housed notable personalities, such as opera singer Enrico Caruso, as well as novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald. Frank Lloyd Wright often stayed at the Plaza when he was designing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue, considering the hotel to be his home. Art dealer Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen, who helped assemble the Frick Collection at the nearby Frick House, lived at the Plaza and held important auctions in the ballroom. In addition, the Beatles stayed at the Plaza Hotel during their first visit to the United States in February 1964. Social scene The Plaza Hotel became associated with celebrities and the wealthy upon its opening, surpassing the original Waldorf Astoria in that respect. The Palm Court (then the tea room), with its mostly female guest list, was particularly frequented. Weeks after the hotel's 1907 opening, actress Mrs Patrick Campbell attempted to smoke there, and the resulting controversy boosted the Plaza's stature. In January 1908, crowds flocked to see heiress Gladys Vanderbilt and her fiancé, Hungarian count László Széchenyi, have tea, while Theodora Shonts arrived with her fiancé Emmanuel d'Albert de Luynes, the Duke of Chaulnes. That year, the New York World dubbed the hotel the "Home-for-the-Incurably Opulent". By 1909, the Palm Court was consistently exceeding its 350-person capacity. During the 1920s, the basement's grill room was a popular meeting place for young adults born during the Lost Generation. The Oak Room was frequented by actor George M. Cohan, and a commemorative plaque for Cohan was installed in the room in the 1940s after his death. The Persian Room was popular with the "cafe society", being frequented by socialites and fashion trendsetters. Eddy Duchin and Hildegarde were among the Persian Room's early performers, and it later attracted others, such as Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, and Liza Minnelli. By the 1970s, the Persian Room hosted performances by pop singers such as Robert Goulet and Dusty Springfield. The hotel has also been popular among world leaders, particularly presidents of the United States. The first of these was Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th U.S. president, who moved his Republican Party's events to the Plaza Hotel from the Fifth Avenue Hotel after the closure of the latter in 1908. Theodore Roosevelt's distant cousin, president Franklin D. Roosevelt, had his birthday luncheon in the Palm Court in 1935. Other U.S. presidents who frequented the hotel's guestrooms or restaurants have included William Howard