by Stanley Turkel Cmhs (Author) The word "maven" is defined by Wikipedia as a "trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others." Since the 1980s it has become more common when the New York Times columnist William Safire adapted it to describe himself as "the language maven." The word from Hebrew is mainly confined to American English and was included in the Oxford English Dictionary second edition (1989). My three hotel mavens are: 1) Lucius M. Boomer, one of the most famous hoteliers of his time, was chairman of the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria Corporation. In a career of over half a century, he directed such celebrated hotels as the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia, the Taft in New Haven, the Lenox in Boston, and the McAlpin, Claridge, Sherry-Netherland and the original as well as the current Waldorf-Astoria in New York.