In the early 1950s, while Detroit real-estate magnate Ben Silberstein was staying at the Hotel with his family, his 17 year old daughter, Muriel, fell in love with the place. “Buy it for us, Daddy,” she pleaded. In 1954, he did, purchasing it from Courtright for $5.5 million.

The Hotel’s popularity with celebrities and royalty continued to escalate. Guests included Prince Philip, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden, King Albert of Belgium, the Crown Prince of Monaco, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. Elizabeth Taylor’s father had an art gallery in the lower level of the Hotel, and Liz herself began a tradition of sharing bungalows with six of her eight husbands. In 1956, the pool and the cabana club were the setting for Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall in Designing Woman.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest of the Rat Pack used to engage in prodigious drinking bouts in The Polo Lounge. Towards the end of the decade, Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand stayed in bungalows 20 and 21 while filming Let’s Make Love.