Travel - San Antonio Luxury Hotels, Part 2 - The Hilton Palacio del Rio

As I've said before elsewhere, I've stayed at a fair number of luxury hotels at this point.  I've stayed in the cheapest rooms available in some, and expensive rooms in others, and my standards have drifted some over the years.  What I have never done, until now, is felt disappointed in a hotel that I had looked forward to staying in.

The Hilton Palacio del Rio was a disappointment.  I was primed to enjoy my stay, and there are touches to it that I really like.  At the same time, though, the construction of the hotel dictates that its rooms are basically those of a large, well-maintained Hampton Inn.  To understand why I was primed to enjoy it, and what that construction dictates, I will have to tell the story of the Palacio del Rio, and of how I found out about it.

In 1967, Conrad Hilton faced a problem.  Simply put, there was no Hilton luxury hotel in convenient distance of the 1968 Hemisfair - the World's Fair held in San Antonio that year.  Not only was there no Hilton, there was no possibility of building one, for love or money.  The time just wasn't there and getting land was near impossible.

Enter a truly visionary graduate of Texas A&M University's civil engineering program, H. B. Zachry.  How visionary? The department has, as long as I have been associated with it (as I'm also a graduate of it twice over), been called the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.  The college's largest single classroom space during my time there was the Zachry Engineering Building, built by Zachry Construction, still a major construction contractor in Texas, using tilt-up concrete walls, at the time a novel approach but now standard for how to get a concrete box up quickly.  Zachry was, at the time, the prime contractor in the redevelopment of the San Antonio Riverwalk and the construction of Hemisfair Park preparatory to the Hemisfair.

Zachry made Hilton a proposition: He would build a Hilton hotel, in walking distance, in time for the Hemisfair, and he would assume all of the construction risks.  In return, he would franchise the hotel.  At the time, Hilton did not do franchises.  Every Hilton hotel was a Hilton hotel.  Hilton agonized over the decision, but decided a slice of the money from a world's fair was better than no slice.  For reference, there are three Marriott properties nearby, for similar reasons, and Hilton would establish the Emily Morgan after deciding the San Antonio market would sustain multiple luxury hotels in a single brand in downtown even without a world's fair.

Zachry immediately got to work.  First, they secured a site - not just a site, but the perfect site, with one side on the Riverwalk and the other across the street from Hemisfair Park.  The Alamo was a block away, La Villita, also redeveloped for the Hemisfair, was next door, it was perfect.  Then, they drove foundations and build a conventional hotel up to the fourth floor.  This is why floors 1-4 of the Palacio del Rio look very different from floors 5-22; they were built differently.  At the same time, they established a concrete yard on the outskirts of town and built all of the formwork, templates, and jigs needed to construct entire rooms onsite.  Plumbing fixtures, bathrooms, everything was assembled at the yard and hauled into place.  Zachry and his wife actually rode their room from yard to install.

It took nine months to build.  Of that, forty-six days were installing the guest rooms.  It opened ahead of schedule.  In other words, it was an astounding engineering project.  I learned about all of this from one of the most interesting professors I ever had a chance to study from - no, not Zachry himself, he died when I was four - but a professional geologist who used the Riverwalk as a case study in flood control.  Dr. Mathewson has since died, but I suspect every single member of my family who's visited San Antonio with me has heard the story of that hotel, among many others.

I was, in other words, primed for great things.  Unfortunately, the concrete-box construction of each and every room, while it was a feat of engineering wizardry, also limits the rooms.  Some things, such as plumbing finishes, furniture, and so forth, are easily changed, and they are good, for what they are.  But... compare the Emily Morgan, which began life as a hospital and therefore had relatively easily moved interior partitions, and the Palacio del Rio, which began life as a series of concrete boxes that were bolted together on-site.  The rooms are what they are, and cannot really be adjusted.  In 1968, that was revolutionary; in 2021, that's the blueprint for how you build a new Hampton Inn in an oil town.  I pick on them because they're also a Hilton brand, at the other end of the budget spectrum, and I've stayed enough at them to appreciate that they can be just as nice, and frequently have better amenities, than luxury hotels.

The concrete-box construction also limits room size; where a modern room tends to have two Queen beds, two Doubles or a King are the standard at the Palacio del Rio.  It's not bad - they're comfortable, the pillows are good, and the materials on-hand are good quality - it's just overcome by the times.  The construction style also means that the corridor ceilings are absurdly low, between six and seven feet, though room ceilings are normal height.  However, the concrete-box construction also produced one other, good outcome.  Every single room has a functional, open-air balcony.  I am honestly surprised that the hotel accepts the fall risks associated with this, but it was welcome nonetheless, as it meant that family travel included a space where we could breathe but not be out of reach.

I was present for a conference, and I will say that, for a small conference such as I was attending, the Palacio del Rio is excellent.  Their concierge service maintained everything in a clean, orderly manner despite a couple hundred coffee-swilling consultants on-hand, their agua fresca stock was impressive, well-made, and cold, and the 22nd-floor conference room had some truly spectacular window views of San Antonio.  If you're organizing a relatively small conference, I think the Palacio del Rio is an excellent venue.

I've already talked a little bit about the location, so I won't spend too much time there.  It's as close to perfect a location as exists in downtown San Antonio.  Casa Rio, Schilo's, and $25-a-day parking are a block away in one direction, La Villita is next door, the Alamo is a block away in another direction, Hemisfair Park is across the street... it is, in other words, pretty much perfectly positioned to enjoy downtown San Antonio, mostly without even resorting to streets, but instead enjoying the Riverwalk.  In that regard at least, it's actually better than the Emily Morgan.

In summary, if you're at the Palacio del Rio for a conference, or you're organizing a conference, it's definitely worth a look.  If you're interested in an engineering marvel, it's worth a look.  If, on the other hand, you're there on routine leisure travel? I think there are better options nearby for the price, and, with no slight intended to the excellent staff, the innovative construction, or the level of maintenance, the Palacio del Rio feels dated without feeling charming.