Boutique hotel opens in Lower Highlands

A newly opened boutique hotel with an attached bar and restaurant is the first of its kind in Denver’s Lower Highlands neighborhood.

LifeHouse, a national boutique hotel brand, opened its ninth location at 3638 Navajo St. last month. The new 15-room hotel will feature Wildflower, a cocktail bar, restaurant and café that will include outdoor patio space.

This is the brand’s first hotel west of the Mississippi River. According to Rami Zeidan, founder and CEO of Life House, the designers of the new location, Jenny Bukovec and Lei Xing, drew inspiration from Victorian industrialism and the natural landscape of the Wild West. Zeidan said the design sets this location apart from any of the brand’s East Coast hotels.

“Every one of our hotels is uniquely rooted to its locale, and Lower Highlands is no different,” said Zeidan. “We partnered with locals John Reilly and Carmelo Paglialunga, who owned the property and collaborated brilliantly to create a beautiful hotel.

“Denver has so much to offer,” he added. “The city’s booming restaurant and bar scene has granted it a great number of accolades making virtually every venue a destination in its own rights. In particular, we picked the neighborhood of Lower Highlands as it marries well with the Life House brand’s ethos being architecturally interesting, growing at a very fast pace, and with a story to tell.”

The hotel offers a variety of rooms, including spacious king suites and custom bunk suites, which feature full-size beds, a luxury bathroom, a custom dressing bench and a flex wardrobe unit. Standard king and queen rooms also are available. Every room comes equipped with Life House’s standard amenities, including Le Labo bath products, Marshall speakers and Revival luxury linens. Rooms start at $189 per night.

Guests also can enjoy Wildflower’s vegetarian-forward, community-driven tapas menu, meant to pay homage to the neighborhood’s Italian and Mexican roots. The menu features season options and ingredients that are locally sourced. A dessert menu, presented on a Victorian-style trolley, carries on the hotel’s design theme.

Despite opening during the ongoing pandemic, Zeidan’s optimistic that the travel industry will be one of the first to bounce back in the near future, saying, “People are ready to leave their fenced backyards to discover the world all over again.”

The brand plans to launch several other boutique hotels across the country in 2021.

Published in the Dec. 2-15, 2020, issue of CREJ.