The Plaza Hotel hosts business conferences, weddings, family reunions and parties for up to 180 guests in its ballroom, with smaller meetings of up to 30 in a private salon on the lower floor. The hotel stands at 230 Plaza, facing Plaza Park in the old town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and has 70 guest rooms for delegates and wedding guests.
Seminars and company events
The hotel presents itself as the main meeting and conference venue in northeastern New Mexico, with more than 6,000 square feet of meeting space. It offers negotiated corporate and government rates, both for groups and for individual business travelers. Wireless internet covers the whole building, and audiovisual equipment is available for presentations. The front desk can also handle faxes and receive documents and parcels for a meeting.
Weddings and receptions
The events team helps couples plan and coordinate the day. It can suggest a photographer and florist, arrange a wedding cake, advise on room decoration in the couple's colors, and help find a DJ or band. It also helps book a classic car, limousine or carriage. The grand walnut staircase in the lobby is the usual spot for wedding party photos and leads up to the bridal suite. The hotel also hosts family reunions and other celebrations of any size within its capacity.
Rooms and capacities
The Ilfeld Ballroom seats 180 guests at tables with a buffet, or 120 for a plated dinner. The Salon on the lower level takes groups of up to 30. It has window wells that bring in daylight and original stone walls, and it works for private meetings. Together with other meeting rooms, the event spaces cover more than 6,000 square feet.
Accommodation
The hotel has 70 guest rooms, 19 of which overlook Plaza Park. The original building opened with 37 rooms, and a 2006 extension into the neighboring Ilfeld building added 35 more along with the ballroom. Specific rooms and special requests are booked by phone with the reservation desk.
Catering
The hotel's own kitchen serves events, from buffets to plated dinners. Plaza Grill, the hotel restaurant, is open daily from 7 am to 9 pm, and Plaza Sip and Savor serves coffee, tea, pastries and desserts. The hotel bar is a saloon with an original wood floor, Victorian encaustic tiles and Navajo rugs on the walls.
History and setting
Local merchants built the Plaza Hotel in 1881 and it opened in 1882 as the finest hotel in New Mexico Territory, at a time when Las Vegas was larger than Santa Fe or Albuquerque. The facade is Victorian, with three floors of 14-foot ceilings and tall windows over the plaza. In 1913 silent film director Romaine Fielding rented the whole hotel for two years to shoot westerns, and the building has since appeared in Easy Rider, No Country for Old Men and the series Longmire. The public rooms were renovated in 1982, the dining room and saloon were restored in 2014 and 2015 by local craftspeople, and the Ilfeld building, a former department store from the 1880s, joined the hotel in 2006. The town has nearly 1,000 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
Getting there
Las Vegas, New Mexico, lies on Interstate 25 northeast of Santa Fe. The town is served by the Amtrak Southwest Chief. Albuquerque International Sunport is the nearest major airport.
