Harvesting Historical Riches

Restoring the Empire

Originally published in Colorado History NOW, July 2005

If buildings were bicycles, the Armstrong Hotel in Fort Collins would be a fat-tire cruiser.  Especially popular from the end of World War II through the 1950s, cruisers epitomized America’s love affair with leisure.  Their comfy leather saddles, flashy chrome fenders, and curvy steel frames made getting there more than half the fun.  But technology—lighter materials, fancy derailleurs, and thinner tires—eventually made these single-speed joy rides obsolete.

Like cruiser bikes, the Armstrong Hotel—previously known as the Mountain Empire Hotel—enjoyed a long period of success and then became outmoded.  When cars replaced trains as the most popular method of transportation in the early 1900s, passengers became drivers and the phrase “road trip” raced into the vernacular.  The Armstrong, which housed the first local chapter of the American Automobile Association, catered to these new motorists.

Built in 1923, the three-story, E-shaped landmark featured forty-one guestrooms and had two big dining rooms that sat 182 people.  Its first-floor retail stores drew shoppers south along College Avenue, effectively extending the Fort Collins downtown district by a half block.  Architect Arthur E. Pringle’s design motifs, including a polychromatic façade with terra-cotta embellishments, made the building stand out as a red-brick monument to modernity.

As the decades passed, the hotel lost cachet.  During World War II, the U.S. Army turned it into a barracks.  Soldiers stayed there while attending classes at Colorado State University.  In 1973, owners changed its name to the Empire Motor Hotel.  Sometime later it became the Mountain Empire Hotel.  But no amount of name changing could overcome the fact the Interstate 25, which bypassed Fort Collins, had replaced College Avenue as the main thoroughfare for travelers.  Without tourists, running the building as a hotel became unprofitable.  Owners rented its guestrooms as apartments and the building fell into disrepair.

Enter the Levinger family.  After the Marriott chain passed on a scheme to turn the building into a boutique hotel in 2000, local residents Steve and Missy Levinger—along with Steve’s father, Bernard—bought the aging property.  They originally wanted to transform the hotel into small residences, but changed their minds and settled on reviving the boutique hotel concept.

“My wife had a vision of what the place could be the first time she set foot in the building,” reflects Steve.  To make the vision a reality, they would have to attract the kind of people who prefer to stay in a historic urban setting close to the restaurants, cafes, shops, and brewpubs that make the downtown area and Old Town Fort Collins fun.  In short, the kind of people who still ride cruiser bikes.

The Levingers knew that their project’s success would depend on preserving the Armstrong’s character.  “We thought of the project as continuing a legacy,” says Steve.

And city officials knew that restoring the property would benefit citizens and potential guests who choose to spend time downtown.  So they teamed up and applied for a State Historical Fund grant to rehabilitate the entire brick façade, restore original windows and a pressed tin ceiling, repair an Art Deco staircase and O’Keefe elevator, and restore storefronts.  They also used historic photographs to restore the lower-level leaded glass transoms and reconstruct the Armstrong Hotel sign.

The project, which was administered by Carol Tunner of the City of Fort Collins Advance Planning Department, began in 2003 and wrapped up last year.  The Levingers invested their time, money, and labor, while AE Design Associates and University Designers & Builders—both of which have extensive preservation experience in Fort Collins and beyond—oversaw the design, structural engineering, and brick and mortar work.

“This project really improved and enhanced its section of downtown,” says Tunner.  “It has become a hub of activity.”

Today, guests and locals meet at Mug’s Coffee Lounge, which occupies retail space in the Armstrong’s lower level.  On warm days the café’s outdoor seating area fills with college students and busy professionals who hammer away at laptops connected to the Internet via the building’s wi-fi hookup.  Every once in a while someone chains a cruiser to a nearby bike rack.  It seems that these sleek retro-rides, like the Armstrong Hotel itself, have become popular again.

BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor

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