Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is Starwood Hotels & Resorts' largest and second oldest brand (Westin being the oldest). Starwood's headquarters are in
White Plains, New YorkThe City of White Plains is the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...
.
The origins of the brand date back to 1937 when Ernest Henderson and
Robert MooreRobert Moore may refer to:*Robert Moore , Northern Ireland theologian and politician*Robert Moore , United States Congressman from Pennsylvania...
acquired the Stonehaven Hotel in
Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River and the county seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.In the 2000 census, the city population was 154,082. It is the third largest city in Massachusetts and fourth largest in New England...
. The chain got its name from another early hotel that the pair had acquired, which had a lighted sign on the roof saying "Sheraton Hotel" which was large and heavy and therefore too expensive to change.
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is Starwood Hotels & Resorts' largest and second oldest brand (Westin being the oldest). Starwood's headquarters are in
White Plains, New YorkThe City of White Plains is the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...
.
Sheraton history
The origins of the brand date back to 1937 when Ernest Henderson and
Robert MooreRobert Moore may refer to:*Robert Moore , Northern Ireland theologian and politician*Robert Moore , United States Congressman from Pennsylvania...
acquired the Stonehaven Hotel in
Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River and the county seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.In the 2000 census, the city population was 154,082. It is the third largest city in Massachusetts and fourth largest in New England...
. The chain got its name from another early hotel that the pair had acquired, which had a lighted sign on the roof saying "Sheraton Hotel" which was large and heavy and therefore too expensive to change. Instead, they decided to call all their hotels by that name.
Henderson and Moore had opened three hotels in Boston by 1939, continuing with their rapid expansion opening properties along the entire East coast. In 1945, it was the first hotel chain to be listed on the
New York Stock ExchangeThe New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by United States dollar value of its listed companies' securities...
.
In 1949 Sheraton expanded internationally with the purchase of two Canadian hotel chains. The 1960s saw the first Sheraton hotels outside North America with the opening of the Tel Aviv-Sheraton in 1961 and the Macuto-Sheraton outside Caracas, Venezuela, in 1963. By 1965, the 100th Sheraton had opened its doors. The multinational conglomerate ITT purchased the chain in 1968, after which it was known as ITT Sheraton.
ITT Sheraton reached a milestone in 1985. It became the first Western company to operate a hotel in the People's Republic of China assuming management of the state-built Great Wall Hotel in Beijing, which became the Great Wall Sheraton.
In 1994, ITT Sheraton purchased a controlling interest in the Italian CIGA chain, the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi, or Italian Grand Hotels Company, which had been seized from its previous owner, the Aga Khan, by its creditors. The chain had begun by operating hotels in Italy, but overexpanded across Europe just as a recession hit. . These hotels formed the core of what came to be the ITT Sheraton Luxury group, later Starwood's Luxury Collection.
In April 1995, Sheraton introduced a new, mid-scale hotel brand Four Points by Sheraton Hotels, to replace the designation of certain hotels as Sheraton Inns.
In 1998, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. acquired ITT Sheraton (outbidding Hilton). It has since grown to become one of the leading hotel companies in the world. Its other brands include Four Points by Sheraton Hotels, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, The Luxury Collection, Element by Westin , Le Méridien, W Hotels, and Aloft.
Since buying ITT Sheraton, Starwood has created a fourth brand from their hotels. St. Regis Hotels & Resorts are named after the famous hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York, which had been a Sheraton for years. That hotel and the former Sheraton Carlton in Washington, D.C., were two of the first hotels in the new chain, which now spreads across the globe.
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