Bigelow Hotel and Residences

Located at the prominent intersection of Washington Boulevard and 25th Street, the Renaissance Revival Bigelow Hotel is an example of the economic success Ogden experienced in the early twentieth century. From 1900 to 1930, Ogden witnessed a 246 percent growth in population due to its status as a major railroad junction along the transcontinental railroad. Significant expansions in business, agriculture, and industrial manufacturing were accompanied by luxury hotels, theaters, and dining venues, where locals and visitors socialized. The thirteen-story Bigelow Hotel replaced an older, much smaller 1891 hotel on the site. The hotel tower punctuates the eastern end of Washington Boulevard in downtown Ogden, while the monumental Union Station, built three years earlier, caps the western end—a striking visual of the role transportation played in the city’s development.

Architectural firm Hodgson and McClenahan designed the grand hotel, which features a four-story rectangular base, nine-story upper ell, and a two-story tower at the corner of the ell, the latter originally serving as a penthouse for the Bigelow family. The hotel’s reinforced concrete shell is covered with pressed brick on the body of the tower, and ornamental terracotta on the four-story base and uppermost story. Flat roofs feature balustrades on parapet walls. Segmentally arched storefront windows occupy the base of the building, while the tower’s windows are double-hung sash, with the exception of the ornamented arched windows below the roofline.

The upper floors housed 350 guest rooms and the first four stories contained a large dining room, ballrooms, lounges, restrooms, retail shops, and a bank. The kitchen, laundry, storage, and mechanical areas occupied the basement. Ornamental plasterwork and terracotta can be found throughout the interior, which also featured themed décor: a Japanese-styled dining room, a ballroom with Mediterranean furnishings, a Roman-themed main ballroom, a Middle Eastern coffee shop, a Georgian ladies’ parlor with Adamesque detail, and an English room with rick oak paneling.

The Bigelow was renamed the Ben Lomond Hotel in 1933. Over the years various additions have been built, including a circa 1957 three-story, brick and concrete motel on the east side, which featured ground-level parking. In the early 1960s, a two-level parking garage was erected on the southeast corner of the hotel. Radisson purchased the hotel in the 1980s and completed extensive renovations. The hotel is now operated as part of the Ascend Hotel Collection.