The Adolphus

Adolphus Busch, the St. Louis brewer behind Anheuser-Busch, put his name on a 21-storey hotel at the corner of Commerce and Akard Streets in 1912, and The Adolphus has been the grand hotel of Dallas ever since. At the time it was the tallest building in Texas, a Beaux-Arts tower in brick and granite rising over a downtown of low commercial blocks.

History

Busch, who had business interests in the city, financed the hotel after Dallas civic leaders asked him for a hotel to match their ambitions. Barnett, Haynes and Barnett of St. Louis, the practice that designed the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, drew the plans. The hotel opened in October 1912 and was enlarged in stages over the following decades as the city grew. From the 1930s the Century Room was one of the best-known supper clubs in the South-West, booking the big bands of the day.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh stayed at The Adolphus in May 1991 during their tour of Texas. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and is a designated Dallas Landmark. In 2015 Rockpoint Group bought the property and commissioned a full renovation; the hotel reopened in 2017 as a member of Marriott's Autograph Collection, with a rooftop pool, a spa and new restaurants added to the restored historic rooms.

Architecture and design

The exterior follows the Beaux-Arts formula: a rusticated base, a plain brick shaft and an ornate crown with a corner turret that Dallas folklore compares to a beer bottle. Inside, the 2017 renovation, led by the Dallas practice Swoon, the Studio, kept the ceilings and millwork of the ground floor while introducing lighter colours and contemporary furniture. The French Room, opened in 1981 and decorated with painted ceilings and chandeliers in the manner of an eighteenth-century French salon, is the most ornate room in the building.

Rooms and suites

The Adolphus has 407 rooms and suites across the original tower and its later additions. Rooms vary in shape because of the building's history; corner rooms and the suites on the upper floors have the widest views over downtown. Pets are accepted.

Dining

The French Room has been the formal dining room since 1981, though it has operated intermittently since the pandemic. City Hall Bistro serves through the day on the ground floor, and Otto's Coffee and Fine Foods, opening onto Commerce Street, is the hotel's cafe. The rooftop pool has its own bar in season.

Wellness

Spa Adolphus has treatment rooms and a barber shop, a nod to the hotel's long-standing gentlemen's barber. The fitness centre and the rooftop pool, which looks over the downtown towers, were both part of the 2017 works.

Weddings and events

Fifteen function spaces total about 30,000 square feet. The Grand Ballroom is the principal room for weddings and galas; the French Room and the smaller salons take dinners and board meetings. The hotel has a long record of society weddings and debutante balls, and from 1987 it sponsored the Adolphus Children's Parade through downtown each December.

Location

No other luxury hotel in Dallas sits this deep in the historic core. The Adolphus stands in the Main Street District, two blocks from the Neiman Marcus flagship, which has traded at Main and Ervay since 1914. The Dallas Museum of Art and the Arts District lie to the north; Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum are at the western end of downtown, about a kilometre along Commerce Street. DART light rail stops at Akard Station on Pacific Avenue, a few blocks north. Dallas Love Field is about ten kilometres away and Dallas/Fort Worth International roughly thirty kilometres to the north-west. Union Station, with Amtrak's Texas Eagle and the Trinity Railway Express, is at the west end of downtown.