Denver Mountains Region
Hotel De Paris Museum, Georgetown, CO

Georgetown, Colorado is a National Historic Landmark Area for Silver Mining. Once a boomtown of 5,000 people, it thrives today with a keen sense of the past and a foot in the future with about 1,000 residents. It has abundant Victorian style houses with iron hairpin fences and formal gardens. Its downtown area has been the site for many movies with stars such as Ben Afleck, Danny Glover and Peter O?Toole. Singer, John Denver, made his TV movie, Gift of Christmas here. Magazines love to do photo shoots here. A narrow gauge railroad takes tourist over a historic high bridge and up a steep valley. The cornerstone of the picturesque main street is the Hotel De Paris Museum.

Many men rushed west during the gold rush days of the 1800s, but none more interesting than Adolphe Francois Gerard. This well educated Parisian, after going through his inheritance as a young man, came to American seeking adventure. He enlisted in the US Army, deserted shortly after that in Wyoming, changed his name to Louis Dupuy, worked as a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News and eventually got caught up in the mining fever around Georgetown, Colorado. After he was hurt in a mining explosion, Louis bought the Delmonico Bakery and extensively rebuilt it as the Hotel De Paris.

Built in the style that reminded him of his homeland, Paris, France, this upscale hotel drew the elite of Denver who traveled all day by narrow stagecoach up the rocky trail to Georgetown. They came to spend the night in luxury accommodations, eat delectable meals on Havilland china from Limoge, France, drink imported French wines, and have great conversation with its proprietor, the well read, multi-lingual Louis Dupuy.

The Hotel De Paris sported modern indoor plumbing and heating, washbasins with hot and cold running water in each room, electric lights, and fashionable chic furnishings.

Although you enter the hotel museum today through the salesmen's room whose unique desks make into beds, the early guests of the Hotel entered into the registration area by the classy, stylish dining room. With its silver maple and black walnut tongue-in-grove floors, green iridescent walls bordered with scratch fresco designs and in the middle of the room-a working cherub water fountain, it was truly an elegant first impression.

From the basement wine cellar, where wine from casks were bottled, the large airy kitchen with a skylight that opens over the stove, the beautiful bedrooms upstairs, to Louis private quarters and his extensive library with books collections in several languages, this was a first class operation.

Today, as you tour the Hotel, listen for the whispers of Sophie Gally, the French housekeeper, who lived and worked there for over twenty-five years. Strolling through his Hotel, Louis must have been an unforgettable presence. You can feel his influence there today as you examine every tiny detail of his hotel.

When Louis died unexpectedly from pneumonia, Sophie inherited the Hotel, but died herself four months later. If you visit the old part of the Georgetown Cemetery, look for the pink granite obelisk with the words "Two Good Friends? printed in French. One side for Sophie, another for Louis.

You'll love this romantic piece of historical architecture owned and maintained so lovingly by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.