The late Gene Carlisle and I go way back.

Just before me, Gene was a member of a young men’s service organization called The Phoenix Club. I say just before me because you had to leave the club at age 35, and I was coming in as Gene was leaving.

He would return for the election parties and various events in support of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Memphis, the sole beneficiary of our efforts.

Conaway: Weekend’s golf tournament has everything to do with us

We would talk many times over the years. The subjects would vary but the heart of our conversations was always the city we shared.

Gene was a dreamer.

The dreams were always anchored by a piece or two, or 50, of reality, but they were still dreams of the possible, but not quite realized.

Dreams of, say, a fine hotel on the corner of Front and Beale, with a sky bridge to a garage across Front on the corner of then-Front and Linden. The garage would service the hotel, the Orpheum and Downtown in general, the ground floor would have space for retail.

Conaway: Give us a break

Later we’d talk about two stunning high-rise residential and hotel buildings at One Beale, the corner of Beale and Wagner, twin towers over the river, changing the skyline.

The demand for all of this was nascent at the time we first talked about it, in the 70s in his office in East Memphis, and later in the 80s at various watering holes, and again in the 90s and the 2000’s in his office at Beale Street Landing, in my office next door in the Candy Factory at then-Linden and Wagner.

Conaway: Whistling isn’t evil. Whistling something evil is evil.

The stuff of dreams.

He owned the corner lot for the hotel never realized in his lifetime, still a surface parking lot. He owned Beale Street Landing, a mostly empty building of failed restaurants, failed boutique retail and some offices.

He built the garage, but never the hotel, never the sky bridge, never the retail on the ground floor. He acquired Joe’s Crab Shack to add to his riverfront Beale Street Landing.

Conaway: Around here, if you look closely, you’ll find a connection

The dream had become a plan.

Winds blew.

On the morning of July 22, 2003, Elvis blew back into town with a vengeance. 

In a phenomenon of straight-line winds of over 100 MPH, dubbed Hurricane Elvis, a narrow strip of Memphis from the river straight down Linden, and east through Chickasaw Gardens and beyond was decimated, including knocking a hole in Gibson’s Donuts and taking pieces from FedExForum.

Conaway: We’re a mess, and no one is responsible

The first thing that wind hit, the very first, was the top southwest corner of Beale Street Landing, removing it from the building, obliterating any evidence of it.

That corner was Gene Carlisle’s office. Fortunately, he wasn’t in it at the time.

The second thing hit was my building, the Candy Factory, our office on the bottom and condos on the floors above.

Conaway: Welcome to the world of old white men

A little east, Nora and I were on our screen porch on Kimbrough at Peabody, one house away from Elvis’s path down Linden when it roared through, dropping trees all around us, but none on us.

I rushed Downtown to find the glass from our big double doors lying inside the office entrance, remarkably unbroken. I saw Reb Haizlip walking down the middle of the street, holding the server from his architectural business in his arms like a baby, swaddled in a black plastic garbage bag. Reb’s office was directly below Gene’s.

I went to the roof. Staring over the edge, I saw the condominium of the building below us on the south. The roof was gone. I was staring into the interior of the condo like one would stare into a doll house with the roof missing – all the walls and furnishings intact.

Conaway: Discovering true joy in a game. Again.

The owner was wandering around inside dazed. That view was on the front page of The Commercial Appeal the next morning. I was standing next to the photographer.

I thought we had escaped major damage, until it was discovered that the roof of our building had been lifted several inches and dropped back down like it wasn’t wanted.

Gene’s dreams survived, not just Hurricane Elvis but also the winds of the 2008 recession, slowed but resilient, and the winds of pandemic, slowed but recovering.

Gene’s sons, Chase and Chance, have stood tall on the foundation Gene laid.

Conaway: School lessons in heroism

Gene’s hotel became three, and The Landing, a luxury apartment building. Gene’s garage became two, no sky bridge for the first over Front, but a sky bridge for the second over Wagner.

The hotels are Hyatt’s: a Hyatt Centric on Gene’s original site, the very first Caption by Hyatt in the world on the corner of Front and MLK, and ground broken for the Grand Hyatt where Gene’s twin towers were first dreamed of at One Beale, a grand replacement for Gene’s lost office.

Yet winds blow.

Dreams decades in the dreaming, decades in developing, and all but realized still face the headwinds of politics.

While huge and noisy promises like The Walk have gone silent, and after giving away a huge piece of our civic center to out-of-town hotel developers and receiving nothing in return, our mayor suddenly became protective of our tax dollars and strong in opposition to our city council in denying the last piece of the complicated Carlisle puzzle.

Mayor Strickland denied the guaranty of the city to the financing of the Grand Hyatt – after approval by the council, and just in time for the recent ballot.

Even with no other new major convention center hotel in sight, even with this hotel moving forward against the historic headwinds of pandemic, supply chain knots and inflation, and a newly renovated convention center crying for rooms, this piece of political theater was on stage.

Certainly, the Carlisle’s will profit if this huge bet pays off. But so will we as a city. So will we as a destination. This is betting on us. There is risk, but the risk of not building it is far larger.

Letter to the Editor: What’s not mentioned in Dan Conaway’s column

Maybe it was easy for the council to support because they knew the mayor would oppose it. Maybe the mayor opposed it so he could look strong and responsible just before we voted.

Maybe everybody wanted to look good right before we voted to extend their terms in office.

The election is over. The referendum failed. No extra terms are in the offing.

Let’s do this. Work it out. This reality was 30-plus years in the making, and the making is more than worth our support.

This isn’t a zip line; this is a lifeline.

Support something grand for your legacy, Mr. Mayor, not just a jump off the monorail bridge.

I’m a Memphian, and I salute the big dreams of another, Gene Carlisle.