Los
Angeles County
Biographies
CHARLES BIDELL HERVEY
Many cities in California and other
states of the Union have profited by the activities of Charles Bidell Hervey, who is the proprietor of the Stowell Hotel of Los Angeles and has won marked success in
a line of business that has been followed in succession by three generations of
his family. He was born in Apelika, Alabama, April 6, 1874, in a hotel owned by his
maternal grandfather, George Washington Bidell, who
operated the first chain of hostelries in the south. The mother of Charles B. Hervey was Anna
Belle Bidell, whose forebears came to this country
from England. The father, also of
English ancestry, likewise engaged in the hotel business in the south. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted
in the Army of the Confederacy and rose to the rank of colonel.
Charles B. Hervey completed his
education in Georgia, graduating from Mercer University at Macon, where he
gained his initial experience in the hotel business, becoming connected with
the Lenior House.
He left that city in 1894, when a young man of twenty-one, and came to
Los Angeles, joining the office staff of the Hollenbeck Hotel. Later he went to Houston, Texas, where he
managed the Rice Hotel for his father.
On the 16th of November,
in Natchez, Mississippi, C. B. Hervey was married to Miss Mary Skidamore, and in 1900 returned with his wife to Los
Angeles. In partnership with A. C. Bilike he conducted the Hollenbeck Hotel of this city for
two years and in 1902 went to Mobile, Alabama, where he opened the Hotel
Bienville. He established the Cawthorn Hotel in 1906 and in 1908 opened the New Battle
House, giving to Mobile three fine hostelries within a period of six
years. In 1908 he also opened Hotel San
Carlos at Pensacola, Florida, and successfully operated these four hotels as
president of the Hervey Hotels Company.
Following his return to Los Angeles in 1921, Mr. Hervey leased and
operated the Samarkand in Santa Barbara, the Green Hotel in Pasadena, the Maryland
in San Diego, and the Stowell in Los Angeles. At Phoenix, Arizona, he established the
Biltmore, becoming its manager in 1929, when this hotel was completed, and in
1930 opened the Palya at Ensenada, Mexico. Devoting his life to the one line of business,
he has steadily enlarged his field of operations and is generally regarded as
one of the foremost exponents of the art of hotel-keeping in this country.
Mr. Hervey gives his political
support to the Democratic Party, and is an Episcopalian in religious
belief. In fraternal circles he figures
prominently as a past exalted ruler of Mobile Lodge, No. 108, B. P. O. E.; an
honorary member of the Abbey Lodge of Masons at Memphis, Tennessee; a life
member of the York and Scottish Rite bodies of Mobile,
Alabama; and a noble of the Mystic Shrine.
In 1926 in association with Humphrey Read, of New York City, he founded
the Pacific Geographic Society, becoming the first president of the
organization, which maintains its headquarters in the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce building and now has more than five thousand members. Mr. Hervey also belongs to the Montecito
Country Club, the Santa Barbara Club, La Cumbre
Country Club of Santa Barbara, and is a past president of the Southern
California Hotel Men’s Association. By
reason of the nature of his business he has gained a wide
acquaintance and his genial, kindly nature, coupled with his sincerity and
innate courtesy, has endeared him to a host of friends.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 477-478, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES