Glenwood Springs' 1893 grand hotel — requisitioned as a WWII naval hospital, where a nurse named Bobbie allegedly died in a love triangle and still lingers at Sunday brunch
526 Pine St, Glenwood Springs, CO 81601
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Hotel room rates vary by season; see website
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved hotel interior, accessible lobby and dining
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1893 · National Register of Historic Places · Historic Hotels of America · World War II Naval Hospital · Walter Devereux Silver Era Architecture
Construction on Hotel Colorado began in 1891, financed by Walter Devereux, who aimed to draw wealthy visitors to Glenwood Springs' therapeutic hot springs. The building was designed in the Italian Renaissance style after the Villa Medici, with elaborate grounds and a main structure facing the Roaring Fork Valley. The hotel opened on June 10, 1893, with a formal reception for 300 couples, and immediately established itself as the premier resort property in western Colorado.
The early decades brought notable guests, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who used the hotel as a base for hunting excursions in the surrounding mountains. The property remained privately operated through the early 20th century, operating as a destination resort between the two world wars.
In 1943, the federal government requisitioned the hotel under wartime authority, converting it into a U.S. Naval Convalescent Hospital. The conversion was thorough: guest rooms became patient wards, the ballroom served as a rehabilitation space, and the basement held bodies before transport when patients died. The hospital operated through 1946, treating more than 6,500 servicemen over that period. The Navy returned the property to private ownership after the war ended, and it was restored to hotel operations.
The Hotel Colorado is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and holds membership in Historic Hotels of America. It has been family-operated since its post-war restoration and remains open year-round.
Sources
The Hotel Colorado's haunted reputation draws on three distinct figures, each tied to specific periods of the building's history.
The oldest is Walter, named for founder Walter Devereux. Staff and guests report the smell of cigar smoke in areas where smoking is not permitted, particularly in corridors near the lobby. No visual apparition has been consistently described for this figure — it is primarily olfactory. The hotel acknowledges Walter by name in its own published ghost-story blog posts.
The most dramatically documented figure is a nurse referred to as Bobbie. According to hotel accounts, Bobbie was a Navy nurse stationed at the hotel during the 1943–1946 hospital period who was killed by a jealous lover in a romantic dispute. Guests in the dining room, particularly during Sunday brunch service, report smelling a gardenia perfume — a fragrance the hotel notes was in common use in the 1940s and is no longer commercially produced. Bobbie has been described as appearing to guests in the dining area, though reports of visual sightings are less consistent than the scent reports.
The third figure is associated with a guest room that was closed permanently and converted to a storage room after repeated, persistent complaints from staff who heard screaming from within. The hotel's published accounts attribute this to a chambermaid who was murdered in the room in a love triangle, separate from Bobbie's story. The room has remained a storage space.
The hotel's wartime use — bodies held in the basement, patients who died before they could be transported, the transformation of a resort into a hospital — provides the most historically grounded context for these reports. The hotel does not manufacture or sensationalize the haunting claims; they appear in informational blog posts treated as part of the property's documented history.
Notable Entities
The Hotel Colorado has operated continuously since 1893. Rooms are in the original Villa Medici-styled structure built by silver magnate Walter Devereux. The hotel served as a U.S. Naval Convalescent Hospital from 1943 to 1946, treating over 6,500 patients, and that wartime chapter is the source of most of its paranormal reports.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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