Back in 1913 the older wing of the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel was built as the Pantlind Hotel, the grandest hostelry in western Michigan and a symbol of Grand Rapids at the height of its furniture-industry prosperity. The Pantlind's lobby, restored to its original splendor, features gilded ceilings, marble floors, and the sort of Edwardian opulence that was meant to reassure out-of-town furniture buyers that Grand Rapids was a serious, prosperous city worth doing business in. For decades the hotel hosted the buyers who came to the Grand Rapids Furniture Market, the largest trade show of its kind in the country, where manufacturers from across the region unveiled new lines to retailers from New York, Chicago, and beyond.
The Amway Corporation — founded in Ada, Michigan, just east of here, by Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel in 1959 — purchased and renovated the hotel in the 1980s, adding the modern tower to its north. The DeVos and Van Andel families remain the dominant philanthropic force in Grand Rapids, their names on the arena, the convention center, the museum, and dozens of other institutions across the city.