Requirement of a five star hotel

The five-star ranking finally may
be within reach. Nemacolin's
staff is hoping this will be the
year they do what no area
establishment has done before --
break through the fine china
ceiling into the ranks of the
nation's best hotels and
restaurants.
That may seem odd. This place
once filled the pockets of the
world's richest men -- Carnegie,
Frick, Mellon and scores more --
and even into the 1980s was
home to a fistful of giant
corporations, some of whom,
like Gulf Oil and Westinghouse,
are now gone.
The men -- and for years it was
basically men -- who ran those
companies didn't need five-star
hotels in Pittsburgh, said Joe
Kane, general manager of the
Westin Convention Center hotel.
They had five-star homes.
Power lunches and dinners could
be held at discreet
establishments such as the
Duquesne Club, a gathering
place opened in the 1800s that
has claimed bank presidents,
steel and oil executives, ketchup
makers and even Supreme Court
justices as members
Chef Abel Bomberault, hired in
the 1930s, elevated the quality of
food coming from its kitchen.
"He really put the Duquesne
Club on the map from a cuisine
point of view," said Melvin Rex,
who spent more than three
decades working for the club
before stepping down last year
from the executive director's
position.
Over the years, members
invested to maintain its top-
notch reputation. Turn-down
service. No frayed carpets or
dusty mantels. An excellent
fitness center. Plenty of the
club's famed macaroons gently
presented to guests and
members.
The highest ranked hotel in the
area now is the Renaissance
Pittsburgh Hotel, which opened
on Sixth Street just two years
ago. Last fall the American
Automobile Association, which
publishes one of the two main
rating guides, awarded it four
diamonds out of five.
"We would have been
disappointed had we not gotten
a four-diamond rating," said Bill
Engel, director of marketing for
the hotel.
He doesn't believe the facility
could have been rated any
higher. The physical
requirements demanded of a
five-diamond location can be
hard to fit into an older,
restored structure such as the
Renaissance, he said.
Mobil Travel Guide, the other
ratings publisher, hasn't been
through yet to rate the hotel.
AAA's spokeswoman Janie
Graziani said Pittsburgh is not the
only city with no five-diamond
properties. "There are lots of
cities that don't," she said, noting
that hot, happening Miami just
got its first five-diamond hotel
ranking in five years and its first
five-diamond restaurant ever.
The city with the most is, of
course, New York with five hotels
and six restaurants at the top of
the list. The only place in
Pennsylvania that Mobil
considers worthy of five stars is
Le Bec-Fin restaurant in
Philadelphia.
Ritz-Carlton, whose hotels
almost always get four- or five-
star ratings, came close to
building a $71 million, 14-story
hotel on Mt. Washington in the
early 1990s, before the project
ran out of steam. Four Seasons
and Mandarin Oriental are the
other two chains with five-star
reputations.
Pittsburgh could lure one of
those operators yet, but new
hotels aren't opening at the rate
they once did.
This year about five new Ritz-
Carltons will open, said Vivian
Deuschl, vice president of public
relations. A few years ago, when
the economy paid for more
business trips, between eight and
10 were built each year.