Grand Hotel

About this property

The Grand Hotel is a historic hotel in New Ulm, Minnesota, United States. The private, commercial structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on June 21, 1990. The building is notable because of its association with the development of New Ulm's business district and as an example of Italianate architecture in a commercial building. The Grand Hotel is a three-story Italianate-style brick building located in the center of New Ulm's historic business district. The structure originally had only two stories when it opened as the Union Hotel in 1876. New owners added the third story in 1899 during a thorough renovation where heating, plumbing and lighting fixtures were upgraded and a brick addition was extended from the rear; they renamed it the Grand Hotel. The south-facing street facade is divided into three bays by pilasters; the center bay is narrower than the other two. Fenestration is different on the three levels: the first floor consists of a transomed central entrance with sidelights flanked by rusticated brick pilasters and large, paired plate glass storefront windows. All five of the first floor openings are set in semicircular brick arches; each window has a decorative cartouche as a keystone. In the center of the arched doorway is a carved lion's head. The formal balance used by the Italianate design is accentuated by the brick quoins. The window to the immediate right of the main entrance was a storefront entrance, but it was altered on an unknown date to match the remaining windows. A corbel table provides horizontal division between the first and second floors. The second story consists of six identical four by four double hung windows featuring stone sills and raised brick Gothic arches with keystones. The two center windows are paired. The remnants of a cornice are visible just above the keystones on the second story. The windows on the top floor are similar to the second except they are one by one sash and have nearly flat brick arches with keystones. A row of corbeled brick in the form of dentils surmount these windows, and there is a large round window centered in the facade. Additional corbeled bricks serve as an elaborate terminus to the building. The gable roof has a slight pitch and each wall as a parapet. The west sidewall is pierced on the third floor by five double hung windows, two of which are one by one sash. The east elevation features eight double hung windows on the first floor, seven on the second, and six on the third; all of these opening have stone sills with segmental brick arches. The rear of the building has the 1899 one-story brick addition with a skillion roof.

Location

Categories

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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