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Where did the Chauffeur sleep when on the road with boss ?


Mark Gregory

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I just watched the movie   It is Wonderful Life   Sam Wainwright says he is heading south to Florida in his Duesenberg J  ? . So did his chauffeur stay in the same Hotel as his boss or did they have a chauffeur's quarters ?  Or did he go with the car to a local Motel and come back later with the car . 

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Good question, Mark.  In the old days, when having

servants was much more common, even upper-middle class

families might have a servant or two, especially a maid.

Some well-to-do families would take along their maid, too,

if, for instance, they were going to Florida for a while.

 

I have someone I can ask this question, who grew up in that era.

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Back in the day there were two common options. High end places had another local building on site or near by, where the "staff" of "help" would stay. This was also very common in tourist areas with limited rooms along the beach/water. Example would be the Harbourview Hotel in Edgartown Massachusetts on Martha"s Vinyard had a special area in the attic, like a dorm, for the "help". In this particular place, I have stayed in the "dorm area" back as a young kid during college. They also used it for "off island" help when they needed extra people on hand for service. In the upper left hand portion of the photo, you can see the dorm area that was converted from attic space to sleeping area. I had a lot of fun there back in the early 80's!

IMG_8404.jpg

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In N Y City pre war there were lower priced hotels on the West side of N Y City that chauffeurs would stay in after they dropped their employers off at the upscale places

to the best of my knowledge none of the upscale hotels had chauffeurs or hired help areas to stay in. The cars themselves would be parked indoors in multi story parking garages, again some more upscale then others. Some of these were provided by the specific auto makes who sold or serviced the cars, this was especially true for Lincoln in New York in the 1925-33 era.  There were numerous ads for this in the souvenir catalogs issued for the annual custom body salon held in NY first at the Astor Hotel then at the Hotel Commodore after it was constructed.

I knew one of the chauffeurs for Herbert Franklin of the Franklin car company and he told me of the hotels where fine , said all was good and he liked the trip from Syracuse to NY or "the big city" as it was known.

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8 hours ago, alsancle said:

Mark,  this is a great question.   Ed,  where do you stay these days?

 

Walt,  I remember reading the drivers account of bringing Herbert Fanklin to NY.  Maybe you wrote it in the CCCA magazine?

 

I stay on Chappaquiddick ,  I prefer the quiet to the downtown, only down side is the short ferry ride.........from Edgartown, the ferry from Woods Hole is an hour.........and LOTS of money.

CA4839F3-BD91-4DE3-98EA-3CEDFC96C479.jpeg

BF908F63-2AFE-4611-A3CF-ED5DCB27F581.jpeg

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I knew the Chauffeur for the family that owned four Pierce Arrow dealerships, three in Massachusetts and one in Rhode Island. He had a great deal, as the wife of the dealership owner was estranged from him, and since they didn’t want to divorce, she bled her old man for money, so he stayed in the same hotels as she did. He really liked his job, and it lasted seven years, till the dealerships closed down. In 1930, he was driving a Pierce Series A Brunn Limo, then he picked up from the factory in Buffalo, to take delivery. 

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Hey Mark,

                     Here in Palm Springs we have a facility that addresses that exact issue.

