THE THREE EMMAS

Brewer Otto Koehler married Emma and they immigrated from Germany to San Antonio in 1884 to join the Texas beer industry boom. In 1910, when Emma K was in an automobile accident, Otto hired Emma Dumke to be her nurse. She and her tall, blonde friend, Emma Burgemeister, who was also a nurse, cared for Emma and Otto. All went well, until Otto got murdered. Emma B was arrested, and her trial is the subject of a book about one of Bexar County’s most notorious love triangles. After Emma Burgemesiter was found not guilty by a jury of twelve men, she married one of those jurors and they moved into the little house on Hunstock Avenue in Southside San Antonio. Otto’s other attractive nurse, Emma D, aka “Emmi,” dropped out of sight. Emma Koehler became the heroine of the Pearl Brewery, and the rest of our story is about its history, the women, and our love for the Hotel Emma.

NATIONAL HISTORIC TRUST

In 2002 Silver Ventures, owned by San Antonio businessman Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury, purchased a dormant twenty-two-acre Pearl Brewery complex and developed a master plan: to revitalize the brewery and the area around The Pearl, and preserve all of the structures within the National Historic Preservation Trust. The historic trust features:

• the brewery engine room (now Hotel Emma lobby);
• the cellar where the Sternewirth Privilege was granted to employees for free beer during their workday, a tradition that continued after Prohibition eliminated beer in the US (now the Sternewirth, a Michelin-starred restaurant and bar);
• the library (now a bar where hotel guests order a drink and read books, featuring a 3,000-book collection of Sherry Kafka Wagner, urban planner, designer, and author;
• the holding tanks (The Elephant Cellar, named for brewery’s immense tanks, now an outdoor venue, private dining event room, exhibition kitchen, and “green room” for visiting celebrities;
• the horse stable (now Stable Hall, a performance venue);
• the boiler room (now The Boiler House featuring Hill Country fare);
• the brewery original office building (now Cured, charcuterie and craft cocktails);
• the bottling room (now The Food Hall with chef-driven stands & wine tastings).

ON THE SAN ANTONIO RIVERWALK

By the early 2010s, San Antonio’s River Walk extended to The Pearl. Neighborhood tenants included the San Antonio campus of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), a farmers’ market, restaurants, shops, upscale apartments, and businesses. Hotel Emma, named for Emma Koehler, opened in the historic brewhouse in 2015.

PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Today, Hotel Emma retains the beautiful Second Empire massing and embellishments that Chicago architect August Maritzen conceptualized in 1894 for Pearl Brewing. While the current architects and designers of the rehabilitation of the brewery and its outbuildings have been respectful of Maritzen’s vision, they weren’t inhibited by it. The NYC architecture and design firm, Roman and Williams, transformed the 19th century Brewhouse into Hotel Emma, a 146-room luxury boutique hotel with three culinary venues. Located near the northern end of the San Antonio River Walk, in an already lively district with an outdoor amphitheater and a year-round Farmer’s Market, Hotel Emma serves as the focal point of the surrounding Pearl neighborhood and its connection to a past of German craftsmanship.

INTERIOR DESIGN: BLENDING MODERN WITH VINTAGE

Roman and Williams took the history of the Pearl Brewery, whose signature beer produced a rich foam of sparkling pearl-like bubbles the Brewmeister called pearlen, as the place to begin to re-imagine its future. The architecture firm is known for their interplay with historic and modern elements as well as inventive interpretations, high in concept and humor. They traced the intersection of San Antonio’s historical trade routes that mingled Latin influences with European culture, and employed the original materials that lay on the site beneath layers of machinery and dust. Hotel Emma’s interior design was a collaboration led by the Roman and Williams, Dallas-based Three: Living Architecture, and Giles Parscale. What resulted is a curation and juxtaposition of style: vintage, modern, industrial, and luxurious.

DOCUMENTATION

A photographer took over 400,000 images to document the transformation of the brewery’s transition into Hotel Emma. During renovation, the construction crews called it “the cathedral,” an irreverently reverent term for a shrine to an one of the architectural excesses of the Gilded Age.

HISTORY

The Pearl Brewing Company in San Antonio began with brewer Jaroslav B. Behloradsky, who arrived in San Antonio in the early 1880s and opened City Brewery with lager beer. Otto Koehler, who managed the Lone Star Brewery in San Antonio, became the president and manager of the San Antonio Brewing Association, and eventually gained ownership and control of City, giving it the name Pearl. A new brewhouse was constructed in 1894, and the building became a symbolic feature of San Antonio industry. Koehler remained president until his murder in 1914.

EMMA KOEHLER: ENTREPRENEUR

Emma Koehler succeeded Otto as CEO. Under her skillful leadership and determination, the San Antonio Brewing Association was the only brewery in San Antonio to survive prohibition. Mrs. Koehler kept it going during those lean years by producing near beer, bottling soft drinks, entering the commercial ice and creamery businesses, and operating an advertising sign company. Within fifteen minutes after prohibition ended in Texas on September 15, 1933, 100 trucks and twenty-five boxcars loaded with Pearl beer rolled out of the brewery grounds. In 1952 the San Antonio Brewing Association changed its corporate name to the Pearl Brewing Company in an effort to more closely associate itself with its product.

HE HAD IT COMING

When Emma Koehler was injured in 1910, Otto employed nurse Emma Dumke (nicknamed Emmi) to help them. Emmi enlisted her friend, nurse Emma Burgemeister, to pitch in.  Otto set up the two attractive women in a little house on Hunstock Ave. and had affairs with both of them.  On November 12, 1914 Otto left the Brewery around 4:00 to visit the nurses.  An argument ensued and Emma B shot him to death with a .32 revolver.  When the police arrived, she said, “I’m sorry, but I had to kill him.” When Emma was charged with murder, she skipped town and traveled to Europe to nurse WWI casualties. To the surprise of all, she returned to San Antonio in 1918 to stand trial and claim self-defense. “I did it to protect the honor of my friend,” she said.

SPIRITED

Today, a cocktail called “The Three Emmas” memorializes the spirited women at the hotel’s Sternewirth Bar. Recipe: Pearl beer, rose cordial, amontillado sherry, Botanist gin, grapefruit, and lemon juice. Hotel marketing director Beth Smith said about the drink, “One is great, and three will kill ya.”  The brewery ceased operations in 1999 after 118 years, but Emma Koehler’s ingenuity and determination are celebrated by the Hotel Emma, as she is the heroine of its story.