Historic Delaware Hotel — Hotel in Leadville

The new owners are out of touch with pricing! We are locals and like staying here every couple of years, especially with the new owners we wanted to see what has changed. We didn't believe what our neighbors said about the remodel, but sadly they were right. We paid $240 for a king bed with twin bed in the room! This is over $100 more than 2 years ago and with LESS to offer! There are NO amenities to go along with this price -- paid extra for parking (used to be included with prior owners), extra for a POOR breakfast (buffet used to be included with prior owners), no childrens pack-n-play/crib available, no elevator or even a front desk person to offer assistance with luggage, everything under construction/no lobby, the "free coffee" in the hallway we had to call and request at 9am as it hadn't been brought up by staff, no phone in the room (you have to use your personal mobile to contact the front desk, what a joke!), no clock in the room, the furniture was falling apart (we used our personal screw driver to tighten things up so they didn't fall apart!), bathroom fixtures leaking (only stand up showers), no where to put luggage/a bathroom bag, old radiator system was literally cut out with a saw so that historical portion of the building has been visibly hacked with rough edges on remaining piping in the rooms not to mention divots in the carpet where the radiators once stood, you can hear everything such as people running up and down the steps in the middle of the night. The new owners are in the process of "remodeling", so the old western charm that you're paying for is being removed...remodeled rooms make you feel like you're in New York with modern tiling and no antiques. What was once the old library with antique confession booth, books, relics of Leadville's mining history, etc is now full of broken antique furniture and is a make-shift "lunch" area for the construction workers. It needs mentioned how awful the additional cost breakfast was -- $24 for a burrito?! Tables were not wiped down, no booster seat or high chair for young children, the "pork green chili" was coagulated flavorless colorless gravy, the Latino waitstaff seemed irritated to be serving you. Would have been much better off and paid 1/2 the price to walk around the corner to the Golden Burro (also with new owners) which has been turned into a terrible vegan restaurant. Do yourself a favor and stay at the Columbine Inn if you're in Leadville with free parking, free breakfast, helpful friendly staff, large rooms and full sized private bathrooms. Do not overpay to stay at this "historic property", walk down the block to one of the historic landmarks such as the Carnegie Museum that has not been tarnished by outsiders that have recently purchased seeing $$ by renovating into New York...

-Mixed Feelings- 😌 I stayed one night at the Historic Delaware Hotel in Leadville, mainly for its history and ghost-story reputation. The location is great—right in the center of town, with all the shops and restaurants within walking distance. The lobby has been modernized with mirrors, light fixtures, and seating, but that has little to do with the actual stay upstairs.

Pros:

Central location, easy to explore Leadville on foot. Historic atmosphere in the hallways with antique mirrors and carpets (good for photos). Antique furniture in the rooms. Cozy bed. Keypad entry instead of old keys, which felt convenient.

Cons (the untold part):

No elevator. Rooms are on the 2nd and 3rd floors, so you’ll need to haul luggage up steep, narrow stairs. I even saw elderly couples struggling with big suitcases. The famous “antique collection” room often shown in videos isn’t open to guests I guess. Rooms are extremely small: basically a bed, sink counter, TV, and side tables. No AC. Only table fans are provided (we had two and had to rearrange furniture to make them work). Our room had a lingering bakery smell that quickly turned from pleasant to headache-inducing. We had to run the bathroom exhaust to clear it. No fridge, microwave, or coffee machine. Just TV, hairdryer, fans, and a noise machine. I paid $200 for the night, which felt steep for what was offered. I also prepaid for “reserved parking,” but there’s actually only free street parking—no dedicated spot was waiting for me. That money was wasted. Bathroom is tiny, especially the shower. Even for an average-sized adult it felt cramped, and anyone over 6 feet would struggle to fit inside.

Overall, the Delaware Hotel is worth it if you want to say you’ve stayed in a historic building and enjoy the old Leadville vibe. But don’t expect modern comfort or polished amenities for the price you pay. It’s more about the experience than...

We reserved a block of rooms for our wedding guests in July and gave the hotel a card to hold all of those rooms. I was told that as long as we cancelled the unused rooms 24 hours in advance we would not be charged for them. The hotel does not offer any kind of event blocks so to guarantee there were enough rooms we had to give them a card to hold all of them rooms. After two phone calls on July 14th and 18th, going through each room, for each guest by name with Alex the manager she was to remove any unused rooms so the hotel would have them available for booking. Since we checked on July 22nd our credit card, which was not the on file for the block of rooms, has been charged twice without our permission or knowledge until we got a text from the credit card company that a transaction had taken place for rooms Alex did not remove from the block. We were charged incorrectly at check out for an extra day that we were not there for (after going to the hotel in person and confirming the dates we would be staying because everyone in our wedding party had said the booking process had been such a challenge we wanted to confirm everything once more when we got to Leadville, and a guest from our wedding party was also double charged for her room as well as for a bar tab. After a week of waiting for a call back with no response I called Alex back and was no longer able to leave her a voicemail and in calling the hotel I was told she has been out for a few days. I did call and leave the owner of the hotel a voicemail and have sent him a screenshot of the text message she finally responded back with. While the rooms were wonderful, our rehearsal dinner meal was enjoyed by everyone. We had nothing but issues with booking for our guests leading up to the wedding, and now have had continued billing problems since them. If you decide to stay at this hotel make sure to watch your credit card...