maxwell Blade, a magician whose business is nearby on the north end of Central Avenue.

“I wish something could have been done to save it. It’s one of the most historical buildings in the city, but eventually something was going to have to happen. It’s just sad to see it happen like this,” he said.

As news of the fire spread via social media, Jimmy Lynch from Little Rock said he saw a picture of the fire posted by a friend, and he drove up to West Mountain to look down on the scene.

“I used to stay there all the time when I was a kid,” he said, noting that he had “many fond memories of staying at the hotel decades ago.”

Joanna Glen of Hot Springs said she had just moved back to the city a year ago. “This just breaks my heart.”

Glen said she never stayed at the Majestic, but always knew it as a landmark in Hot Springs.

The original part of the hotel at 101 Park Ave. consisted of five stories. In the 1920s, a red-brick structure called the Annex was added, which is where the lobby was located. In 1957, owners built an addition called the Lanai Suites. The Lanai Towers, the newest and tallest part of the hotel, is on the west end of the property and was built in the early 1960s. The original structure was the northernmost part of the hotel. It held the spa and bathhouse, and is where the fire was centralized.

The Majestic Hotel was named for the Majestic Stove Co. of St. Louis.

Work crews boarded up the hotel on Feb. 18, after a court date had been scheduled regarding an allegation from the city that the building was out of compliance with the city’s vacant-building code. Park Residences Development LLC of Kansas City, Mo., is listed as the current owner of the property.

Information for this article was provided by Jay Bell, Beth Bright, Cari Elliott, Jason Wilson and Tom Ritchey of The Sentinel-Record and Scott Carroll of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.