October 18, 1987|By Jay Clarke, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
HOT SPRINGS, ARK. — In its heyday in the first half of this century, Bathhouse Row was a remarkable place.
Great bathhouses, each vying with the other in architecture, style and service, stood side by side on magnolia-lined Central Avenue. LaMar`s lobby had murals of European scenes to make the well-traveled feel at home. Fordyce used a lot of stained glass, including a remarkable third-floor skylight. It also had a roof garden and the state`s largest gymnasium, where heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey once trained. Quapaw`s tiled dome was a Bathhouse Row landmark.
Inside these palatial structures, white-robed attendants ministered to their clients, many of them the fashionable folk of the day. Guests were bathed in the hot waters of the springs that give this city its name.
For decades, a trip to Hot Springs was not simply a therapeutic exercise, but also a quest for pleasure. Name entertainers played the stages. Dining out was a treat.
Big gambling clubs like the Vapors and the Southern Club drew thousands to the city. Illegal whiskey flowed almost as freely as the spring water, and whorehouses flourished within a few hundred yards of the bathhouses.
Hot Springs was an oasis of vice in this Bible-Belt state. But authorities finally cracked down on gambling and illegal booze in the late 1960s. Thermal bathing, which had begun to go out of favor some years before, wasn`t enough to keep Hot Springs tourism going. The bathhouses started to close down.
In the four years between 1972 and 1976, tourism in Hot Springs declined by nearly a million people.
Today, only one bathhouse, the Buckstaff, still offers hot mineral-water baths, along with four hotels, the Arlington, Hilton, Majestic and Downtowner. But surprisingly, Hot Springs is on the comeback trail.
For the time being, Bathhouse Row remains a silent, Victorian street frozen in time. But Hot Springs has other attractions and, more importantly, it plans to revive the grand bathhouses for other uses.
In the scenic Ouachita Mountains, the city is a center for mid-America vacations. It has a theme park, a hands-on science museum, three large and attractive lakes, a growing convention business and the third biggest horse-racing meet in the nation at the Oaklawn track.
Nearly a million gallons of 143-degree water still pour out daily from the 47 springs in Hot Springs National Park, the oldest federal preserve in the United States and the third most visited. Closed or not, the bathhouses attract more than a million visitors a year and the yellow-and-red-brick Grand Promenade on the mountainside just above them is one of the prettiest walks anywhere.
This kind of ambiance-along with two major retirement villages-may be why Rand McNally`s ``Places Rated Guide`` named Hot Springs as the third best place in the country to retire. Hot Springs also received national attention earlier in the year when W Magazine, the chronicler of haute life, declared Hot Springs was ``in`` and Paris was ``out.``
Before it can truly become an ``in`` destination, however, Hot Springs has to improve its prime attraction-and it is doing just that.
Most of the old bathhouses are in deplorable condition, but the good news is that they are about to undergo a transformation.
Hot Springs National Park, one of the few national urban preserves in the country, is spending $5 million to renovate the Fordyce Bathhouse for a targeted reopening next summer. Woodwork and glass is being restored, ceilings and flooring replaced.
Five other bathhouses will be restored by Little Rock entrepreneur Melvyn Bell, who specializes in turning around what he calls ``under-utilized``
assets. Bell was granted lease rights by the park service in August and plans to spend $8 million to $10 million to turn the grand old houses into viable enterprises.
The Superior Bathhouse at the north end of the Row is to become a museum of mechanical musical instruments, housing some of Bell`s own collection. The Hale next door will become a B&B; inn.
The Maurice will be restored as a health spa. The most striking house, the Quapaw, will become a theme restaurant, while the Ozark will be sublet to the Hot Springs Art Center as an art museum.
Along with these moves, the rundown downtown area just opposite Bathhouse Row has been declared a National Historic District, opening it up to low-interest improvement loans.
In addition, the city has just sold bonds to lay new sidewalks, bury utility wires and cables and install antique lamp posts along Central Avenue, the main street. And store owners are improving facades.