Brown Palace Hotel

The Brown Palace Hotel opened in Denver, Colorado, in 1892, designed by the architect Frank E. Edbrooke for the mining entrepreneur Henry Cordes Brown on a distinctive triangular lot formed by the diagonal intersection of two of the city's streets. Edbrooke's design rises around a full-height interior atrium, ringed by tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies and capped by a stained-glass ceiling, an atrium-hotel arrangement considered innovative for an American hotel of its period and one that remains the building's defining interior feature. The hotel's exterior is built of Colorado red granite and Arizona sandstone, giving it a solid presence distinct from the wood-frame construction common elsewhere in Denver at the time, a choice that also helped it survive largely undamaged through more than a century of continuous operation. The hotel has hosted numerous American presidents and other prominent guests since its opening and has operated continuously since 1892, closing for renovation only briefly across its history. It remains one of Denver's most recognized historic landmarks and a rare surviving example of a major nineteenth century American atrium hotel.