The Statler Dallas, Curio Collection by Hilton

A landmark 1956 tower that pioneered the modern American hotel, then sat empty for sixteen years, reopened in downtown Dallas in October 2017 as a 159-room Curio Collection property with 219 residences above it. The $230 million adaptive-reuse project, led by Centurion American Development Group, kept William Tabler's midcentury curtain wall and added a rooftop pool bar and a speakeasy carved from the old barber shop.

The place

The hotel sits at 1914 Commerce Street on Statler Plaza in downtown Dallas, directly across from the Dallas Public Library and a short walk from the Arts District and the West End. The address is the same one the building has held since 1956, and its return to the city's hotel map reactivated a stretch of downtown that had sat dark around it for years.

The concept

Completed in 1956 for $16 million and designed by New York architect William B. Tabler, the Statler Hilton was the first major hotel built in Dallas in nearly thirty years and, at the time, the largest convention hotel in the American Southwest — a crescent-shaped, flat-slab concrete structure wrapped in a teal glass-and-porcelain curtain wall that was widely credited as America's first true modern hotel, complete with a rooftop pool, in-room television and elevator music years before those became standard. It closed in 2001 and stood vacant for sixteen years until Centurion American Development Group, led by Mehrdad Moayedi, bought the site in 2013 and rebuilt it into a mixed-use complex: 159 hotel rooms on the lower floors, 219 residential apartments above, plus office and retail space, for a reported $230 million. Merriman Anderson Architects, the project's architect of record and interior designer, restored original details uncovered during construction — including a 40-foot mural and an 8-foot sculpture — while fitting the shell for a contemporary Curio Collection hotel. The result trades on its midcentury pedigree rather than concealing it, aimed at both convention travelers and Dallasites rediscovering a building most had only seen shuttered.

Dining & wellness

Dining and drinking is spread across four venues: Waterproof, the 19th-floor rooftop pool bar with panoramic downtown views; Bourbon & Banter, a code-and-phone-booth speakeasy built into the hotel's former barber shop, with an extensive bourbon list; Scout, a bowling-and-billiards entertainment venue for up to 400 guests; and Overeasy, an all-day breakfast-and-lunch counter with a coffee bar.