 Designed by Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick, the Shamrock Hotel was an 18-story building constructed between 1946 and 1949 with a green tile pitched roof and 1,100 rooms.The hotel was conceived by wildcatter Glenn McCarthy as a city-sized hotel scaled for conventions with a resort atmosphere.The Shamrock was located in a suburban area three miles (5 km) southwest of downtown Houston on the fringes of countryside and was meant to be the first phase of a much larger indoor shopping and entertainment complex called McCarthy Center, anchored alongside the planned Texas Medical Center.