CHICAGO (Chicago Sun-Times), October 28, 2007:
About 60 years ago, Larry and Miriam Orenstein paid just more than $9 a night for their honeymoon stay at the downtown Palmer House Hotel. This weekend, they were charged nearly the same price -- $9.90 per day.
The Orensteins, both 81, sit in the master bedroom of their Palmer House penthouse suite Friday. The 2,600-square-foot suite has three bedrooms. “This is bigger than our home,” Miriam Orenstein said. (Thomas Delaney Jr./Sun-Times)The suburban Milwaukee couple were taking advantage of the hotel's offer that charges decades-old prices to people who stayed there at least half a century ago.
Participants, however, must surrender their old receipts to Palmer House managers to receive the deal.
"I feel wonderful," said Larry Orenstein, as he relaxed in the hotel's penthouse suite with his wife, who like him is 81 years old.
"I feel 2 years old," he said.
The Palmer House, which opened 136 years ago, has offered reduced prices since about 1925, said hotel spokesman Ken Price. But during the last 25 years, the offer has only been taken advantage of seven or eight times, Price said.
"A lot of people just don't have their original receipts," Price said.
The Orensteins, however, kept all types of items from their 1947 wedding, including some programs.
75 cents for radio
Because the couple had been married so long, Price said the hotel also decided to add a few perks -- including the penthouse suite, which normally costs $1,600 a night. The couple also got free dinner Friday night.
On Friday, the couple from Fox Point, just north of Milwaukee, were picked up in a limousine from a son's home in Glencoe and chauffeured to the landmark hotel at State and Monroe.
Their room, a 2,600-square-foot suite, had a living room, dining room, three bedrooms, a conference room and several bathrooms.
Sixty years ago, their honeymoon had been spent in a single room, which at the time included charges of 75 cents for a radio and 72 cents for laundry service.
"This is bigger than our home," Miriam Orenstein said Friday night.
What did they do with all that space?
The couple entertained a son, daughter-in-law and grandson for dinner at the hotel's expense.
"It has been just unbelievable," Miriam Orenstein said.
"We are just surprised and shocked. What a nice present!"
Incidentally, the couple didn't even have to foot the $9.90-a-night tab for their room.
Ze Orenstein, their 12-year-old grandson, picked up the bill.
© Copyright 2007 Digital Chicago, Inc.
