Martin A. "Marty" Roenigk, 68, co-owner of the two National Register-listed historic hotels in Eureka Springs, died in a two-vehicle collision near Griswold, Iowa, Thursday.
Roenigk’s wife and partner in the businesses, Elise Roenigk, 68, has been hospitalized in Omaha, Neb., with a broken arm and some complications to her vision.
"Elise is going to be OK," said Jack Moyer, manger of the properties and a longtime employee of the Roenigks.
According to a press release from of the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Iowa, the couple was in a van driven by Elise Roenigk and were struck by a Ford F350 pickup driven by a 72-year-old South Dakota man. The preliminary investigation shows the van ran a stop sign, the release states.
The four passengers of the pickup were transported to area hospitals. Marty Roenigk was pronounced dead at the scene and was the only fatality.
The Carroll County News reported the couple was traveling to pick up a mechanical music machine for their collection of exotic musical equipment.
The couple purchased the 1905 Basin Park Hotel in 1997 for $1 million and began a series of renovations on the property that gave it a second life.
They purchased The 1886 Crescent Hotel the same year for an undisclosed amount.
In June 2008, ThermoEnergy Corp. of Little Rock said Marty Roenigk, a member of the company’s board, had exercised warrants to buy an additional 550,000 restricted common shares. It was Roenigk’s second insider transaction that year.
He is not currently listed as a director on the company’s Web site.
Roenigk was the former chairman and CEO of CompuDyne Corp. of Maryland. He was formerly a certified public accountant with Arthur Anderson & Co. before spending 23 years with the Travelers Corp.
Dani D. Joy, mayor of Eureka Springs, said, "We are in shock … it is such huge loss for the City.
"This is a man who not only put in financial backing, but also his heart and soul [into Eureka Springs]."
The preservation work the couple did with the Crescent and Basin Park hotels was an incredible gift to the city and the state, Joy said.
"He has done something that will last for many, many years and is truly a legacy," she said.
Preservationist and Conservationist
In addition to the preservation work the couple did on their two historic hotels, they have been avid conservationists.
"Marty was a visionary conservationist with a magnanimous heart," said Scott Simon, executive director for The Nature Conservancy’s offices in Arkansas. "It’s just a shame. He was a wonderful guy."
In 2005, the couple sold 1,226 acres of land at Smith Creek well below market value to The Nature Conservancy. The gift was recorded on the TNC’s books at about $1 million.
The land is at the headwaters of the Buffalo River and covers a system of caves that is home to the largest population of Indiana bats in Arkansas, which are on the federal endangered list.
"That’s a major gift of land in Arkansas," said Tim Snell, associate state director for water resources for TNC.
Rick Stockdell, KUAF-FM’s station manager and University of Arkansas professor, said the Roenigks have been have been great supporters of public radio in Fayetteville as well. The couple supported the station with individual donations and with their businesses sometimes underwriting the station, he said.
Stockdell said he and Marty Roenigk would occasionally have lunch or coffee.
"We’ll miss Marty – a lot," Stockdell said. "The thing is, with his business background and the way his mind worked … he was such a great guy to bounce things off of."
Charlie Cross, president and CEO of Cornerstone Bank in Eureka Springs, said he’s been doing business with Roenigk for about 12 years, since he and Elise moved to town from Connecticut in 1997.
"They brought with them a spirit of caring immediately," Cross said. "They’ve been highly respected in the way they carried themselves, in the way they cared for the town and the town’s well being."
"Marty cared about history and had a fondness and respect for the architecture and history of the town," he said. "I think they both fell in love with the town. Marty was a tremendous person. He will be missed."
Both the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, which sits atop a hill in the Glenwood Park area of town, and the 1905 Basin Park Hotel, which is in the downtown area, are believed by many to be haunted, though the Crescent has earned the distinction as one of the most haunted hotels in America.
Legend says a stone worker fell to his death from what became Room 218 during construction of the Crescent. The worker, "Michael," now supposedly wreaks havoc in Room 218.
Other legend attributes the haunting of The Crescent to "Dr." Norman Baker, who shunned surgery and other cancer treatments in favor of what he claimed was a cure. He treated patients at the Crescent, which had been converted to various colleges before becoming a hospital, by injecting patients’ skulls with a concoction that included crushed watermelon seed and carbolic acid.
Rumor has it that several patients went mad from the treatments, and they along with Baker and a nurse are said to haunt parts of the Crescent.
Many Eureka citizens said the hotels were instrumental in revitalizing tourist and event trade to Eureka Springs over the last decade. The Roenigks have credited their employees’ hard work and efforts to the success of the hotels, but many have noted the hotels wouldn’t exist without the couple’s financial backing and passion for history.
Marty Roenigk maintained a Web site, www.Mechantiques.com, which is touted as "the country’s largest dealer in mechanical musical instruments."
As of Thursday, the site offered more than 130 antique mechanical musical instruments, including various organs, disc and cylinder music boxes, and phonographs, advertised at a combined asking price of more than $750,000. He collected the mechanicals for more than 40 years.
One of the items, a Gavioli fairground organ, is on display at the Gavioli Chapel, a stone church originally built in 1901 and purchased by the Roenigks. They later converted it into the chapel, which is used for wedding ceremonies and to showcase other antique instruments.
In a quote on the site, Roenigk said, "I believe I could put together one of the very finest and largest truly world-class collections of antique mechanical music for the price of just one of dozens of paintings, classical or contemporary, selling at Sotheby’s or Christie’s last year for more than $5,000,000 each."
On May 20, 2007, about 150 business leaders, politicians and friends from around the state attended a garden party for the Roenigks at the Crescent Hotel to celebrate their decade of ownership in the property.
That day also marked the 121st anniversary of the Crescent Hotel, which cost a staggering $294,000 to build in 1886, or about the equivalent of $6.4 million adjusted for inflation.
The hotels will only be preserved for all time if they are able to remain economically self-sustainable, Marty Roenigk said that evening.
Part of the properties’ sustainability, he noted, will come from a 40-condominium project, which sits on 11.06 acres adjacent to the historic Crescent. The 975 to 1,325-SF "cottages" are estimated to be in the price range of $300,000 to $350,000. The majority of the units will feature two bedrooms and two baths.
Development of the condos was controversial in Eureka, a town prone to infighting. In the end, many opponents to the project capitulated.
(Editor Worth Sparkman and Associate Editors Susannah Patton and Rob Keys contributed to this report.)
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