The hotel was located at 501-503 West Superior Street in Duluth. The menu showed the hotel restaurant serving both vanilla ice cream and blueberry pie. The owner of the hotel was John Gieriet. He was born in Tavetsch, Switzerland on February 6, 1829. He later moved to France where he learned to speak French. Gieriet moved to the United States in 1854. In 1856, Gieriet was put in charge of food service at the White House under the administration of President Franklin Pierce. He continued in that position into the late 1850s when he served under the administration of President James Buchanan. The Gieriets moved to Duluth in 1885 and purchased the Commercial Hotel, which had been built in 1884 by William Dambruck. John re-named the building “Hotel La Perl.” It was a large two-story wood-frame building with a flat roof. A saloon, that was located on the first floor, was converted into a restaurant and the rear laundry room was remodeled into a kitchen. On the Hotel la Perl’s first day of business, Gieriet served up a fancy dinner that included French pickles, oysters, French peas, and Lake Superior trout. For dessert, he served warm blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream. Gieriet called the popular treat “pie à la mode.” It was reported in the "Duluth Herald" that Duluthians in the 1880s often mispronounced the local invention as “ mode.” In 1886, the "Duluth Weekly Tribune" stated the Hotel la Perl had gained a “first-class reputation” under Gieriet's management. John continued to operate the Hotel la Perl until his wife became very ill in 1886. He ended up selling the hotel in August of that year. Pie à la mode wasn’t John Gieriet’s only invention. He received a United States patent for a railroad car ventilating apparatus on June 20, 1882. He also received a patent on October 30, 1899, for a type of fire escape. By 1910, Gieriet had moved to New York City, where he died on May 22, 1912, at the age of 83.