The Courtyard St. Louis Downtown/Convention Center is a historic hotel in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

History

The 25-story hotel opened on September 2, 1929 as the Lennox Hotel, the tallest hotel in the city at the time. Designed by

Preston J. Bradshaw Preston J. Bradshaw (1884–1952) was one of the most eminent architects of St. Louis, Missouri, during the 1920s. Among his numerous commissions as an architect, he is best known for designing hotels and automobile dealerships in the region. Li ...

in the Renaissance Revival style, the building features terra cotta faces and

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

s. The hotel, along with the Hotel Statler and the Mayfair Hotel, was built as part of a commercial boom in downtown St. Louis in the 1920s. It was the last hotel built in the area before the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, another hotel did not open in downtown St. Louis until 1963. The Lennox Hotel closed after newer hotels were built in the 1970s. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 6, 1984. It was renovated in 2002 and reopened as the Renaissance St. Louis Suites Hotel. The hotel was foreclosed in 2009 by its bondholders after it failed to generate enough revenue to cover interest payments. It closed in November 2011. It was sold in December 2013 to Maritz, Wolff & Co., which spent $15 million on a complete renovation. It reopened on September 2, 2015 as the Courtyard St. Louis Downtown/Convention Center.

References

External links

* Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Missouri Renaissance Revival architecture in Missouri Hotel buildings completed in 1929 National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis Hotels in St. Louis Downtown St. Louis Buildings and structures in St. Louis 1929 establishments in Missouri {{StLouis-struct-stub