Drury Hotels


Drury Hotels Company, LLC is an American hospitality company which operates a chain of mid-scale limited service hotels under the brands Drury Inn and Suites, Drury Inn, Drury Suites, Drury Plaza Hotel, and Pear Tree Inn. As of 2018, the chain operates more than 150 locations in 25 states. It is wholly owned by the Drury family and is headquartered in metropolitan St. Louis.

History

The company was founded by the sons of Lambert Drury, a farmer who lost his farm during the Great Depression and then founded a plastering company. The Drury Development Corporation was founded in 1959. The Drury family built its first hotel, a Holiday Inn, in 1962 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The family started Drury Hotels in 1973 and built its first Drury Inn in Sikeston, Missouri. The Drury Hotels company operates non-Drury hotels as well. In the 1990s, the chain introduced a third brand, Thrifty Inn.
One of the founders, James Drury, died on March 17, 2008, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. A second founder, Robert Drury, died on November 28, 2013, in San Antonio.
In 2019, Drury Hotels earned its 14th-straight J.D. Power & Associates award for highest guest satisfaction in upper midscale hotels, the longest-running streak in the category.

Renovation of historic buildings

The chain has purchased several historic buildings for renovation as hotels. Historic buildings that the chain has renovated into hotels include the Union Market in St. Louis, the former Cleveland Board of Education building in Cleveland the former City Public Service Building and the former Alamo National Bank building in San Antonio; a hotel in Wichita, Kansas originally built in 1922 a former Sisters of Charity dormitory and hospital in Santa Fe, originally built in 1910 and the early 1950s; and three St. Louis properties originally built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The former Federal Reserve building in Pittsburgh is was renovated into a 207-room hotel and opened in late 2016. At the Pittsburgh hotel, a former firing range was converted into an indoor pool, and former bank vaults were turned into meeting spaces. It also plans to renovate the former First Financial Centre building in Milwaukee and the former Indianapolis Business Journal building in Indianapolis, which dates to 1924.