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The baronial splendors of the Judge's Crusader Bedroom. Chanel iridescent tweed dress $3,900, lambskin headband $700, and goatskin sandal $1,400, all at the Chanel boutique. 51 one); South Seas Lounge; The Caribbean Room; and the Gay Nineties Room — all motifs that would make their way into his first hotel. A Google Map search reveals Huckster House, at 811 Bayridge Road, still standing in 2017 pre-Hurricane Harvey; the house was sold by the family in 1987, so it's doubtful that the home's Hofheinz-era flourishes have survived. TAPPING A DISNEY TALENT Among the jewels in the Judge's portfolio was a collection of four hotels and motels; the flagship, however, was the Astroworld Hotel, where he and his new bride, Mary Frances, took up residence a few months after the couple's whirlwind wedding on April 9, 1969 (a day before the Judge's 57th birthday). For the Judge, who had been a widower, it was a modest affair with one witness, photographer Howard Israel, who also served as the official Dome photographer. The newlyweds temporarily lodged at the Judge's quarters in the Astrodome, but Hofheinz had another scheme up his colorful sleeves. He spilled the news to Houston Post gossip columnist Marge Crumbaker in an exclusive interview. "I'm fixing us up a little suite over at the Astroworld Hotel," Crumbaker's column records. She then quips, "It will just be a plain little spot, Hofheinz discloses, but with some fun things — like a waterfall in the bathtub, and that bathtub will be 17 feet long." The man behind the Judge's new homestead was West Coast designer Harper Goff, an Oscar-winning set designer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage) and art director (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) who had lent his expertise to Astroworld and, shortly after that, Hofheinz's posh, private quarters in the Dome. Goff was also the chief designer for the original Disneyland, working on such key attractions as Main Street USA and Jungle Cruise. Hofheinz and Goff first met over a commission for railroad cars for his soon-to-be-built amusement park, Astroworld, which opened June 1, 1968, across from the Dome. Fred Hofheinz surmises the pair connected through Walt Disney, Goff's boss. "Disney came to visit Houston and look at the Dome," Fred says. "Dad was always interested in the new and unusual. I'm sure he asked for help for the Astroworld project." But Goff's finest and most enduring Houston moment was the Celestial Suite commission. As reported in the definitive Hofheinz bio, Edgar W. Ray's The Grand Huckster, Goff was assisted by Stuart Young, the Judge's go-to man for crafting and creating highly carved furniture, as well as Sam Daidone, an ace at sleuthing antique furniture, curiosities, and treasures from far and near. Hofheinz gave free rein and an open checkbook to Goff to create interiors that were cinematic and unforgettable. Goff says in The Grand Huckster, "The next year [1969] was one of the most exciting and entertaining that I ever had. The Judge, Mary Frances, my wife, and I toured up and down Texas and Louisiana to buy antique furniture. We designed the penthouse and the different rooms to accommodate the furniture." The first and most theatrical treatment was lavished upon the Judge's private quarters. "I gave him a kind of baronial, crusader-type suite with a great stone fireplace, huge carved mantel," Goff recalls in the book. "Stuart Young made an eight-by-eight foot, four-poster bed, like a royal bed." Goff continues to record, room by room descriptions in Hofheinz's bio, from the Minidome nightclub to The Adventurer Suite and The P.T. Barnum Suite. Goss equated the penthouse with being a map to the inner working of Hofheinz's mind, "The penthouse represented the way the Judge thought. It was my good fortune to have many hours with him, planning and chewing the fat over ideas. The Judge gave me a free hand. Nobody second-guessed me. The final product was unparalleled." The Celestial Suite unveiled to Houston society December 18, 1969, in a grand occasion where guests toured the splendid, palatial, and extravagantly realized rooms that went for $2,500 a night, an astounding price — it even made the 1977 Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive hotel suite in the world — thus generating even more publicity for the hotel and Astrodomain complex. Chronicle society editor Betty