It is the La Plaza Mall built in 1936 and (amazingly) still standing today. It's claim to fame was being the first actual shopping mall built in Southern California. The builder had the foresight to offer a shopping center with everything needed to appeal to the upscale clientele Palm Springs drew during the winter months. Ground floor has many shops. On the second floor they built small 1 bedroom cabins complete with fireplace. The same style cabins were also built in the courtyard.  A rooftop restaurant and night club was a hot spot. The La Plaza Theater hosted the premier of Camille with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in attendance. Both Jack Benny and Bob Hope broadcast regularly from the theater in the 1940's. A Cadillac dealership opened there 1938 and is still in business, owned by the same family 80+ years later, at a new location. The entire property has a huge subterranean parking lot which served as space for the dealerships's stock ( the showroom at ground level would only accommodate a couple of cars) as well as parking for the seasonal renter's limousines. Accommodations for the chauffeurs was on the south side, upper floor at the rear. Quite a unique and successful property for it's time. Like I said, it still stands today and surprisingly unaltered for the most part. People no longer rent the cabins. Most have been converted to small businesses of one type or another. The underground parking is now mostly storage space. The former Mobil Gas Station is now a burger stand. The area where the chauffeur's quarters was, is unused and closed to the public now. I have a friend at the city who gave me a personal and complete tour of the property several years ago. It is still an amazing structure and one can get the feel of how exclusive it must have been back in the 1930's. The chauffeur "suites" were quite spartan and resembled nothing so much as prison cells. If you have visited Alcatraz, you'll get a pretty good idea of the level of luxury. There are about a dozen or 15 of them. All concrete with room for a single bed, and a sink. Screen door opens on to a shared balcony. Quaint yes, but still pretty cool. A corner stairway leads from these quarters down to the underground parking area. So the swells could enjoy the pleasure of their stay without the misery of ever having to lay eyes on their hired help. :lol:

I have labeled a few of the places to give you a better idea of the property's layout.

Cheers,

                Greg

 

 

la plaza.png

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6 hours ago, 1937hd45 said:

My Grandfather was a chauffeur from 1910 until about 1960, you have to wonder how he and the boss arranged meeting and arriving on time in the days before cell phones. Bob 

 

I always wonder the same thing now.  But we all did it no later than 20 years ago.

 

Think about when you were a kid.  You spent all of Saturday night cruising around looking for someone.  That fun is gone now.

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6 hours ago, 1937hd45 said:

My Grandfather was a chauffeur from 1910 until about 1960, you have to wonder how he and the boss arranged meeting and arriving on time in the days before cell phones. Bob 

 

Easy, you were the help, so you went where you were told, when you were told, and you WERE on time.............

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For the last thirteen years or so I have had a part time job as a chauffeur with a company that runs antique cars out of Indianapolis. Meeting your riders rarely requires a cell phone. They tell you when and where to be, you arrive an hour early and bring a book.  

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14 hours ago, GregLaR said:

So the swells could enjoy the pleasure of their stay without the misery of ever having to lay eyes on their hired help. :lol:

 

Please don't believe the statement that the wealthy

disdained their employees.  That's more TV fiction than

reality.  Would you hire a long-time employee today and then

dislike him?  No, and especially not if he were living in your house.

 

One man I know grew up with numerous servants.  They had

3 chauffeurs for their large family, and to transport other servants.

The 3 laundresses had a Buick touring car to use.  The family

had additional cars for other servants to drive as needed for their work.

They even had a small school bus to take the servants' children

to school every morning.  I know of one time where the butler didn't

work out, so they transferred him--not fired him;  but please consider

that many servants became valued employees whom their employers

cared about and wanted to succeed. 

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I can't answer about on the road, at home, my Grandfather's chauffeur slept in the top floor of the carriage house.

 

My grandfather was Luther Whittington, who lived in Natchez, Mississippi, and was a state senator and Mayor of Natchez in the late 20's and through the 1930's.  

 

For the historians in the crowd, he lived on Union Street in the John Dicks House, which he bought around 1920.  This fine home was an architectural masterpiece, particularly the interior details, including a domed front entrance with associated spiral staircase.  The design of the house was connected to Stanford White's architectural firm.  I remember as a young child playing with toy trucks under the dome.

 

In the late 1920's, he needed a chauffeur.  He paid a visit to a friend, who happened to be the warden of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Parchman Farm.

 

He explained to the warden that he needed a reliable driver.  The warden brought in a few of the men who were, literally, on death row and sentenced to be executed.  My Grandfather was impressed with one young man of color, and worked a deal with the warden that the man be released and taken under his care.  His reasoning was that, in exchange for his "freedom", the man would be loyal.

 

His reasoning was correct, and the man, known and referred to only as "Brown", was a loyal employee for the rest of my Grandfather's life, until he (Luther) passed away in 1955.

 

Such an arrangement would be unheard of today, of course, but it was a different time and place, the Mississippi of the Great Depression.....

