Quote:
Originally Posted by H2O
Did they demolish the top three floors and add back five (based on the pattern of brickwork)?
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The hotel originally opened as an 11 story hotel. Here's an earlier postcard of the Stephen F. Austin Hotel from
austinpostcard.com
The top floor was a rooftop ballroom.
Source
In 1938, they took out the rooftop ballroom and added five floors.
SFA Hotel History
Apparently, it was always intended to be a 15 story hotel.
Fifteen Story Hotel to be Built at Austin
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On November 16, 1922, The San Antonio Evening News announced that T.B. Baker had completed negotiations to build what would become the Stephen F. Austin Hotel in downtown Austin, although the (now famous) location on Congress Avenue had not yet been selected.
It seems that the hotel was designed to have fifteen stories all along, but purposefully, only eleven of them were completed for the grand opening in 1924. The original rooftop ballroom terrace (now gone) was intended to be temporary all along! When the new owner added the additional floors in the mid-thirties, did they know that they were completing Baker’s original vision for a 15 story hotel?
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