Idanha Hotel

This six-story building features with distinctive turreted corner towers was home to the Idanha Hotel from its opening in 1901 until the late 20th century. The French chateau style building was designed by Walter S. Campbell with the goal of being the small but growing city's leading hotel and "welcome mat" according to Dan Everhart of the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office. The downtown area was connected to the nation's rail network for the first time when a short line station was completed two blocks from this location. For the first five decades of the 20th century, the Idanha was at the center of political and social activity. This building took about a year to complete and its style was more typically used in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. The Idanha Hotel was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. As of 2023, the ground floor is home to Guru Donuts; an Indian restaurant called Bombay Grill; a cooking school; and Mullet Proof, a hair salon. In the basement is 10th Street Station, a bar. Since the 1999, the upper floors have been converted from 140 hotel rooms into fifty-two apartment units, the Idanha Hotel Apartments.

The Idanha Hotel Company purchased the lots to build a hotel in 1899. The location was chosen because it was only two blocks north of the train station at Front and Tenth Streets built in 1894. When the French chateaux style Idanha Hotel was completed in January 1901, the five-story structure was the tallest building in Idaho and held the state's first elevator. The turrets on three corners with deep conical roofs plus the jagged parapet edge of the building's mansard roofline are distinctive marks of this style. The red brick building rests on a sandstone foundation with a concrete footing and concrete piers at stress points. The rock came from Krall's quarry in Boise; the stonework was done by a Chicago company, Young, Cavanagh, and Sullivan. The building's red brick was made in Salt Lake City; the brickwork was completed by Louis Kieldson of Boise. The lintels and exterior trim are of stone. The turrets were constructed as wood frame with steel supports. Two iron balconies originally topped the two main entrances but were replaced with lower steel marquees by the 1970s. the cornice was galvanized iron with brick arranged in a dentil design. There are small dormer windows with hipped roofs above the cornice in the mansard roof.

The footprint of the original building is 55 feet along Main St. by 122 feet. Twenty-two feet of the adjacent building along Main St. - part of the Somma Block - was acquired in December 1902 to become an annex for the hotel. The annex held a shop in the storefront with a bar behind the shop, which for many years was a coffee shop; the second and third floors were converted into additional hotel rooms. In its early years, the hotel was the scene of many banquets and events in its ground floor restaurant in the building's northwest corner. The Idanha hosted at least two presidents, Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The manager of the Idanha Hotel in 1914 was Ray F. Van Slyke; he took over for Charles Grout. Nightly room rates were $1.00 to $1.50 for rooms without a bath and $1.50 to $2.50 with a bath. The hotel billed itself as "Bosie's most popular hotel" and contained 140 rooms. The lobby was in the building's southwest corner, with offices to the east. The basement held a billiard room, boiler room, and work room; it connects to the basement of the annex. The second floor contained a meeting hall and dining room on its west side but had been converted into more hotel rooms by the 1970s.

The Idanha Hotel Company sold the property to Broadbent Estate, Inc. in 1953 but Broadbent was still paying off the hotel company's stockholders in the mid-1970s. The building contained the Idanha Hotel, a coffee shop, a barber shop, a tailor shop, a jewelry shop, and a watch repair shop in 1974. The building was rehabbed in 1999 to create affordable apartments from the hotel rooms. Parklane Management Company now runs the Idanha Hotel Apartments.

Angie. The Prestigious and Scandalous History of Boise's Idanha Hotel, Mix 106. August 26th, 2021. Accessed January 11th, 2023. https://mix106radio.com/the-prestigious-and-scandalous-history-of-boises-idanha-hotel/.

Apartments.com. Idanha Hotel Apartments, Apartments.com. December 27th, 2022. Accessed January 11th, 2023. https://www.apartments.com/idanha-hotel-boise-id/zv6qj3y/.

Idaho Today: The history of the Idanha in Boise. KTVB. Performed by Dan Everhart. U.S. KTVB Channel 7 Boise, 2022. YouTube.

McClure, Wendy R. Idanha Apartments, Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia. Accessed January 16th, 2023. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/ID-01-001-0083.

Preservation Idaho. Idanha Hotel, Idaho Architecture Project. January 1st, 2022. Accessed January 11th, 2023. https://www.idahoarchitectureproject.org/properties/idanha-hotel/.

Renk, Thomas B. Barker, Jack Jr. Historic American Buildings Survey Documentation on Idanha Hotel, Boise, Ada County, Idaho. Edition edited 1974 original. HABS ID-29. Washington, DC. Department of the Interior, 1984.

Van Slyke, Ray F. "The Idanha." Evening Capital News (Boise) September 9th, 1914. Classifieds sec, 6-6.