John McEntee Bowman

Who was John McEntee Bowman?

John McEntee Bowman was a Canadian-born businessman and an American hotelier and horseman who was the founding president of Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corp.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, John Bowman began his American working life in a men's clothing store in Yonkers, New York but learned the hotel business at New York City's Holland House Hotel. When the owner died in 1913, Bowman bought his new Biltmore hotel from his estate and built it into a chain of one of the most recognized hotel names in the world. Bowman was responsible for the building of the golfing country club, the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York and counted the New York Biltmore Hotel in New York City, the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, in Los Angeles, California, the Coral Gables Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, and the Sevilla-Biltmore Hotel in Havana, Cuba as part of his extensive hotel holdings.

A horse lover and Thoroughbred racing enthusiast, Bowman was president of the United Hunts Racing Association and the National Horse Show, and for a time served as the president of the Havana-American Jockey Club that operated the Oriental Park Racetrack in Marianao, Cuba.