Living in a Historic Hotel

Seeing as how I am studying Historic Preservation, it's quite fitting that I am currently residing in a Historic Hotel. The Tabor Grand Hotel was converted to low-income apartments (I am a student!) in the 1990's, but before that it's had quite the interesting history.

You can see from the photo above that the Tabor Grand was quite the elite and prestigious hotel when it opened in 1885. While Leadville was becoming a very important city to the state of Colorado, money was pouring in with the heavy mining activity. The businessmen of Leadville wanted the town to have a hotel that was first rate and could compete with any metropolitan city. With a total cost of about $100,000, this four-story Second Empire hotel boasted all of the finest amenities. It had steam-heat, an elevator, a bar, kitchen, wine cellar, library, a waiting room for the ladies (ya I don't like that either but this was 1885 and I suppose NOT having a 'waiting' room was worse), a dining room that seated several hundred, 117 rooms that were 'very elegantly appointed', a barbershop, public parlor, two chefs, a billiard-room, several shops and a restaurant. This was quite the statement for Leadville!

The hotel went through many changes over the past 100 years, but for the first 70 or so, it remained a functioning hotel that hosted several famous people, including the Colorado famous Molly Brown- well, the actress that played her anyway (Debbie Reynolds) in the 1964 film "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." What? You've never seen this movie? Well if you'd like a brief taste of Leadville life, do rent it...http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unsinkable_molly_brown/

Like a lot of America's finer buildings, things went south for the Tabor Grand in the 70's and 80's. Leadville began to struggle more and more with little mining activity, and little else to keep its economy alive. By the late 80's it was abandoned, except for the frequent squatters and otherwise shady happenings going on inside. You can see from these two pictures, the building was in pretty rough shape.

Most people thought it was through, and it would be torn down, too far from being saved. In the 1988 however, the Santa Fe Land Company bought the building for $2.3million. The very day after the sale, a rain storm brought down the northwest corner of the building in a pile of rubble.



Some deal huh! It get's better though, you see this corner, completely collapsed to the ground, well look closely at that second floor opening, yep, that's my very own apartment! I have to admit it was quite shocking the first time I saw this photo, and I noticed myself becoming a bit more ginger whenever I moved to the corner of my living room. That was prior to the $4million renovation though. In the early 1990's, the rehabilitated building was reopened with 32 apartments, and several retail businesses on the first floor. This is how it still stands today, as you can see from the picture below that I took in October of 2009:



I must say I think it's pretty cool to live in a building with so much history. I gave you a very brief overview, believe me there's lots more to this place! I sometimes like to think about what life was like here 100 years ago. Who has stayed in my room? Thousands of people, I wonder what kind of rough and tumbling mining town activity took place on my floor. It's rumored there were some pretty wild times in this grand hotel, almost makes me wish I could have been there. But for now I'm content with just thinking about it, and of course, studying this beautiful building in my Historic Preservation classes. It's actually quite convenient that I am writing a paper on my very own home. Don't have to go too far!