Beautiful and Imposing
25 APR 1883. Austin Daily Statesman.
A Magnificent Hotel.
The Statesman has several times alluded to the fact that Col. J.L. Driskill has in contemplation the building of a magnificent hotel in this city. It is now an assured fact. Col. Driskill has instructed his architects, Messrs. J.N. Preston & Son, to prepare the detailed drawings and complete plans at as early a day as possible, as he wishes work to begin immediately. Col. Preston showed a Statesman representative the plans so far as completed, and they confirm the well known reputation of Col. Preston as an architect of the highest class, both as to design and beauty of form and finish. The building will have a frontage on Pecan street of 150 feet, and on Brazos a frontage of 170 feet. It will be six stories, including the basement story, which will be fitted up with all necessary kitchens, store rooms, laundries, servant’s rooms and electric machines for lighting the imposing structure. There will be about 150 rooms for guests, all of which show an opening directly outside -- this, perhaps being the only hotel in the United States with this latter desirable feature. The entire structure will be fire-proof throughout, all partition walls and floors being of brick ad tile and carried on iron beams; no wood will be used except for windows and doors, and other dressings. There will be four grand stairways on each floor, thus offering ample and easy escape in case of a panic. Besides these there will be an elevator which will be accessible from the rotunda. The style of architecture adopted by the architects is principally Queen Anne. There will be three grand entrances, surmounted by magnificent towers, and on each floor, above the entrances, are arranged verandas so made, by an original and happy idea of the architects, as to form open vestibules. These entrances will be; one of Pecan, thirty feet wide; one on Brazos, forty feet with the same on the street west. Around this beautiful and imposing structure will run an attractive pavement in Mosaic and encaustic tiling, in variegated colors, and which will extend across both Pecan and Brazos streets, forming a superb promenade. When completed, this building will not only be an ornament to the Capital City of the empire state and a credit to the architects who designed it but it will be a monument to its projector and builder, J.L. Driskill; and will ever stand as the pyramids on the land of the Ptolemies, to make the name of Driskill synonymous with enterprise and public spirited energy. It will take about two years to complete the building, and it will be the finest example of architecture west of the Mississippi river. A photograph of the building in prospective can be seen at the Statesman office.