In previous posts, I mentioned that the Stoneleigh will be paying homage to its famous former guests with rooms dedicated in their memory (such rooms previously mentioned were for Judy Garland & Margo Jones and Elvis). Well, I have just caught word of two more rooms that will draw inspiration from those famous faces that once stopped by the Stoneleigh.

First, there will be a room dedicated to Oliver Stone, the famous film director who filmed several films in Dallas, notably Talk Radio, JFK, and Born on the Fourth of July. In fact, during filming of Fourth of July, Stone set-up a production office in the Stoneleigh suite he was staying in. It was his presence (along with his lead role Tom Cruise) that established a strong reputation of the Stoneleigh as being the place to stay in Dallas during motion picture production. Another reason that Hollywood types began to flock to the Stoneleigh was the sense of privacy. Former manager Gary Bruton notes, “People could stay in our hotel and we respected their privacy. We served an enormous number of film and TV productions companies and many celebrities, and we didn’t release this information to our guests.”

Next, a room will be dedicated to Isaac Tigrett, the founder of the Hard Rock Cafe Dallas (and later the House of Blues, the moniker of Dallas’ newest music venue). At age 22, he co-founded the very first Hard Rock in London in 1971, and capitalized on its success by building the first one in the USA, in New York on 1984. It wasn’t long until Isaac arrived in Dallas to build the largest, most ambitious Hard Rock to date. As he launched the new club and began gathering rock n’ roll memorabilia like ZZ Top fuzzy guitars and the 1964 “Best New Artist” Grammy for the Beatles, Tigrett settled into a Stoneleigh penthouse with his wife Maureen Starkey (former wife of Ringo Starr) for two years. Tigrett was known for putting the Stoneleigh on the map with the rock ‘n roll elite, and was known to have guests like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Robert Plant, and ZZ Top cavorting around his Stonleigh penthouse residence.

Thanks to local freelance writer Mary Morris for all the great insider information.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Historic Features, Hotel Renovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.