 

(The Union Street house is pictured, the color scheme chosen by current owners, as long as I remember the house was white.  The dome feature is not evident from the outside, but is above and to the left of the front door inside)

union street.jpg

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1 hour ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

 

Please don't believe the statement that the wealthy

disdained their employees.  That's more TV fiction than

reality.  Would you hire a long-time employee today and then

dislike him?  No, and especially not if he were living in your house.

 

One man I know grew up with numerous servants.  They had

3 chauffeurs for their large family, and to transport other servants.

The 3 laundresses had a Buick touring car to use.  The family

had additional cars for other servants to drive as needed for their work.

They even had a small school bus to take the servants' children

to school every morning.  I know of one time where the butler didn't

work out, so they transferred him--not fired him;  but please consider

that many servants became valued employees whom their employers

cared about and wanted to succeed. 

 I worked for a few years in Sands Point with the former chauffer of Harry Guggenheim and wife Alicia Patterson. He had nothing but respect and good things to say about his former employers.

 

Paul

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Many of the household staff became extended family members, I once owned a 1935 Pierce Arrow from the Vanderbuilt Family that was given to the chauffeur after the war. He lived out his life on one of their other estates.

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16 minutes ago, West Peterson said:

I think the same question could be asked today: Where does the private yet crew stay?

 

Where does the jet crew stay? I can answer that. At contract hotels very close to the airport. The crews are usually from a pool, so they fly a lot more than most people realise. They go "on the road" for five or six days, then have 10 to 12 days off. No Hollidays or Sundays off.............its a 24/7 type of thing depending on FAA rules, which are crazy complicated. The small jet pilots make very good money......its not as easy or as glamorous as you think. 

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Well : and then there were certain benefits which accrued to chauffeur and his daughter living in the carriage house apartment in the movie "Sabrina". (I have only seen the original starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, etc.).   -   Carl 

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6 hours ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

 

Please don't believe the statement that the wealthy

disdained their employees.  That's more TV fiction than

reality.  Would you hire a long-time employee today and then

dislike him?  No, and especially not if he were living in your house.

 

One man I know grew up with numerous servants.  They had

3 chauffeurs for their large family, and to transport other servants.

The 3 laundresses had a Buick touring car to use.  The family

had additional cars for other servants to drive as needed for their work.

They even had a small school bus to take the servants' children

to school every morning.  I know of one time where the butler didn't

work out, so they transferred him--not fired him;  but please consider

that many servants became valued employees whom their employers

cared about and wanted to succeed. 

 

Jeez John, did you leave your sense of humor under the bed today? I even made sure to add the smiley face (:lol:) so most would understand that was meant in jest.

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The sense of humor is alive and well, and it gets used, too!

Not you, Greg, but others often think of the rich as aloof,

uncaring, and looking down on everyone else.  In the last

few decades, TV has almost always portrayed them as being

that way--instead of magnanimous and generous, donating perhaps

millions to colleges and non-profit foundations.  The people

I've met, including one I know is a billionaire, are just as

kind and down-to-earth as anyone else, and if you ran into

them at the hardware store you couldn't tell them from the

everyday man on the street.  I wanted to set the record straight

in the spirit of fairness.

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5 hours ago, edinmass said:

 

Where does the jet crew stay? I can answer that. At contract hotels very close to the airport. The crews are usually from a pool, so they fly a lot more than most people realise. They go "on the road" for five or six days, then have 10 to 12 days off. No Hollidays or Sundays off.............its a 24/7 type of thing depending on FAA rules, which are crazy complicated. The small jet pilots make very good money......its not as easy or as glamorous as you think. 

 

Making sweeping generalizations about the "life of a small jet pilot" is as non sensensical as making them about the "life of domestic help of days gone by". While I can't with authority comment on the lot of the chauffeur I can about the modern corporate pilot.

Having been a corporate pilot for 31 years, the last 16 as chief pilot, I will say our flight crews were always treated with the upmost respect. As part of the team assuring our executives the ability to accomplish their goals we were expected to stay in comparable lodgings. And we did. While we were very careful to limit alcohol consumption I can assure you the lobster, filet, and shrimp on our expense reports were never questioned.

