SF’s Eldorado Hotel proposes to add rooftop pool, bar

Historic Districts Review Board to consider plan at meeting today

SANTA FE — Heritage Hotels & Resorts Inc. is looking to add a rooftop pool and bar on the second floor of the Eldorado Hotel and Spa in downtown Santa Fe.

The company recently submitted a proposal to the city’s Historic Preservation Division. The matter will be considered by the Historic Districts Review Board at a meeting at 5:30 p.m. today at City Hall.

According to a staff memo included in the review board’s materials, the hotel wants to install a swimming pool and convert an existing storage structure into a bar and restrooms, with some space allocated for storage and pool equipment.

While the hotel’s address is 309 W. San Francisco St., the pool and bar would be located directly above the hotel’s ballroom on the east side of the building facing Palace Avenue.

In addition, the hotel wants to replace windows in about 20 second-story guest rooms with french doors. Screening made of perforated metal that matches existing metal perforated panels at the hotel would enclose an area outside the doors “to create private patios for each room,” according to a letter from architect Wayne Lloyd of Lloyd & Associates.

Pergolas designed to match those that already exist would be installed around the pool area. A wrought-iron rail would also be placed along the parapet overlooking Palace Avenue.

Heritage Hotels & Resorts did not respond to a request for comment from the Journal on Monday.

The Eldorado already has a pool on its top floor, the fifth. It would not be the first hotel in Santa Fe to have a rooftop pool with bar. In 2014, the Drury Plaza Hotel, in a converted hospital building near the Plaza, opened with a pool and adjacent bar, Bar Alto, on the fourth floor.

Albuquerque-based Heritage Hotels & Resorts Inc. operates 11 hotels in New Mexico, including the Hotel St. Francis and Inn and Spa at Loretto, in Santa Fe; El Monte Sagrado, in Taos; Hotel Encanto, in Las Cruces; and the Duke City’s Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town and Hotel Chaco.