Located at 125 2nd Street in downtown Albuquerque, the ten-story Hotel Andaluz is known as the very first hotel high-rise in New Mexico and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Opened in the summer of 1939, the building is treasured by preservationists as an example of New Mexico Territorial Revival design with its southwest style woodwork and roofline brick coping.
For decades a part of the Hilton Hotel chain, the hotel has now been purchased by the Legacy Hospitality company, with a renovation timetable that is expected to see completion by late 2024.
The hotel, one of the first Hilton Hotels in the country when it was built, was sold by the Hilton company in 1974, and has since been owned by a number of different entities.
Legacy Hospitality, with offices in Albuquerque, specializes in hotel, apartment, office, and retail development, has announced plans to update Hotel Andaluz’s restaurant space, while also building a new fitness center.
Built at a cost of $700,000, the Hotel Andaluz was the first structure of its kind in the state to have an elevator, and also the first to have air conditioning. The building was the fourth hotel built by hospitality magnate Conrad Hilton, who spent his 1942 honeymoon there with actress Zsa Zsa Gabor.
At the time of the hotel’s opening in 1939, the Albuquerque Journal made special note of its mezzanine, which the paper said is “constructed of quaking aspen.” The publication added: “Fifteen arches open out of the lobby into the area beneath the mezzanine.”
By Garry Boulard
