Location address: 500 S. FOURTH ST.
Phone: 1 800 333-3399
During the Symposium, the Seelbach Hilton Hotel will be the site of the Welcome Banquet and the Volunteer Staff Appreciation Breakfast. It is located at 500 South Fourth Street, next to the Fourth Street Live! dining and entertainment district. The Seelbach Hilton Hotel is on the National Register of Historical Places. It is a 4-Diamond luxury hotel considered to be the premiere hotel in the state of Kentucky and has hosted many celebrities. It was built in 1905 and has recently been renovated. Now you can experience its historic grandeur and Southern hospitality with all the contemporary amenities of a modern-day luxury hotel.
This elegant hotel is located about a 1/2 mile walk from Spalding University. City transit buses provide inexpensive transportation for those who do not care to walk to Spalding University. Also, the hotel is closer to the location for the morning practices with the Grandmasters than the Spalding campus dorms.
Visitors will experience an interesting bit of American history. The hotel was first built in 1905. In the 1920s, The Seelbach, being the grandest hotel in Louisville and the center of Kentucky’s bourbon and whiskey country, attracted some of the most famous gangsters in American history. Al Capone, the most legendary gangster of the 1920s, used to visit the Seelbach frequently for blackjack, poker, and bootlegging. Today, you can dine in a small alcove in The Oakroom where Capone played cards. The famous gangster even sent a large mirror from Chicago, still in the room today, so that he could watch his back. Capone’s favorite room also has two hidden doors behind special panels, leading to secret passageways.
The Seelbach was also the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald often visited the hotel and chose the Grand Ballroom at The Seelbach as the backdrop for Tom and Daisy’s wedding reception in his American masterpiece.
