Hotel Vendome

About this property

The Hotel Vendome is a historic hotel located in Prescott, Arizona. Built in 1917, it was added to the list of National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The site of the hotel was located on lot 9, block 20 of the original Prescott Townsite. The first record of the property still in existence was the issuance of a deed for the lot to Dr. Thaddeus P. Seeley in 1872, who had been the post surgeon at nearby Fort Whipple. Seeley sold the property in 1876 for $250 to William W. Hutchinson, who served on the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors. He built a large 2-story Victorian house on property, which also included the adjoining lot 11. After Hutchinson's death in 1886, and his wife remarried, to W.T. Richardson. The Richardson's sold the house to Henry D. Ross in 1895 for $3000. Ross was a respected jurist who became Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Ross sold the property in 1906 to John S. Hagler, who in turn sold the property in 1910 to Woodville H. Williams for $2000. Sometime between 1901 and the sale in 1910, the large house built by Hutchinson was demolished, and a smaller house was constructed on lot 11, with lot 9 remaining vacant. In 1917 Prescott had become the center for many industries in the state, including mining, ranching, farming, tourism, as well as being known as a health resort for people with respiratory conditions. The city had several hotels, including the Hotel Prescott, Hotel St. Michael (the largest hotel at that time), Congress Hotel, and the Head Hotel. However, the growing city had a housing shortage, particularly for visitors. That year a cowboy and rancher named J.B. (Jack) Jones brought property from Williams, including the house on lot 11 and vacant lot 9. In response to the housing shortage, he built a two-story hotel made of red brick on the vacant land. Jones' house was next door to that of Morris Goldwater, who would serve several terms as mayor of Prescott, and was the uncle to Barry Goldwater. Jones borrowed $12,000 from the Commercial Trust and Savings Bank, which was owned by his next-door neighbor, Goldwater. The hotel was finished by November 1917. Upon opening, the hotel was advertised as "attractive small hotel (with) 30 rooms and 16 baths, wide verandas upstairs and down, attractive lobby, hot and cold water in all rooms, night and day phone service with buzzers in all rooms, excellent steam heat, free parking, one-half block from Plaza." The original rates were $1.50 per night for a single and $2.50 for a double. The hotel underwent a renovation during the 1980s, which allowed the property to keep many of its original features, while giving its amenities an upgrade.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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