The Broadmoor: Main Hotel

The Broadmoor, endearingly known as the Grand Dame of the Rockies, faced a challenge familiar to great historic hotels: how to offer a contemporary luxury experience while preserving the character guests cherish. For Broadmoor Main, our task was to recognize history and envision the future.

Designed by Warren and Wetmore and completed in 1918, the original hotel belonged to an era of steamship, railroad, and early motor travel. Its small guest room baths were akin to those found aboard ships and trains. Their diminutive scale no longer matched the generous comfort expected of a luxury resort.

As architect of record, CSNA was responsible for all engineering disciplines and coordinated the architectural and engineering work with the resort planner, interior designers, artisans, and craftspeople. This shared effort brought new standards of comfort into a building whose historic character remained essential.

Working closely with the Broadmoor’s resort planner and interior design team, we reimagined the main hotel floor plans around a new five-fixture luxury bath standard: double sinks, a toilet, a separate shower, and a freestanding soaking tub. The transformation reduced the number of guest rooms from 109 to 92, giving the new standard the space it required.

The reduction led to the planning and construction of Lakeside, a new hotel with enough additional rooms to maintain the resort’s overall room count. CSNA again served as architect of record, working with the same team and landscape architects to locate and design the new hotel and carry it through construction. Improving Broadmoor Main became part of a larger plan for the resort’s future.

Broadmoor Main was closed during construction. All guest rooms in the tower were removed, leaving the structural floors and walls for reconstruction. We carefully integrated new elevators serving every guest room floor while protecting the beloved reception spaces and ballrooms beneath the tower with shoring and dust barriers.

New air and security systems and reconstructed guest rooms brought the tower to modern standards. We managed engineering coordination so that this extensive reconstruction aligned with the transformation of the guest room interiors by the interior designers.

Throughout this extensive work, preserving the Renaissance Revival exterior remained paramount. It is the visual essence of the hotel. All exterior windows were replaced for improved thermal comfort while safeguarding that defining architectural character.

The result is a hotel renewed from within, offering the comfort of a contemporary resort with the familiar presence of the historic Broadmoor. To experience it is to feel that it could always have been this way.

Recognize History and Envision the Future: The Broadmoor: Main Hotel story.