Oxford Hotel
The Oxford Hotel, Denver's oldest operating hotel, opened on October 3, 1891. It was financed by a group led by Adolph Zang and designed by architect Frank E. Edbrooke. The original five-story structure was an immediate success, in part because of its location near busy Union Station. By 1902 its four hundred rooms were no longer sufficient to meet demand. A fifty-five room addition was constructed on the Wazee Street side. The business continued to grow, and in 1912 the Oxford Annex was built. Business remained brisk until after World War II, when the collapse of railroad transportation occurred and decline set in in Lower Downtown.
Edbrooke was considered a master of street architecture, having designed many of the well-known buildings constructed during the 1880s and 1890s, including the Denver Dry Building, Central Presbyterian Church, the Masonic Temple, and the second oldest hotel in Denver, the Brown Palace. The classical simplicity of the exterior does not advertise the extravagant interior that opening-day guests discovered. According to the Rocky Mountain News, the Oxford offered the latest technology along with Gilded Age opulence. The hotel had its own power plant and a steam heating system, electric and gas lighting, and "on each floor bath rooms and separate water closets" with the "latest improved sanitary appliances." Included for guests were dining rooms, a barber shop, a library, a pharmacy, a Western Union office, stables, and a splendid saloon.
In 1933 the Cruise Room opened inside the Oxford. Designed by Charles Jaka in the Art Deco stye and supposedly modeled after the lounge on the Queen Mary, the long, narrow bar has its own listing in the National Register of Historic Places. It won the prestigious Miami Art Deco Society's annual award in 1984.
In 1979 the hotel was purchased by investors who undertook a three-year restoration costing more than $12 million, with a grand reopening celebrated on June 19, 1983.
Oxford Annex
Although it was built as an addition to the Oxford Hotel in 1912, the Oxford Annex, with its glazed terra-cotta - a white tile - on the exterior facade, is unique. It is the only white tile building in Lower Downtown. Architect Montana Fallis designed the building for proprietors Hamilton Brooks Company, who had their initials embossed on the tile at the lower corners of the building. The top five floors of the annex were devoted to hotel rooms, which added eighty-four smaller rooms to those already in the popular hotel. The first floor contained retail shops. The annex is connected to the main hotel by a passageway over the alley at the fourth-floor level and by another in the basement.
Fallis was known for his use of terra-cotta in the detailing of his designs, but the annex represents his most elaborate use of the material. Terra-cotta was used as a building material in America as early as the 1880s, but became more popular in the twentieth century following improvements in production and increased variety in colors.
Note the projecting center bay and the elaborate projecting cornice at the top of the structure. The structure has elaborate brackets with a floral motif.
The annex was renovated with the Oxford Hotel and now provides offices on the top three floors. The Aveda Spa/Salon and Oxford Athletic Club are located in the basement and second floor, with an art gallery on the first floor.
The plaque reads:
The Oxford Hotel, built in 1891, is Denver's oldest hotel. Bankrolled by brewer Adolph Zang and his partners Philip Feldhauser and William Mygatt, the hotel was designed by Denver's greatest 19th Century architect, Frank E. Edbrooke. Through the years, its red brick battlements and terra cotta facade have presided over the comings and goings of Presidents and Queens, scalawags and common laborers. The Oxford's first rooms were advertised as elegant yet affordable, located within a half block of Union Station. A room was one dollar, or two dollars for a room with a bath. The hotel weathered the 1893 depression and silver crash to open a two-story brick addition on Wazee Street in 1903. A major addition came in 1912 with the Oxford Annex on 17th Street, designed by Montana Fallis and Robert Willison. Its lavishly decorated terra cotta facade incorporates elements of Neoclassical style which contrasts with the hotel's Romanesque design. The proprietors of the Oxford - Hamilton Brook Company - purchased land from Struby-Estabrook Merchantile Comany and left their mark with the "HB" monogram above the first floor. Major alterations in the hotel occurred primarily in the interior, as the magnificent stained glass windows and dining rooms were installed in 1906, followed by the Art Deco Cruise Room bar with its bas relief panels in 1935. After 60 years of prominence, the Oxford's fortunes tumbled after 1945, as the railways waned and the neighborhood declined only to be restored to its former glory for a grand reopening in June 1983.