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Beaumont Hotel

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1887, Otto Bulow. 501 Main St. (northeast corner of 5th Ave.) (NR)
  • Beaumont Hotel (Tom Noel)
  • (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

The architect of this hotel employed mansarded French, Italianate, and Romanesque Revival elements without loosing a sense of harmony in what might be cataloged as a Second Empire structure. The three-story brick building has a square corner tower and mini-towers capping the ends of its two wings. The steep-pitched slate roof is punctuated by Chateauesque dormers and capped with ornate finials and a weathervane dated 1886. The storefront spaces once housed the town's first bank and Western Union offices.

Gentlemen entered the hotel on Main Street and ladies on 5th Avenue. Inside, a grand staircase of solid oak climbs a central atrium with balconies on each floor, beneath a skylight and orchestra gallery. Over the years the Beaumont has lost many of its fine original furnishings and stooped to white paint and neon signs to capture commerce.

In 1965 an absentee landlord bought the hotel for $40,000, closed it after the town refused to let her turn 5th Avenue into a parking lot, and began demolition by neglect.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

What's Nearby

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Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Beaumont Hotel", [Ouray, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-OR09.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 571-572.

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