What a hideous sense of style and waste of building materials.
Not too different from architecture and interior design that you might have found in Las Vegas, or Los Angeles of the era. What was different about the Hofheinz apartments was the variety of styles and the use of actual antiques, artifacts, and memorabilia in the interior design. It was just jaw dropping. Not beautiful — jaw dropping. And fun.
Oh, I remember something else. The reason those apartments were available for oil companies, and others, to rent for parties is that Roy Hofheinz was confined to a wheelchair by the mid 70s and was worried about escape should a fire break out. He moved out to a ranch (I think). In any case, he was no longer living there. His son was Mayor of Houston at the time.
Not necessarily. There’s often a huge difference between the overall shape of a building like a dome stadium, and the necessary elements within. Filling that space with a huge apartment makes way more sense than building an entire separate mansion.