Safety being the utmost consideration crew duty times and adequate rest was observed.

We covered our aircraft 24/7 but rotating crew coverage assured everyone got most Sundays and holidays off or only being on standby.

While there are smaller charter companies that may treat their crews as chattel that is not the norm.

I would say our operation and the way it was (is) run is the norm.

Flying a sophisticated multi million dollar aircraft in an often hostile and rapidly changing environment is not easy but a competent crew always makes it look that way.

Any occupation performed day in and day out soon loses it's "glamour".

Being a pilot is not the exception................Bob

 

 

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 I didn’t say they weren’t  treated with respect.  I said they work harder than people realize and hours are longer and more difficult than many people would imagine.  I have been interacted  with many, many pilots and they’re all very decent hard-working people.  Life away from home is difficult.  Takes a toll on the family life.  I’ve gotten to know a bunch of pilots on a personal level over the last 20 years.  They are hard-working professionals.  Many are ex military.  I found them to have great humor and generally fun to spend time with.  Recently over the last five or 10 years there are many more female pilots.  The last several times I’ve flowen private both of the pilots were women. Interestingly the cabin steward was male.  There are no more “set” rules in the professional work place today. 

 

Weather flying in in a small Falcon or a GS550 none of the flight crew I have flowen with stayed at the same lodgings as the charter guests/passengers. While at Amelia I counted 27 jets parked on the runway (who knows if they were all their for the car event.)for the weekend but didn’t see any of the crew members at the Ritz. Many were staying about five blocks away in condos rented for the week/weekend. I think the charter and fractional ownership pilots tend to stay at the Hilton/Marriott type of accommodations. The two corporate pilots I am friendly with seemed to tend to stay at the local places they were most comfortable with as many of their destinations are visited often. I also do understand many of the crews are treated like the valued team players that they are, and would be in the same accommodations as the rest of the team. Let’s face it, by the time your using private aircraft to operate a business, your generally not pinching pennies!

Edited by edinmass (see edit history)
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At the risk of hijacking the thread.

The original premise of the question was "where does the chauffeur stay?" Meaning where does the employee, the dedicated driver of the cars owner stay when out of town with his employer. That morphed into where does an employer's "jet pilot" stay? Again, the inference being his faithful dedicated driver.

You seem to have confused  FAA part 135 charter operations with FAA part 91 operations, which most corporate flight depts. operate under, with flight crews who are dedicated to flying (driving) for their employer who may not accept renumeration for providing that service.

The operations with which you seem most familiar are for profit charter operations. They rent their aircraft and crews out usually on a per trip or hourly basis. In essence they are the Ubers of aviation. As such they control every financial aspect of the operation, often including where the crews stay and what they may spend per diem.

This does not, in any way diminish the integrity or professionalism of the flight crews. In many ways they are more proficient than FAA part 121 (airline) crews.

However, the thrust of the comparison was between vintage professional chauffeurs and modern chauffeurs driving not a Packard but a Gulfstream. As a modern "chauffer" driving a variety of corporate jets for my employer, over 31 years, I can state with confidence that in the many flight depts. of which I was familiar the flight crews were most certainly not required to crash at some rented weekend pad but were free to choose the Four Seasons or Regency. We often did. 

The point of all this flapping of gums was prompted by the generalization and anecdotal evidence that all "jet pilots"  fit your description of work hours, pay scale, and life style. Nothing could be further from the truth. The jobs performed by, conditions worked under, and pay received by part 135 and 91 flight crews are as varied as were the conditions likely endured by the Packard and Roll's drivers of yore.

As an aside, I said "comparable accommodations" not "same accommodations". Even though the crew is a valuable part of the team there will always be that unstated yet very real separation between the employer and hired help.  Staying at the same hotel could provide the opportunity for the crew to see something best not seen or visa versa.

Again, at the risk of high jacking the thread let me give you an example.

