Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet: E

Eugene Hotel (circa 1927); note the huge sign on the roof, no longer there.

This is the next in my Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet series of blog posts, the focus of each being a landmark building here in Eugene. Many of these will be familiar to most who live here but there are likely to be a few buildings that are less so. My selection criteria for each will be threefold: 

• The building must be of architectural interest, local importance, or historically significant. 
• The building must be extant so you or I can visit it in person.
• Each building’s name will begin with a particular letter of the alphabet, and I must select one (and only one) for each of the twenty-six letters. This is easier said than done for some letters, whereas for other characters there is a surfeit of worthy candidates (so I’ll be discriminating and explain my choice in those instances). 

This week’s selection begins with the letter E, for which my choice is the Eugene Hotel.

Eugene Hotel

When it was completed in 1925, the Eugene Hotel was unquestionably the premier facility for local events and an inviting stopover for guests traveling the then-new Pacific Highway 99. Designed by local architect John Hunzicker in an early Modern fashion with California Mission and Italian Romanesque flourishes, the seven-story, reinforced concrete structure was among Eugene’s tallest, visible from every vantage point around the city. No expense was spared, as prominent business leaders, community boosters, the social elite, and average citizens alike enthusiastically supported the important project by underwriting its construction. 

During its storied history, the Eugene Hotel attracted countless conventions, banquets, balls, weddings, and meetings of civic groups, while providing first-class, full-service accommodations for travelers. Notable visitors to the hotel included presidential candidates (Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan) and entertainment celebrities (among them actors Jimmy Stewart, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Edgar Bergen, and even Rin Tin Tin, the canine TV star). The Eugene Hotel enjoyed unmatched stature as the hub of social life in Eugene. 

The hotel remained Eugene’s largest until being eclipsed in the 1970s by the Valley River Inn and later the Eugene Hilton (now the Graduate Eugene Hotel). Ironically, while it was the advent of widespread motoring during the early years of the 1920s that would give it rise, the post-World War Two era’s development of the “motor hotel” and commercial decline of Eugene’s downtown ultimately prompted the Eugene Hotel’s closure in 1980. Fortunately, rather than suffering the same ignoble fate wrought by urban renewal as many of downtown Eugene’s historic buildings, its new owners would rekindle the Eugene Hotel as an elegant retirement center. This adaptive reuse ensured much of the hotel’s original configuration and functions would be retained, and its historical appeal preserved. 

Another historical view of the Eugene Hotel, looking west past its Broadway façade to the Miner Building (also designed by John Hunzicker) in the distance.

Today, the Eugene Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and appears much as it did when it was first constructed. The National Register nomination document describes its configuration as typical of hotels of the period, having a front-facing light court created by its U-shaped plan. Narrow stringcourses divide the building horizontally, while low-relief pilaster strips divide the facades vertically. A Tuscan palette accentuates these divisions; the original color scheme wasn't as multihued. Postcards dating from shortly after its completion depict a monochromatic design comprised of shades of ivory cream embellished with dark-red tile accents near the building’s cornice and at street-level. Large street-level windows within an implied portico provide inviting glimpses inside, while the upper-story openings are frameless, double-hung windows providing light and fresh air to the residents’ apartments. 

Inside, as much as possible of the detail and character remains from the initial design. Interestingly, the original lobby extended across the north section of the building, all the way from the main entrance on Broadway to a secondary entrance in the center of the Pearl Street façade. Today, the northwest corner is a retail space most recently occupied by the now shuttered Uki Uki tiki bar and before that a Starbucks outlet. Nevertheless, the remaining lobby space, main dining room, and other shared amenity spaces emulate the original design. It is easy to imagine how elegant the Eugene Hotel must have been during its heyday. 

Eugene Hotel lobby (photo from the Eugene Hotel website)

The Eugene Hotel provides an attractive housing option for active seniors who prefer to live close by everything downtown Eugene has to offer. It is also a decidedly urban building, confidently occupying its block and bringing life to the sidewalks outside its generous ground-level windows. It served for generations as a prominent figure on Eugene’s community scene. Barring a cataclysmic earthquake, I see no reason why the Eugene Hotel will not continue to stand for many generations to come.