The Rex Hotel was among nearly two dozen small hotels that were located in what is today a sea of parking lots behind the Fox and Fillmore theaters. Originally known as the Morris Hotel, this was one of the larger hotels in that area at the time, having 200 rooms when most of the others had less than half that.
The four-story, 200-room Morris Hotel had its grand opening on the evening of Jan. 19, 1921, opening to guests the next day. The grand opening featured music and souvenirs, and the public was invited. An ad that ran in the Jan. 16, 1921, edition of The Detroit News said that "in location, in architectural arrangement and in beauty of its appointments, the Morris is distinctive among the hotels of Detroit. ... Within this beautiful and wonderfully spacious hotel, the largest affairs, conventions and delegations can be handled expeditiously and without disturbing the natural quiet invariably sought by many guests. The Morris, so to speak, is the last word in hoteldom."
The architect of the hotel, as well as the first owner, are currently unknown. The hotel replaced five, two-story wood-framed dwellings, all of which dated back to at least 1884, according to the Sanborn maps. Construction of the building was financed by Nicol, Ford & Co. Inc. investment bonds.
The hotel was located on West Montcalm Street between Clifford Street and Park Avenue, smack dab between the Majestic Hotel and the Royal Palm Hotel, today known as the Park Avenue House.
As of June 1927, the hotel was under new management and had reduced rates. Single rooms were $7 per week, and $10 per week for two ($134 and $191 in 2026, respectively).
On Jan. 29, 1928, a fire attributed to a defective chimney flue caused minor damage. L.E. Oberle, the manager of the hotel, estimated damage at less than $150, a little less than $3,000 in 2026 valuation, when adjusted for inflation. This was the same day as a massive fire in the Ames Co, Woman's Outfitters building at 1275 Woodward Ave.
By Jan. 6, 1938 the hotel had recently been renovated, with newly painted and decorated rooms, as well as new furniture, carpeting and phones in every room.
The Morris Hotel ran until around March 29, 1938, which is the last time the building appears in newspapers under that name. The hotel reopened on April 10, 1938, as the Rex Hotel. Ads announcing the reopening and new name touted that the hotel had "200 rooms tastefully furnished" and offered "complete hotel service" with "everything new." Rates were $1.50 a day or $6 a week (about $35 and $142 in 2026, respectively).
Sometime in the 1950s and 1960s, the hotel came under ownership of Frank “Rah-Rah” Randazzo, who turned it, as well as the nearby Lester Hotel at 161 W. Columbia St., into homes of a flourishing mafia-operated prostitution ring.
Exactly when Randazzo took possession of the building is unknown, however, a Michigan Chronicle article from 1957 notes of a prostitution sting operation conducted here. A state Senate hearing in October 1963 identified Randazzo as the owner of four hotels: the Rex; the Lester; the Seneca Hotel at 2750 Third St.; and the Paris Hotel No. 3 at 60 Henry St. All were known by the Detroit Police to be part of the prostitution ring. The Senate hearing also identified Randazzo as a mafia section leader in Detroit.
Nevertheless, Randazzo still was operating the Rex in 1974, along with Tony Randazzo, who was also identified as a mafia section leader in the 1963 hearing. However, the 1970s saw the Rex mainly inhabited by retirees. In August 1973, Paul DeClementi, a retired Detroit Water Board employee, left the nursing home he had been in and instead moved into the hotel. At the time, financial documents showed he was worth around $25,000, just shy of about $200,000 in 2026. However, when he died in October 1974, his assets were listed at $0 by his legal guardian - Frank Randazzo, who had been appointed such by the Wayne County Probate Court.
The question of how Randazzo, a man with a checkered past - including prostitution, gambling and smuggling people across the Detroit River, and being the “reputed head of Detroit Mafia’s prostitution racket” according to the Detroit News - was able to assume control of DeClementi’s assets were still a mystery when the News wrote about the case in its Sept. 24, 1975, edition. Also unclear was why DeClementi left his nursing home for the Rex Hotel.
The next day, The Detroit News ran another story about Randazzo, reporting that the Michigan National Bank wanted to “seize everything owned by Frank “Rah-Rah” Randazzo, reputed king of the Detroit mafia prostitution racket.” From “his Lincoln Continental, his Mercury Cougar, his house and all his household goods at 4355 Kensington, Detroit, the remaining three rundown hotels of his once prosperous bordello empire and “all of (his) property of any kind and character,” The News wrote Sept. 25, 1975. The three hotels in question were the Rex, Lester and Piquette Hotel at 52 Piquette St. (The Seneca and Paris hotels had both been vacated and presumably demolished by this point). The bank was after Randazzo after he and several family members defaulted on loans totaling some $257,000 ($1.7 million in 2026) of which only $161,000 (a bit more than $1 million in 2026) had been repaid. However, the bank was having a hard time tracking down Randazzo.
“Many of the 175 rooms were rented by elderly pensioners, who spent much of their time sitting quietly in the lobby” the Detroit News wrote of the hotel on Sept. 25, 1975.
Less than a year later, on July 11, 1976, Randazzo, Nick Ditta and Joseph Siragusa would be murdered in Randazzo’s home. All three were shot at point blank range by Ernest Kanakis, who would state that he was set up by Randazzo and lured to his home where the three men ambushed him, so he shot them in self-defense. After a several-month trial, he was found not guilty of three counts of second-degree murder on April 12, 1977.
After Randazzo’s death, details on the hotel get scarce. By 1982, the Rex was going by the name the Sands Hotel. Two years later, rooms went for $5 a night (about $15 in 2026 valuation). It is unclear who owned the hotel after Randazzo’s death.
The hotel caught fire on Jan. 5, 1992, with the call coming in at 5:42 p.m. The fire started in a fourth-floor hallway at the back of the building. The one-alarm fire destroyed several of the apartments on the third and fourth floors, and took three hours to extinguish. Three people were rescued from the building. A 49-year-old man was sent to Detroit Riverview Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation; he was listed in stable condition the following day. The other two were treated for minor abrasions in an ambulance at the scene.
No information can be found on the building after that, suggesting that it most likely closed as a result of the fire.
The building was still standing as of the winter of 1995, but had been demolished by 1997. The Lester Hotel was demolished around that same time.
Today, the site is a parking lot next door to the Park Avenue House.