Hotel Boulderado

The Belle of Boulder lives on

By Irene Middleman Thomas

Laurel McKown has worked in the exquisitely maintained and restored Hotel Boulderado for decades. Considered the “grande dame” of Boulder, the hotel enjoys fascinating heritage. “We’ve had just about everything happen in this hotel in the past 114 years,” McKown, the Hotel Historian, says with a knowing grin.

The atrium lobby is bustling and lively on the morning I visited, full of excited incoming freshmen students with their soon-to-be empty nester parents. Huge marble columns, a stately grandfather clock, an antique (yet still operating) water fountain, overstuffed furniture and the immense cherry wood cantilevered grand staircase are all topped by a grandiose domed faux ceiling of stained glass in sunlit jewel tones. It is a perfect setting for the thousands of weddings that have taken place throughout the hotel’s history. 

Opened in 1909, The Boulderado offers 160 guest rooms, decorated with either a “modern mountain” or historic Victorian style. A member of Historic Hotels of America of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a free brochure provides a self-guided tour through the hotel’s legacy with its many artifacts, relics, photographs and memorabilia. I learned that back in the property’s early years, suitcases did not exist. Rather, guests would come with huge steamer trunks, sometimes quite elaborately adorned. The trunks were unpacked and then brought to the basement for storage until the guests departed. Several ornate trunks are on display on the third floor.

Akin to a museum, the hotel’s heritage is everywhere. As I walked the staircase between floors. I was entranced by the enormous, rather haunting, portrait of Beatrice Lennartz hanging between the third and fourth floors. Lennartz was a 1930 debutante whose parents had her painted when she was introduced to society, and later donated the portrait to the hotel, where it is perfectly situated.

Back in 1909, Boulder was home to the fledgling University of Colorado and was also one of the nation’s hubs for the Chautauqua educational movement (today it hosts one of the few remaining Chautauquas.) The gold and silver mining boom of the late 1800’s had ended, but tourists came to Boulder for the cultural offerings, natural beauty and its accessibility by train. “It was like a mecca, a tourism destination” remarks McKown. The lack of an appropriate hotel was glaringly apparent, and soon, the Boulder Hotel Company was formed with the goal of building such a property. 

Thus, the “Boulderado” was born, with a name said to be unforgettable. Local architects William Redding & Son designed the five-story brick and red sandstone building, blending Italian Renaissance and Spanish Revival styles. The stained-glass ceiling that crowns the atrium was constructed with cathedral glass imported from Italy, and the hotel’s unique details include Spanish-style arched windows, bracketed cornices, iron railings and curved gables throughout, as well as 100-year-old Italian mosaic tile for the lobby floor.

Boulder celebrated the new hotel with a New Year’s Eve Gala in 1908. The next morning, on New Year’s Day 1909, Hotel Boulderado opened for business. Each year, the hotel throws a New Year’s Eve party.

Local politicians, with the urging of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, made Boulder a dry city in 1907, nine years before Prohibition. To the surprise of many nowadays, the city remained dry until 1967. That year, the Hotel Boulderado became one of the first businesses within the city limits to obtain a liquor license, thus License No. 1, the lower-level speakeasy bar was given that name.  The bar became very popular and has remained so. Famous guests have included Ethel Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Clarence Darrow, Helen Keller, Robert Frost, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong. 

Honoring the past is what we do best, says McKown. Wandering the hallways and alcoves of the Boulderado, I too am fascinated with its “grande dame” legacy, and with how it has tastefully melded the old with the new.