The West Texas city of El Paso is home to Hotel Paso del Norte, Autograph Collection, a 100-year-old property that was renovated and brought back to life in 2020.
The building, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 1979, is located less than a mile from the Mexican border and has a storied history of hosting U.S. presidents, celebrities and dignitaries from around the world.
The architect of record was Henry Trost, and when this hotel was developed, it was known as “the million-dollar hotel” and “the crown jewel of the Southwest.”
“It opened its doors on Thanksgiving of 1912 to great fanfare as the first full-service hotel in El Paso,” said Tom Conran, founding principal, Greenwood Hospitality, powered by Hotel Equities. Greenwood manages the hotel. He added, “We have a bronze statue out front of the hotel that depicts John (Black Jack) Pershing, who was a general at the time for the U.S. Army, shaking hands with Francisco (Pancho) Villa from August 1914.”
After being acquired by the Meyers Group, the property underwent a three-year construction. “It had fallen on very hard times and hadn’t been well capitalized for a number of years by the previous owner,” said Conran. “And when you renovate a historic hotel, you can imagine every time you open up a wall, you find a new mystery. The new ownership was well capitalized and felt it was necessary to bring the hotel back to the crown jewel it once was.”
The hotel weaves three heritages—Mexican, Southwestern Texas and Native American—into its aesthetic. Native American tribes such as the Cheyenne, Cherokee and Navajo have reservations in the area.
“We do a really good job to herald three heritages and cultures in the way we do our business, with the food and beverage offerings and the costuming of the staff,” said Conran. “The messaging is really genuine, and our customer base has just fallen in love with this hotel.”
He said that Greenwood was chosen to manage the property because of its relationship with Marriott. “We were introduced when the owners were talking about branding the hotel,” said Conran. “They had initial discussions with Marriott for an Autograph Collection opportunity, and we had a number of hotels within the collection that were high performers.”
The hotel has 351 guestrooms. About 15% of them are suites, according to Conran. It also features the 9,500-sq.-ft. Desert Spirit Spa and a pool on the 10th floor. He added, “There’s a historic theater complex nearby that brings in a number of fairly good acts, and we get a fair amount of business from that as well. Any large acts coming into town are going to stay in the hotel.”
Quality food & beverage outlets are a hallmark of Greenwood, and they are plenty of them in the Hotel Paso del Norte.
“We have a very authentic Mexican cantina called Sabor on the lobby level that serves three meals per day, and our high-end steakhouse is called 1700 Degrees,” said Conran. “Just outside the steakhouse is The Dome Bar, which sits underneath a 25-ft. Tiffany dome. The application on the walls that date back to 1912 is just really cool. We also have Dulce in the lobby, which is a bakery, cafe and gelateria, and Blackjacks, which is our cigar bar, named after General Pershing.”
On the top of the hotel on the 10th floor is the rooftop venue, El Mirador. “Socialites used to get dressed up as if they were going to Sunday church and watch the Mexican Revolution from the top of the hotel,” Conran offered. “When you’re up there, you’re overlooking the entire city of El Paso and the hills of Mexico.”
With 32,000 sq. ft. of meeting and event space, the hotel hosts a number of gatherings throughout the year.
“We’ve hosted meetings with the Mexican president, the mayor of El Paso and the governor of Texas, so we do a great deal of government business,” Conran said. “Fort Bliss is in the market, so we do a great deal of army-related business, and the business community has really embraced this hotel as well. We have the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) nearby, and from a leisure standpoint, we have many travelers from Mexico and surrounding states coming for the weekend into El Paso. We also have a number of travelers that do business in Mexico but stay on the U.S. side and a number of people looking for medical procedures in Mexico.”
Since its reopening in 2020, Conran said, the hotel performance has it ranked No. 1 among its competitors, adding, “RevPAR index year to date is 124. We’ve had year-over-year growth in RevPAR and total revenue that are in the double digits. We’re ranked No. 2 out of 94 hotels in the market on Tripadvisor. So, we are the place to be seen in El Paso. If you’re going to have a Mexican celebration—a wedding or quinceañera—most likely it’s going to be in the hotel. I sat one night on the mezzanine level overlooking The Dome Bar on a Friday. There had to have been 200 people in the dome area having fun, listening to Mexican music, singing and dancing. That’s what we wanted the hotel to be and over time it’s evolved into that.”
The executive also applauded the Hotel Paso del Norte team. “Our ambassadors [Greenwood’s name for its team members] have bought into the concept,” he said. “They live the concept. They’re a wonderful workforce. We spend a great deal of time in training but they really pull it off.”
