(Above) A greeter outside The Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon. Click on image to view larger version.

22-Dec-14  The real estate investment trust that owns Hotel Chicago and The Westin Michigan Avenue in River North has purchased an 87-year-old 150-room hotel in Portland, Oregon.

LaSalle Hotel Properties announced on Friday it has purchased The Heathman Hotel for $64.3 million in cash.

The Heathman is on the National Register of Historic Places. Its greeters, wearing London beefeater costumes consistent with the hotels Tudor Revival architectural style, are iconic to Portland.

The hotel displays several original artworks, including prints by Andy Warhol that are worth about $1.5 million. And it is a setting in the novel, Fifty Shades of Grey.

A British company, Taylor-Clark Inc., owned the hotel since 2005. The Heathman had been on the market since September.

LaSalle promptly fired the hotels general manager, Chris Erickson, along with the director of sales and marketing, human resources manager, and revenue manager. Erickson had been with the hotel since 2006. He is chairman of the Travel Portland Board of Directors, a commissioner on the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission, and serves on the Oregon Tourism Commission.

Based in Bethesda, Maryland, LaSalle now owns 45 hotels in 14 markets.