Old Chamber Building/Elks Club, 301 North 27th Street, 1909-1910

The B.P.O.E. Elks lodge #394 was founded in 1897 with Billings businessman, A.L. Babcock, as the first Exalted Ruler and the Elks constructed this building for their club.
Approximately 5000 people were invited to the dedication celebration in July,1910. It included a formal lodge dedication, balls, reception, auto tours, and street decorations. Just eight years later in November of 1918, the Elks were forced to give up the building due to various accumulated debts. It was then bought by Billings Chamber of Commerce and finally paid off in 1946.

Historic Name:
Grand Hotel
Current Name:
Grand Building

Builder:
Unknown

Original Use:
hotel
Current Use:
restaurant, offices

Physical Description:
The Grand Hotel is an imposing brick building that rises to 7 stories high on the Billings skyline. This large urban hotel occupies half of a city block. When it was constructed in 1921, it replaced the original 4-story, red brick 1886 Grand Hotel. An 1895 annex stands to the north. Built to complement the original building, it gave its design back to the 1921 New Grand Hotel.

The "new" Grand Hotel was originally four stories high, later expanded to seven. It is faced with toasty gold brick, and coursed with vertical strips, diamonds and squares of white glazed brick. Such ornamented piers of brick rise the full height, and frame windows grouped in singles, pairs and triplets. Simple cast stone sills and flat heads characterize the window treatments. As designed, double-hung 1-over-1 windows illuminated the rooms, these have been replaced by fixed units with small hoppers at the bottom. The original 4-story design was capped by pediments and finials, hipped towers above the corners. These were lost when the upper stories were added, and the roofline now is simply flat with a cast concrete coping.

The first floor of the New Grand Hotel had its main entrance on 1st Ave North, along with small storefronts that lined the street. A second entrance was located in the annex. Both entries had flat, projecting awnings suspended to cover and accentuate the entrances. Storefronts were fixed glass with high, multipane transom bands, and colorful cloth awnings to shade the displays. A heavy band of stone or cast stone visually separates the storefront from the upper levels.

The annex is four stories high, with paired windows (originally double-hung) between double bands of glazed white brick. It features a large, oak-trimmed lobby and stairway and shop space on the first floor, all oriented toward N 27th Street. Upstairs, the entire building now contains offices.

Historical Associations:
During Billings' early history, the name Grand Hotel was synonymous with the finest luxury accommodations in town. Founded in 1885-86, the first Grand Hotel was a 3-story hotel, built by JJ Walk & OM Nickey on this corner when it was the northern edge of the downtown business district. The hotel's restaurant quickly became a gathering spot for local high society, where menu items included buffalo tongue, guinea hen under glass and vintage wines. Nickey & Walk sold the hotel two years later, and after several owners, George F & Julia Benninghoff purchased the business in 1896 for about $12,000.

The Benninghoffs were German born, and owned a hotel in Sprague, WA that was destroyed when the town burned, before coming to Billings. In 1898, they added a large annex of roughly equal height and size to the original Grand Hotel along the north side. Over the years, the Grand strove to remain modern and competitive in the hotel world. In 1899, they were the first in town to add a private bathroom onto a room. And about 1900, they introduced the first elevator.

The primary competition through this period was from Frank McCormick and his Cottage Inn at N 29th and First Ave N. The Cottage Inn didn't last, however, the more modern and competitive Northern Hotel, financed by bankers HW Rowley and PB Moss opened in 1904. To keep up with changing times, the Benninghoffs razed the original portion of the Grand Hotel in 1921, and rebuilt the hotel from the ground up. JG Link designed the New Grand Hotel, and upon completion it reached 4 stories in height. The Benninghoffs sold their interests in 1923, and in the early 1950s it became the Hotel General Custer. In recent decades the building has been updated into offices and office suites, a restaurant and casino occupies the ground floor.

Historical and Architectural Significance:
The Grand Hotel is a highly important downtown building, one that helps anchor and define Billings' downtown business district. It has been a weighty presence on the streetscape for over a century, the center of social gathering and luxury lodgings for many decades. Its growth and historic changes mirror expansion of the city's business sector, the size and scale of the Grand charts the fortunes of Billings as it moved through the 20th century. As the preeminent hotel in town, and the one that pioneered many refinements in hotel accommodations, it is embedded in downtown history.

The building itself is an important artifact, reflecting physically all those changes in hotel design and function. It also is an important example of the work of JG Link, one of Montana's most prolific and versatile architects. The Grand Hotel is one of the larger buildings in Link's repertoire, and gives an important illustration of the range and artistic sensibilities of this talented man. Some of the alterations to the building are unfortunate, however, many aspects of the design are still clearly legible and a credit to Link.