Boulder’s own Hotel Boulderado celebrates a century in service

The Hotel Boulderado recently passed a milestone only the most elite businesses ever reach: 100 years of operations. Its centennial celebration the first weekend in January attracted 1,500-plus visitors and featured Ragtime dance performances, music from the 1910s, the Legendary Ladies in Victorian costume and the feeling that everyone in attendance – be it employee or guest – was part of history.

Here are some interesting tidbits about Boulder’s first luxurious hotel:

- Boulder had a population of 8,000 in 1905, the year the idea for the hotel was conceived;

- The $131,664.73 to build the hotel was raised locally by selling shares at $100 apiece. However, though the amount wasn’t enough to finish the fifth floor, so the spaces on the west side of the floor were rented out to traveling salesmen until it could be completed;

- The hotel’s foundation is made of large blocks of orange-red sandstone from the no-longer-active Colorado Red Sandstone Co. of Fort Collins;

- The Hotel Boulderado opened New Year’s Day 1909;

- When Hotel Boulderado opened, rooms cost between $1 and $2.50 a day while today they range between $174 and $394;

- In the hotel’s beginning, unseen men worked 24/7 stoking the huge coal furnace to provide hot water and to keep the hotel evenly heated;

- The hotel lacks rooms and suites ending in the number 13 to avoid any conflict with guests’ superstitions;

- Such famous figures as Robert Frost, Helen Keller, Douglas Fairbanks, Ethel Barrymore, and Louis Armstrong have stayed at the hotel (the names of more recent and still-living famous guests are kept confidential to protect their privacy);

- Two panels of stained glass ceiling in the lobby broke in 1959 when the skylight collapsed under the weight of the snow following a heavy snowfall and crashed into the stained glass. All of the panels were replaced with red, white and blue Plexiglas in the 1960s and then with stained glass in 1977 to return the hotel to its original glory.

Beverly Silva, director of marketing and sales for the Hotel Boulderado, says the hotel’s secret to success is its uniqueness and “really, the friendly service. All of our core management has been here more than 25 years. Even though we’re not related, we’re like a family. We have many long-term employees who put their hearts into it.”