In 1978, a former owner of Club Paris was murdered. His killer was never found

Part of a continuing weekly series on local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

Compelling true crime narratives usually require a villain. This is understandable as clear-cut antagonists tend to make for better storytelling. Villains are littered throughout Alaska’s true crime history, from Robert Hansen to Neil Mackay to Michael Silka. However, some stories frustratingly lack such clarity. Unsolved cases without suspects are more easily forgotten by the public, for all that the uncertainty renders lingering holes in the lives of friends and families. The 1978 murder of former Club Paris owner Frank Taylor is one of those challenging cases.

Frank “Frankie” Taylor was born on Jan. 4, 1920, in Greenwood, Arkansas. A series of moves marked his adult life. In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he was a charter member of the local Elks lodge. Other stops included Seattle and Pocatello, Idaho. By 1959, he was living in Reno, Nevada, when he visited Anchorage and bought Club Paris with his brothers. The following year, he relocated his family to Alaska, primarily residing in Anchorage but also spending some time in Kodiak, where he ran the Shelikof Lodge. But he is best known for owning Club Paris.

The Fifth Avenue restaurant is an enduring Anchorage icon. Tommy Strachan, a World War II veteran who returned to America with a French wife, opened Club Paris on Oct. 15, 1957. His goal was to offer his wife a bit of the old country while providing rough and tumble Anchorage some sorely lacking continental class. The awning, a fake inside hedge, piano players, lounge singers, striped bar stools, wine selection and other features made the establishment stand out amidst the not exactly cutting-edge bar, club and restaurant scene of the midcentury town.

The restaurant’s advertisements illustrate inflation and changing tastes. Its grand opening announcements made no mention of the food in favor of the star attraction, lounge pianist Scott Kincaide. In November 1968, the chef’s special was the “conglomeration,” a beef, green pepper, pineapple chunk, tomato and mushroom casserole served with fried rice. Two servings of the “conglomeration” were only $7, about $54 in 2021 dollars. In 1972, a smaller lunch steak meal with sides cost $4. The sautéed veal, the steak and lobster combination, and veal parmesan entrées each cost under $5. The top sirloin dinner was just under $7, or about $45 today.

Club Paris also possesses some morbid history apart from Frank Taylor. Before the location was a restaurant, it was a furniture store. Before that, it was a flooring company. And before that, it was the Carlquist-Menzel Funeral Parlor. Stories of a blonde, female ghost have lingered over the years, long enough that employees gave the apparition a name: Emily. Current co-owner Stan Selman told the Anchorage Press in 2018 that he discovered bones during a renovation.

Taylor sold out of the restaurant in 1976. He was getting older, and there have been far worse times to sell a business than near the peak of the pipeline construction boom when fat wallets and bustling crowds were the rule. On Nov. 27, 1978, four days after Thanksgiving, Frank and his wife, Bonnie, closed on the sale of their 1549 G Street house and deposited the cash payment at their bank. They planned on moving somewhere warmer in the Lower 48 and had already shipped most of their belongings to Seattle. Around 5:30 that evening, Frank dropped his wife off at their daughter’s home. He continued to their temporary lodging at the B Plaza Hotel (831 B Street).

About two hours later, the wife and daughter went looking for Frank after he failed to answer several phone calls. They entered the hotel room and found nothing. Everything seemed to be in place. Then, they opened the closet. There was Frank Taylor, bound and gagged with packing tape, dead from multiple stab wounds and a slashed throat. The murder weapon — Frank’s own knife — was embedded in his chest.

There were no bruises, defensive wounds or signs of torture. The apparent lack of struggle confused Anchorage police. People acted like people always do and gossiped maliciously, including about unsubstantiated rumors of gambling debts. Taylor’s eyes had also been taped over, suggesting that he may have known his murderer. A more prosaic theory suggested the murderer, or murderers, knew of the house sale and assumed he still had the money with him.

It is also possible that the murderers knew nothing about Taylor, that he was a random target of a common holdup. His close friend Louis Gigliotti told the Daily News in 1979, “Frank didn’t have any enemies, he never carried any money, and he was a closed-mouthed man.” Gigliotti believed Taylor’s death was committed by some “goofed-up S.O.B.” “How could it have been planned,” he said. “I didn’t even know he was moving there, and I’m his best friend.”

Fellow bar and restaurant owners worked with family friends to offer a $10,000 (about $40,000 in 2021) reward for information. In 1980, the reward was renewed and upped to $15,000 (about $52,000 in 2021). While tips came in, all the leads turned into dead ends. The police never arrested any suspects, and the murder remains unsolved.

Bobbie Taylor had been married to Frank for 35 years, but in a moment, all her plans and dreams were wrecked beyond repair. Instead of following through on their plans to move south, she lingered in Anchorage, apart from wintering in Hawaii. Their belongings remained stored in Seattle. Twelve years after the murder, she hadn’t been able to visit and review the artifacts of the life she had shared with her husband. In 1991, she told the Anchorage Times, “It’s hard to feel finished. You always keep hoping someone will come out of the woodwork. To think someone could have murdered your loved one and get away with it, that’s very hard to take.” She was still in Anchorage when she passed in 2008.

Club Paris endures as a downtown fixture, a living link to the wildly different Anchorage that existed before the pipeline, before the 1964 earthquake, and even before statehood. Decisions and deals with wide-ranging impacts on Alaska have been made at its tables and bar. It has survived earthquakes, nearby fires, construction, a pandemic and the economy’s ebb and flow over the many years since its opening. Its original, more upscale competition, places like the Aleutian Gardens and Oyster Loaf, have been closed for decades.

Meanwhile, there is another small, downtown reminder of Frank Taylor. His name is one among hundreds at the Alaska Victims of Violent Crime Memorial, in relatively hidden Hostetler Park. Anchorage Crime Stoppers maintains a list of more recent unsolved homicides. If you know something that could bring closure to victims’ families and friends, then please submit a tip.

Keys sources:

Abbott, Jeanne. “Club Owner’s Death Remains Mysterious.” Anchorage Daily News, January 19, 1979, 2.

Club Paris chef’s special advertisement. Anchorage Daily Times, November 15, 1968, 15.

Elliott, Diana. “Murder Victim’s Wife Remembers.” Anchorage Times, April 21, 1991, B-1, B-8.

Fields, Zack. “Club Paris: Anchorage’s Essential Restaurant.” Anchorage Press, May 23, 2018, anchoragepress.com/food_and_drink/club-paris/article_6a1bb146-5f02-11e8-bfb1-2fc9a9c9881e.html.

Jones, Tyler. “Club Paris ‘Keeps it Straight.’” Anchorage Daily Times, December 24, 1972, 2.

McKinney, Debra. “An Earlier Anchorage Lives on in Club Paris.” Anchorage Daily News, March 23, 2008, A-1, A-16.

“Past Owner of Club Slain.” Anchorage Times, November 28, 1978, 1, 2.

“We’ll Always Have Paris.” New York Times, March 30, 2008, nytimes.com/2008/03/30/style/tmagazine/30epicenters.html.