Back in the 90's Allentown was buried under 20" of snow and I had to divert to Chicago. We were stuck there for 2 days while the East coast dug out. I had the president and vice chairman aboard and got them in the closest hotel. After we got the aircraft secured we also got in the same hotel. Any port in a storm. When we checked in there was only one room left. I swear to God, a two floor suite with a spiral staircase. My passengers, the president and vice chairman, had plain old rooms.

Over the course of the 2 days I had several phone conversations with them about flight options etc.

Finally I heard a knock on the door and there they were to plan options with me.

You should have seen the look on their faces when they walked into my suite with the spiral stair case. In the end we laughed about it all but it was very embarrassing.

That's why we stay in separate but equal.

There's a lot more to being a dedicated employee than just punching a clock...............Bob

 

 

Edited by Bhigdog (see edit history)
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Bhigdog......thanks for your insights, most interesting is that in the near future, the chauffeur probably won’t be a person. I’m not sure if I would ever be comfortable with technology driving a car for me 100 percent, but it’s probably going to happen faster than any of us probably ever imagined. The thought of an 18 wheeler going down the road by it’s self is not only frightening to me, it’s already happening on a trial basis out west. A safety driver is in the cab behind the wheel, but automated trucking between freight terminals is probably going to happen sooner than many people expect. It will be interesting to see if the restrictions of them only operating at night will hold up. With five million truck drivers in the US, the changes are going to be vast on a social and economic scale. I wonder if the government will regulate how fast the changeover occurs. I’m quite sure your profession will continue on as it has for a long time to come. I sure hope the displaced commercial drivers don’t try to switch over to flying.......seems lately that the quaility of thr professional commercial drives has been eroding quite a bit in my experience. Only one thing is for certain, technology advancements are going to occur faster than many of us can adapt to them. It’s going to be interesting to watch the changes.

Edited by edinmass (see edit history)
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2 hours ago, edinmass said:

I’m not sure if I would ever be comfortable with technology driving a car for me 100 percent...

 

I agree with you, Ed.  I'd rather ride with a capable person,

or best of all, drive myself.

 

Can anyone picture a self-driving car on snowy roads,

with scattered ruts of slush, at night in a construction zone

where lanes are shifted and narrow?  Or in an urban area

at night, in the rain, where the whole road is glossy and reflective,

and cars are moving in and out of lanes constantly?

 

I think fully autonomous cars are a vision that might never come--

like the 1950's vision of Jetson-type personal aircraft zipping 

through the air and buzzing all around.  Man is smarter than machines.

Edited by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)
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7 hours ago, edinmass said:

I’m quite sure your profession will continue on as it has for a long time to come.

 

Don't be so sure. In many ways  a "self driving" aircraft is a lot easier to accomplish with a straight line A to B path devoid of intersections and unanticipated occurrences. In fact the aircraft would not require forward vision except perhaps to taxi. Almost any of todays transport category aircraft are capable of flying from shortly after take off to actually landing at it's destination with minimal input from the human in the left seat.

The dark side of cockpit automation, fly by wire,  and decision making by on board computers is that  in some cases those systems have contributed to incidents and actual crashes. The latest appears to be Lion Air's 737 MAX where the  crew apparently was not even aware their aircraft had the capability to over ride their control inputs.

It's been an on going debate between system engineers and pilots about who knows best in an abnormal or emergency situation, the pilot or the computer and who should actually be flying the damn plane.

Another dark side of cockpit automation is that the more the aircraft and it's systems are automated the further the  pilot is removed from understanding and actually feeling how his aircraft behaves absent those systems. Some recent accidents and incidents have occurred because when the computer lost control of their aircraft or misled the crew the pilots simply didn't know how to actually FLY it. The Asiana crash is a classic example.

I've lost count of how many times in the cock pit I've heard a crew member utter:..... "Why is it doing that"?.

I'm thinking it will be a long time before the flying public will ever be comfortable getting on an airplane with out a crew in the cock pit.

Perhaps the pilot will evolve into an inflatable "Otto pilot" from the movie Airplane.

Judging from some of the recent accidents/incidents we may almost be there now.

Once again, sorry for the hijack......................Bob

 

 

Edited by Bhigdog (see edit history)
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