LR’s Legacy Hotel sold
Local investors to renovate, call it the Freiderica again.
The 102-year-old Legacy Hotel in Little Rock has been sold for $2.85 million to a local group of investors who will operate under the label of Choice Hotel International’s Ascend Collections.
Kishan Patel of North Little Rock, one of five investors, said Tuesday that the group closed on the deal Aug. 8. All five, he said, are independent second-generation hoteliers who formed Starlight Hospitality Group, or SHG Management, to buy the Legacy.
Better known to older generations as the Hotel Sam Peck, the Legacy is Little Rock’s second-oldest hotel. It opened in 1914. Only the Capital Hotel, which opened in 1877, is older. The Legacy is at 625 W. Capitol Ave., across from the federal courts building.
The new owners will return the Legacy to its original name — the Hotel Freiderica, Patel said.
Patel and his fellow investors bought the Legacy from
Amin Amarshi. The hotel had been closed for a few years when Amarshi, through Southern Comfort Inns Inc., bought it in 2001 for $974,000. The Legacy had 115 rooms, but renovations by Amarshi over the years turned some of the rooms in the back part of the hotel into one- and two-bedroom apartments. Altogether, the hotel takes up about 70,000 square feet.
Amarshi was out of state for his daughter’s wedding and couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
The hotel will go through a complete renovation expected to take about eight
months, Patel said. The relatively new apartments will be turned into suites. Some of those rooms have private balconies overlooking the hotel’s courtyard and gazebo.
The restaurant and bar, now called Filibusters, also will be renovated and most likely leased out, he said.
SHG Management, which was registered by Patel with the secretary of state’s office in December 2014, will operate under Choice Hotel International’s Ascend Collections. Ascend properties are privately owned and tend to be smaller “boutique” hotels.
Patel said Choice Hotels offers its Ascend developers a range of options in deciding the “look and feel” of a hotel. “I think people are going to be
really excited to see how the hotel turns out,” Patel said.
When the Freiderica was opened in 1914 by Fred W. Allsopp, a bookkeeper and later owner of the Arkansas Gazette, rooms could be had for $2, and meals for 50 cents.
Sam and Henrietta Peck bought the hotel in 1938, renaming it Hotel Sam Peck. Peck later hired a young architect, Edward Durell Stone of Fayetteville, to lead a renovation and expansion, including a sixth-floor penthouse suite and a five-story annex in an art deco or “international” style. It was the first Arkansas project for Stone, who, in 1971, went on to design the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
In 1960, Stone drew up the designs for the motor court — the Sam Peck Motel — that makes up the Legacy’s southern half.
After Peck died in 1967, the hotel went through a number of owners. In 1984, under new ownership, it became the Radisson Legacy Hotel.
Choice Hotels International, based in Rockville, Md., has a half million rooms at some 6,300 hotels in more than 35 countries and territories. Choice is best known for its Quality Inn, Comfort Inn and Clarion brands. Other franchised Ascend properties in Arkansas are the Burgundy Inn in Little Rock, the Inn at the Mill in Johnson (Washington County) and the Seville Hotel in Harrison.