Grand hotels of a wealthier, gaudier era
Launch library · evergreen read
During the city's wealthiest boom decades, enormous hotels rose along the main streets, decorated with a confidence that bordered on excess, built to convince visitors and residents alike that this was a city of genuine, lasting importance. Guests arriving by carriage would have been greeted by staff trained specifically to project the same confident, unhurried grandeur as the building itself.
Many of these grand buildings struggled through later, leaner decades, some demolished, others repurposed entirely for offices or apartments, their original grandeur surviving only in old photographs or the occasional preserved facade. Photographs from the era show lobbies crowded with potted palms and elaborate chandeliers, details considered essential rather than excessive at the time.
The handful that do survive intact now stand as rare, tangible evidence of just how far the city's ambitions once stretched, a reminder that its confident self image did not begin with any recent development boom. A handful of these buildings have been carefully restored, allowing modern visitors a genuine glimpse of that original, extravagant ambition.