Renaissance Denver Downtown- Denver, CO

While I undeniably love legendary Grande Dame hotels with their illustrious histories, I do also appreciate a well done repurposed property. Historic banks are particularly well suited to hotel conversions: built to inspire confidence, they were substantial buildings, frequently marble clad, and highly decorative. Expensive to maintain, in later years these elaborate branches were shuttered. Such was the case with the Colorado National Bank Building, which found new life as the Renaissance Denver Downtown.

Designed by noted Denver architects William and Arthur Fisher, the stately neoclassical Greek Revival cost upwards of $500,000 to build in 1915. Constructed of the same Colorado marble as Washington’s Lincoln memorial, the interior boasted coffered ceilings and a series of 16 murals painted in 1925 by Allen Tupper True, titled “Indian Memories.” Incidentally, True, a renowned Western artist, also created the iconic “bucking horse” symbol found on Wyoming license plates.

Colorado National Bank operated at the 17th and Champa location for 83 years; after being acquired by US Bank, the branch closed in 2007. The property than sat vacant and vandalized until 2011, when renovations began to convert the space into a 230 room boutique hotel (which required the addition of two stories to the existing structure). True’s murals were restored, and original bank features such as the vaults and bronze doors were incorporated into the design.

Today, the area where tellers once stood is a sleek bar, and the vaults function as both dining and meeting space. Admittedly, the guest rooms are rather generic, but they generally are in repurposed hotels- it is new construction after all. That said, the common areas and retained original elements more than make up for the room’s lack of character. Well done all around, the Renaissance holds its own against Denver’s other historic hotels.