Day 2 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ The Fifth Floor Hallway

When Frank Day bought the Hotel Boulderado, the rooms on the west side of the historic section of the hotel were still located on the interior of the hallway. Each room, rather than having a window to the outside, instead had a window that overlooked the interior courtyard. When the first round of renovations occurred in 1980, the hotel rooms were "moved" to the other side of the hallway -- in a nutshell, the rooms became the hallway, and the hallway became the rooms. When walking down the hallway of the 5th floor on the west side, you can still see the arches that designate the spatial dimensions of the original hotel rooms, as seen in the photo above.

Videos from the Oral History Luncheon

Back in September of 2008, the Hotel Boulderado hosted a luncheon in our Spruce Room. We invited a variety of people from the community to come in, sit down, and share a memory of the Hotel Boulderado. Here's a rundown of who we talked to and what they had to say:

• Dee Demmon remembers dancing in the lobby and getting her spiked heels caught in the tile floor
• Sandy Hume recollects his impressions of the original stained-glass ceiling -- "It contained every color in heaven."
  
• Don Hume tells stories of his visits to the Boulderado as a young child
• Betty Chronic shares what led to her first visit to the Boulderado dining room
• Virginia Patterson's connections to Boulderado weddings and the old barber shop
• June Howard remembers what it was like running the hotel in the 1960s, with her husband, Ed
• Gwen Winterberger and her husband, Louis, ran the hotel in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Gwen took some time to call us and share some memories
• Dick Dorman recalled his involvement with restoring the stained-glass ceiling
  
• Frank and Gina Day, our current owners, remember how their relationship with the Boulderado began
  
• Sidney Anderson, our current general manager, and his impact on the hotel
  
• Laurel McKown tells us how she was hired to restore, photograph, and catalog the Boulderado's extensive collection of antique furniture
• Sandy Hale shares the multitude of parties she threw at the hotel
  
• Mary Ann Mahoney recalls the opening of the North Wing and the new meetings market it served
• Silvia Pettem shares her experiences as the Hotel Boulderado historian
• Dan Corson remembers when the hotel was named a historic landmark
• Dorothy Sage recollects a memorable holiday tea at the Hotel Boulderado
  

Check out our collection of videos on our website!

Boulderado Events Center

If you're familiar with the Hotel Boulderado, you probably know that there are two wings of the building: the historic section, which is the original structure that was built and opened in 1909, and the north wing, the two additions that were constructed in the 1980s.

When the second addition was made to the north wing, Frank Day planned to also add a new function space along with the guest rooms. This in effect doubled the Boulderado's capacity to host events with our nearly 3,000 square feet of space in what is now known as the Events Center. The space is flexible both in size and purpose; a seminar, boardroom meeting, and class can simultaneously take place during the day and then be transformed into a wedding's cocktail reception by evening.Here's a picture from the Boulderado archives of the Event Center still under construction:
And the finished product:

Frank Day

My blogging series about the different Boulderado owners and managers had to come to an end eventually, I guess. And perhaps this is the blog post I've been pointing towards ever since I first started sharing the history of these people. Beginning with William Beattie and Hugh Mark, then moving on to the Hutsons, Ralph Hume, and the Howards, and continuing with Louis Winterberger, William Brantmeyer, and Bart Bortles.

Bortles and Dick Dorman sold the hotel to Boulderado Hotel Ltd. in 1980 after just two years of ownership. Sid Anderson stayed on as the general manager. Frank Day became the new managing general partner of the hotel. At the time, Day described the rooms as "threadbare and tatty, but clean and comfortable." He decided to renovate the building from top to bottom.

First to be done were the fourth and fifth floor guest rooms on the west side of the building. Rooms that connected to share a bathroom were converted into large suites. Rooms without bathrooms had them installed in what used to be the closets. Each room received a makeover in time, and the tradition of each Hotel Boulderado room having a different decorating scheme was born. (Each of our guest rooms are individually decorated with their own carpet, drape, and wallpaper.) At the time, the hotel was also full of original antique furniture, but most of them had lost their luster over the years. Every piece of furniture was refinished on the fourth-floor porch, cataloged, and photographed.

Amazingly enough, the Hotel Boulderado remained open during this entire process. While seven or eight rooms were taken out of the rental inventory, the rest remained open to guests. By the time the renovation had been completed, it brought the hotel's room count to 42. With an occupancy averaging 92% almost every night, Day felt confident in expanding the guest rooms at the Hotel Boulderado. First one expansion in 1985 and then another in 1989 increased the hotel's inventory to the current 160 and also added the Events Center in the North Wing.

Without the initial renovation and the subsequent expansion, the Hotel Boulderado may never have recovered the grandeur it exudes today. When you walk into the lobby, the cherrywood staircase gleams, the stained-glass ceiling glitters, and friendly faces greet you at the door and the front desk. This is the Boulderado that I've come to love and treasure, made possible by the people who contributed over the years not only to the hotel, but the hotel's history as well. Boulderado employees are also caretakers of a landmark, and we make sure to hold that duty in as high a regard as we do for our daily tasks.