Residential Building (Hotel Rudolf)

This restrained Classical Revival hotel was built for Rudolph Giselius, who operated it for thirty-seven years. Anchoring the southern end of the city’s business district, the eighty-five-room Rudolf was the oldest hotel in Valley City and played a significant role in the business and social community, with its restaurant, dance hall, recreation center, and two bars. The hotel hosted regular meetings of Kiwanis, Rotarians, Toastmasters, Zonta Club, and Lions. It was also the site of KOVC radio and a house orchestra, as well as an important venue for United Commercial Travelers (UCT) salesmen. The three-story building occupies a corner lot, with reddish pressed-brick walls on the two street facades. Fluted Doric pilasters that extend from the second floor are made up of rounded bricks set in a stack bond and topped with stone capitals that support a wide painted-metal cornice. A porch carried on Tuscan columns supporting a balustrade wraps the two principal elevations. When the hotel ceased operations in 1977, it remained abandoned until it was rehabilitated for use as a senior living center in 1982. In the course of the conversion an atrium was inserted into the building to enhance interior lighting.