Urban Cowboy Denver realizes a long-held dream for Jersey Banks, the Denverite cofounder of Urban Cowboy Hotels.
Alongside the brand’s other cofounder, Lyon Porter, who also leads design studio Cowboy Creative, the group launched properties in Brooklyn, Nashville, and New York’s Catskills region before heading out west.
Preserving history
Cowboy Creative and developer GBX Group worked with Historic Denver to conserve the architectural details of an opulent Gilded Age mansion in Capitol Hill. The property had been designed in the 1880s by Denver architect Frank Edbrooke for hat tycoon-turned-politician George Schleier.
Retained features include the Queen Anne-style façade, the original staircase (which features carvings of gargoyles), an onion-shaped cupola, handcarved coffered ceilings, and tiled fireplaces.
The Public House bar and restaurant, in the property’s two-story carriage house, is where Schleier had stored his horse and buggy. Inspired by the saloons that were prevalent on every Denver streetcorner in the late 19th century, the venue offers cocktails and small plates by Brooklyn institution Roberta’s. In the main mansion, guests can enjoy wine in the Parlor Bar.
The interior design of Urban Cowboy Denver
Each space reflects Urban Cowboy Hotels’ signature vintage maximalism curated from a treasure trove of found objects sourced during road trips across the U.S. Quirky details range from an 1800s handcarved wooden saloon bar from an antiques store in Cincinnati to a horn and fur cowboy couch and a honey pot found in Colorado that was filled with Western frontier period art.
Each of the 16 guestrooms holds a hand-hammered copper soaking tub—with two in the penthouse Honeymoon Suite. Porter also designed a custom wallcovering inspired by a 1700s block print to fuse romantic nostalgia with an aesthetic he describes as “Denver frontier cowboy.”
“To be able to bring Urban Cowboy out west is something we’ve thought about since the inception of the brand, and the opportunity to reimagine this historic mansion in my hometown is a dream come true,” says Banks.
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