You are here

Colorado » The South Platte » Denver » Downtown » Oxford Hotel

Oxford Hotel

-A A +A
1890, Frank E. Edbrooke; 1902 addition. 1983, restoration, William Muchow and Associates. 1600–1612 17th St. (at Wazee St.) (NR)
  • (Damie Stillman)
  • Cruise Room (Oxford Hotel)
  • (Damie Stillman)

The suavely restored Oxford is now one of Denver's finest hotels as well as the oldest. Frank Edbrooke designed what may have been the city's first steel-skeleton building two years before his masterpiece, the Brown Palace Hotel, at the other end of 17th Street. The original five-story, red brick structure was built on a U plan a block from the railroad station. Edbrooke's two-story addition (1902) on Wazee Street used the same facade detailing.

To celebrate repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Oxford had Charles Jaka design a Streamline Moderne cocktail lounge, the Cruise Room. Flowing lines shape the front bar, booths, and even the ceiling. The walls are paneled with Denver artist Alley Henson's beaverboard bas-relief portraits of characters from various nations offering toasts in their own languages. The Oxford Hotel Annex ( DV060.1; 1912, Montana Fallis and Robert Willison), 1628 17th Street (NR), is the same height as the hotel, but the entire facade is elaborately detailed white terracotta, an echo of the belle époque.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,