Between Scott French, Julene Reeder, and Jonathan Bakker, they share nearly a hundred years of combined history at The Grand America Hotel and Little America Hotel Salt Lake City. Scott started as a bellman at Little America at 21 years old, hired by Julene's brother. Jonathan walked in through the loading dock on his first day and never really left. And Julene, who has everyone else beat by a wide margin, fell in love with this place when she was eight years old, visiting her brother at work, dreaming about one day being a front desk clerk.

That dream came true. And then some.

This summer, as we celebrate The Grand America's 25th anniversary and Little America's 60th, we sat down with three of the people who have shaped these hotels from the inside: not the marble or the chandeliers or the English wool carpet, but the culture, the care, and the countless moments that guests carry with them long after checkout. What followed was one of the most honest, funny, and quietly moving conversations we have had in a long time.

Where It All Began

Every good story has an origin, and these three have some of the best.

Julene Reeder, Director of the Call Center for Grand America Hotels and Resorts, has been with the company for close to 44 years. She was not entirely joking when she mentioned she started at five. What is true is that she knew, from childhood visits with her family, that Little America was a special place. "If I could ever be a front desk clerk at the front desk at Little America," she remembers thinking, "that would be the perfect job."

Scott French, now Vice President of Operations for Grand and Little America Salt Lake City, took a different path to the same front door. His older sisters worked here before him, and it was one of them who first told him that being a bellman at Little America was the best college job there was. He applied at 21, was hired, and intended to stay a year or two. Twenty-seven years later, he runs the hotels.

Jonathan Bakker, Senior Sales Manager, came to Salt Lake City in 2000 partly because the Olympics were on the horizon. He walked in looking for a career in hospitality and was escorted through the loading dock of Little America by the HR director, not the most auspicious entrance, he admits. But it was what happened next that changed everything. He found the general manager, Ed Box, on the ballroom floor, hand-sewing carpet alongside the facilities team.

"I thought, this is the kind of company I can work for," Jonathan said. "Where not only if I need to, I can find the general manager and his time is available to me — but they're not above getting on their hands and knees and getting down to work."

He took the job. He has never left.

The Things That Have Changed, and the Things That Never Have

Across nearly a century of combined tenure, these three have watched Salt Lake City transform around them, and both hotels have evolved alongside it. The pit fireplace in Little America's original lobby, a sunken conversation area that felt very much of its time, is long gone.

But what has stayed constant, all three agreed, is a commitment to quality set by the people who built these hotels and passed down through every generation of employees since.

Scott remembers an early lesson from Earl Holding himself, delivered during a room inspection at Little America. Mr. Holding asked Scott to identify where the carpet came from. Of course, he could not. Mr. Holding explained that the hotel bought wool from places with the harshest weather, because that is where the animals grew the toughest fibers. The carpet was English. It lasted most of Scott's career.

"I learned the value of buying the best and having the best," Scott said. "And that buying the best hasn't changed, even though the people have changed. Those lessons live on — because so many of us heard them directly from him."

Jonathan offered a story that has become something of a legend around these properties: the marble in The Grand America lobby. In the final days before the hotel opened in 2001, Mr. Holding arrived in the lobby with a spectacular hand-knotted wool rug, ready to be rolled across the floor. But before a single inch was unrolled, he stopped the crew.

"He said, 'I want to pay attention to the veining in the marble that goes through the entire lobby,'" Jonathan recalled. "'We can only appreciate that today because in the quarry, someone cared enough to quarry this stone. And then it went on to a series of craftsmen who cut the stone and honed it and polished it — and at every step, those craftsmen had to be proud enough to do this in such a way that we could match book it.' He said, 'I want to take a moment and appreciate that. Now we're going to put a rug over it. And no one is going to know that's there except for the three of us.'"

The rug eventually wore out. When it was removed, Stephen Holding came to a stop in the lobby one afternoon and looked down. "This is incredible," he said. "Look at the veining in the marble."

Jonathan smiled. "The apple doesn't fall far."

That marble is uncovered today, a permanent feature of the lobby. If you have walked through The Grand America and paused to look down at the floor, now you know why it is worth pausing for.

