CRESWELL – Back in the day, you never knew who might just show up at the Eugene Hotel … or what might just happen … or when … or if you’d be lucky enough to be there to see it.
That was the kind of mystique that hovered over the Eugene Hotel for quite some time.
And when the landmark hotel celebrates its 100th anniversary on Saturday, June 14, it will escort many residents on an extraordinary trip down memory lane.
Located at the corner of Broadway and Pearl, the hotel’s big celebration kicks off with a vintage car show Saturday at 10 a.m., while Paul Biondi and Gus Russell play jazz in the lobby from 10-11. They’ll be followed by Skip Jones playing R&B at 11:30, and the Dorian May Quartet playing jazz at 1:30.
Finally, at 2 p.m., Mayor Kaarin Knudson and the Eugene Chamber of Commerce will lead a Rededication Ceremony for the hotel in the lobby.
The Eugene Hotel was converted to an active senior living community in 1983 for active and independent adults 58 and over. So today’s residents would surely like to match wits with the likes of Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Loretta Young, and William Holden, former hotel residents while filming old movies out on the McKenzie River. Later on, Jack Nicholson, John Belushi, Jimmy Buffett, and Emmy Lou Harris were just a few of the luminaries who made favorable remarks about the hotel.
Right place, right time
As a concert promoter at the Eugene Hotel during the 70s, Jeff Ross knew he had stepped into the right situation at the right time.
“It was late 60s, early 70s – and Eugene, San Francisco and Seattle had underground radio,” Ross said. “Jay West had bought KZEL, and it was the heartbeat of the community. The Country Fair started, these new owners bought the hotel, and they wanted to put a music program together.”
Ross was hired as music program director, and soon he was booking a lot of jazz and blues acts, including Belushi and Robert Cray, a popular blues artist today who played back then for $1 admission. Guitar legend Pat Metheny played for $5 during a Eugene stopover.
“i was booking the Bill Evans Trio and mostly jazz artists, and Monday blues artists – a lot of local Northwest bands. Robert Cray played frequently,” Ross said. “We had a terrific advantage because we had a hotel that had rooms and restaurants to put up the artists and feed them.
“We had music seven nights a week. Pat Metheny was here. Ticket prices were low. It was kind of a magical time. It gave us a chance to give some touring artists a chance to perform at a good venue. Music had a political or cultural message back then.
“It was a very glorious time and the hotel was the center of it all. We were music wall-to-wall. … People would still come out even if I didn’t book household names.
“We could have never done it without Creswell and Cottage Grove. All of the communities had an impact in supporting the hotel – it wasn’t just a Eugene center, it was the whole area’s center.”
Star-studded venue
How cuckoo is it that one would become friends with Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas during the filming of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”?
That’s what happened with Katherine Wilson during the early part of her career as an award-winning major motion picture writer and producer.
Then, as luck would have it, as a location scout and casting director, her first big film was “Animal House,” where she worked closely with Belushi and all of that film’s up-and-coming stars. She also worked on the movie “Stand By Me” and – while she has authored five screenplays of her own – it’s her love of mentoring others that drives the Walterville resident. She has propelled more than 100 aspiring young people into professional careers.
“I mentor today, I don’t teach,” Wilson said. “I bring pros in. I learn how to location-scout from these guys. I would start bringing talent in, and they taught me how easy it is to process now.”
Wilson recalled the story of Nicholson’s famous scene at the Denny’s off the Glenwood exit, when he orders a chicken salad sandwich – but hold the chicken.
“Jack stayed (at the Eugene Hotel) in ‘69 for ‘Five Easy Pieces,’ not a lot of places were open, he saw a sign that Denny’s was always open, so he pulled over and filmed that chicken salad sandwich scene at the Glenwood exit that everybody always talks about,” she said.
Nicholson was there with actors Karen Black, Laszlo Kovacs, Lorna Thayer and “Five Easy Pieces” director Bob Rafelson. Staying at the EH – particularly in that era – was the only thing that made sense.
“They were staying at the Eugene Hotel, there was nowhere else to stay back then, other than Motel 6, places like that,” Wilson said. “The Eugene Hotel was built because there was a need for it – dignitaries could stay there … timber barons wanted to have a place for their friends.”
The Eugene Hotel has filled a void … for a whole lot of folks, for a whole lot of reasons.
“Why do people move to San Francisco or Seattle? Because of the culture. And the Eugene Hotel just screamed ‘come here,’” Wilson said. “When word got out, it got a reputation for being a Hollywood hotel. At first it was a Big Band hotel. Big Band music, Harry James – I wouldn’t be surprised if proms were held there.
“And the bathrooms were made for women in gowns. The bathrooms were built so you fan your way in as you back up at these grand ballroom events. It was so elegant. And the gentlemen’s room has a giant red-velvet covered bench for the men to wait for their women. You don’t see bathrooms like that anymore.”
Classic moments
After Jay West bought KZEL-96.1 FM, it became a free-form progressive radio station with no playlist. That changed after he sold the station in ’79, and the station now plays classic rock.
But West enjoyed some classic moments while working at the hotel.
“The Town Club was a private club on the second floor,” West said. “There was a bar and dice table, and there was always some gambling going on. Well, the Town Club became a club for gay men and women, which was a first for this town.
“We booked a lot of acts – Emmy Lou Harris, the annual Halloween party, Belushi was there, Robert Cray and Curtis Salgado, and they had a band called the Crayhawks – which was one of Robert Cray’s splinter bands – and that was the beginning of the ‘Blues Brothers’.”
It all goes back to the Eugene Hotel.
“It was the hotel in town. In the ’70s, it was the place for music,” West said. “A lot of people – even if they were playing at the fairgrounds or other places, they stayed at the hotel. Jimmy Buffett came to the hotel. He was a strong presence at the hotel.
“Jamie Bates was the first woman in Oregon to do a morning drive-time show. Stan Garrett brought a bunch of new artists to town. People like Bonnie Raitt … there were so many.
“It was a fabulous time to be alive.”
