Antlers Hilton Hotel

The Antlers Hilton Hotel is a downtown Colorado Springs hotel. The first Antlers Hotel building was constructed in 1883, but burned down in 1898. Completed in 1901, the second Antlers Hotel building was torn down in 1964. The current hotel building opened in 1969. Since then, it has been called the Antlers Doubletree and Antlers Adam's Mark Hotel. It has been a four-diamond rated hotel by the American Automobile Association (AAA) since 2007.

Geography

The hotel site is located in the center of downtown Colorado Springs, on Cascade Avenue, just off of Colorado Avenue. It is near Interstate 25. The hotel is near the former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad depot building and Antlers Park and adjacent to the Antlers Garage.

Description

The downtown hotel had 292 rooms, including seven executive suites. Within the hotel are an indoor pool, health club, day spa, beauty salon, restaurant, and a pub.

History

First building (1883-1898)

In June 1883, twelve years after he founded the City of Colorado Springs, William Jackson Palmer built The Antlers hotel. It was named for the large elk and deer racks that Palmer installed in the hotel. It had 75 unique guest rooms, a music room, Turkish Bath, children's playroom, billiards room, and a barber shop. The hotel had gas lights, steam heat, hot and cold water, and a hydraulic elevator. It was unusually elegant for a hotel in the west. Palmer contributed $125,000 (equivalent to $3,163,839 in 2015) towards the cost of its construction.

Second building (1901-1964)

It burned down on October 1, 1898, when a fire was started at the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway freight depot Palmer rebuilt the hotel in 1901 with Italian Renaissance architecture, designed by the Varian and Sterner architectural firm. It was an elegant hotel with commanding views of Pikes Peak, 200 rooms, a restaurant, the Rose Ballroom, fireproof walls, tapestries, and mosaic floors. Presidents who visited the hotel include Theodore Roosevelt, who gave a speech off a hotel balcony in 1901, and Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison, and William Howard Taft. William Jackson Palmer died in 1909, after which Spencer Penrose attempted to by the hotel but could not reach an agreement. Instead, he built The Broadmoor. The second Antlers Hotel building was torn down after September 20, 1964, when the last guest checked out.

Third building (1967-present)

The hotel was rebuilt and reopened on March 20, 1969 with the current, modern Antlers Hotel. The hotel is about 170 feet (52 m) tall with 14 floors.

It was operated by the Broadmoor Management Company in 1975, which shuttled guests to and from The Broadmoor in a double-decker London-styled bus. The Antlers hotel was remodeled for $24,000,000 in 1989-1990 (equivalent to $45,661,208 in 2015). In 1998, the Adams Doubletree Hotel was sold to the Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts for $35.4 million (equivalent to $51,220,866 in 2015).

The hotel was purchased for $27.2 million (equivalent to $34,871 in 2015) in 2003 by a joint venture of Morgan Stanley Real Estate Group and Pyramid Hotel Group, which then spent an estimated $7.5 million (equivalent to $9,615,141 in 2015) in renovations. When it announced the renovations to the 292 room hotel, the hotel changed its name from Antlers Adam's Mark Hotel to Antlers Hilton Hotel.

A limited liability company of LNR Partners of Miami Beach, Florida, which was the hotel's lender, took control of the firm in 2007. The hotel went into foreclosure and was purchased by an entity of LNR Partners at a foreclosure auction in December 2013.

In 1927, there were 24 hotels in downtown Colorado Springs, and as of 2009 it is the only downtown hotel is the Antlers. The hotel has been a four-diamond rated hotel by the American Automobile Association (AAA) since 2007.

Notes

References

Further reading

• Antlers Hotel. Colorado Springs' The Antlers Hotel: Largest and Finest Fireproof Hotel (1950s). Colorado Springs, Colorado: The Hotel. 
• Antlers Hotel (Colorado Springs, Colo.) (1908). The Hotel Antlers, Colorado Springs. Norman Pierce Company. 
• Anne Christensen, The Gazette (December 31, 1999). "Antlers spreads world-class influence (1883 opening dinner)". The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado). 
• Leland Feitz (1972). The Antlers, A Quick History of Colorado Springs' Historic Hotel. Golden Bell Press. 

External links

Media related to Antlers Hotel (Colorado Springs) at Wikimedia Commons

• Antlers Hilton, Hilton Hotels & Resorts site