What Keeps Them Here

Ask each of these three what has kept them at these hotels for decades, and you will get three different answers that somehow all say the same thing.

For Julene, it goes back to her parents. Her mother made baked goods for anyone in the neighborhood who needed them. Her father did yard work for widows on the street without being asked or expecting to be thanked. "Does she know we're out here doing this?" Julene once asked him. "No, Julene," he told her. "We're taking care of her yard because she needs it done."

That instinct, to take care of people quietly and without keeping score, is something Julene has carried into 44 years of answering the phone for guests. It is there in the way she turned a frustrating reservation call into a connection with a man from the Gander Airport in Canada, who had helped ground her brother during the chaos of September 11. When she realized who she was speaking to, she stopped and thanked him. When he checked in, he brought her two hats, one for herself and one for her brother. She still thinks about that call.

For Jonathan, the answer crystallized during a quiet afternoon in the Little America lobby, watching a military reunion unfold. He had been wrestling with the grind of the hospitality industry, the cooking, the cleaning, the doing it all over again tomorrow, when he suddenly saw it differently.

"When you consider for a minute what an honor it is to cook and clean and serve for so many meaningful moments," he said, "it stops feeling like a grind. People are starting their lives here. People are trusting us with the first customer conference of their small business. That should not be taken lightly."

For Scott, it is the people: the ones on staff and the ones who pass through the doors.

He once spotted an older couple pulling their luggage through the parking lot, map in hand, clearly lost. He ran outside to help them. When he asked what had brought them in, they told him it was their 65th anniversary. They had spent their honeymoon at Little America, in a building that no longer stands. And for their anniversary, they just wanted a Diet Mountain Dew and a full-sugar one, mixed together.

The hotel is a Coca-Cola property. There is no Mountain Dew on the menu. So Scott walked a block to a gas station, bought both, filled an ice bucket, and brought it to their room.

"As grateful as they were," he said, "I was thrilled to be able to make something special for them that meant something. It meant more to me."

The Next Generation

One of the more unexpected threads of the conversation was how many of these three have literal family members who have followed them here. Julene's relatives have worked at these hotels across generations. Jonathan recently met a member of the owning family's next generation, now his newest colleague, and found himself saying something he had never expected to say: I used to work for your grandfather.

Scott's sons have both worked here. His oldest started in housekeeping at 14, moved to the front desk at Little America, and is now a bellman at The Grand America, the same role his father started in 27 years ago.

"I think there is an integrity that is learned in hospitality," Scott said. "When you are taking care of people, you are doing things that maybe you do not always want to do, and you are put in positions where it is not just a task at a job — there are people involved. And I am grateful that my boys are learning that."

Asked whether his son might one day follow his path all the way to VP, Scott laughed. "I might be in his way."

Looking Forward

The Grand America was built to welcome the world to the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 2034, the Olympics return to Salt Lake City. Jonathan, who moved here partly because of the 2002 Games, is watching the city prepare for what comes next with a quiet sense of satisfaction.

"Everyone in the hotel business told Mr. Holding not to build the Grand America," he said. "And he went ahead and did it because he wanted to and because he knew it was right. There is business in this city that would never have existed without the Grand America. There are events and things that happen here that would never have happened otherwise."

Julene, for her part, is most excited about something simpler: the continued ability to pick up the phone and talk to a real person. "I am just excited to tell someone, no, that is not an AI — you are speaking to a human agent."

Scott sees a hotel and a city that has found its identity and is still growing into it. Afternoon tea, the winter window stroll, the gingerbread house, the way The Grand America has gradually become what he calls "the living room of Salt Lake City." He is excited to see where all of that goes next.

We are grateful to Scott, Julene, and Jonathan for sitting down with us and sharing not just their memories, but the values that have quietly defined these hotels for more than six decades. Their stories, and hundreds like them, are what the Summer Celebration Series is truly about.

The Grand America Hotel is celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer. Little America Hotel Salt Lake City is celebrating its 60th. We hope you will come and be part of the story.