Day 321 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Door That Goes Nowhere

I see this in a lot of places at the Hotel Boulderado, but none are in such a public space. This door is located on our Mezzanine, right next to the dancefloor, and it leads absolutely no where. Once upon a time, there was a stone portico entrance at our Spruce Street entrance, and this door would have led to a small patio over the portico. When the portico came down in the 1960s, so did the patio, but the door remained.

Day 312 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ Stone Portico Entrance

This closeup of a photograph taken in 1912 of the Hotel Boulderado is one of my favorites because it shows you the stone portico entrance that once greeted guests at our Spruce Street entrance. The portico began crumbling in the 1960s and had to be taken down, making this photo of the entrance that much more valuable to our history.

Day 263 of 365 Days of Boulderado Photos ~ 1960s South Entrance

I've decided to show you some old photos from the hotel's collection over the next couple of days. This photograph, provided by June Howard, is of the hotel's south entrance from the early 1960s. There are two items in this photo of the hotel that no longer are there -- the stone portico structure over the south entrance, and the neon sign on the roof.

The Stone Portico Entrance

When the Hotel Boulderado first opened in 1909, the south entrance was considered the main entrance and was marked by a large stone portico. It looked like this:

The portico began crumbling in 1963 and eventually it was removed. There's been talk around the hotel that we may bring it back, which explains why we hung on to a key element of the original. When I went down and photographed the "guts" of the elevator, I found the original portico sign.
The hotel's original entrance on Spruce Street was so important to the city of Boulder that when it came time to pave the roads for the first time, Spruce was done first because it led right to the Hotel Boulderado.