The audacious move and sumptuous transformation of San Antonio’s Fairmount Hotel.

Adaptive Reuse, Legacy

The move of the Fairmount Hotel, the heaviest building ever moved on wheels according to the Guinness Book of World Records, attracted worldwide attention in 1984. The 1,600-ton, three-story masonry and cast-iron structure was rolled from its original home to a new site six blocks away, making room for the construction of The Shops at River Center.

Captivating attention from all who watched the move, both on the street and on television, the structure rolled silently across six blocks of downtown San Antonio over a four-day period, balanced on a complicated steel framework resting on an interconnected set of thirty-six hydraulic, rubber-tired dollies. Collective breath was held as the structure crossed the heavily shored Market Street vehicular bridge spanning the San Antonio Riverwalk, but engineering triumphed, and the bridge and building survived the trip.

The Cinderella story of the Fairmount Hotel begins with the San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation’s original plan to document the building prior to demolition, and the preservation advocacy of the San Antonio Conservation Society. Offered for free to anyone willing to take on moving the building, the visionary development team of the Van Steenberg family, Wright Development and B.K. Johnson Interests advanced an audacious proposal to do just that, teaming with Alamo Architects, Guido Construction and Emmert International to take on the project.

To make the project financially feasible, a major transformation of the 1906 property was required. Remodeling a traveling salesman’s hotel into a boutique luxury property required a substantial addition to the building, doubling the size and adding meeting spaces and fine dining below a thirty-seven room hotel. The L-shaped addition is four stories and matched the height of the cornice of the existing building, maintaining the roofline. Reversed brick coloration, patterned brick and pointed arches make the new building addition distinct, yet compatible, to its elder partner. Luxury interior finishes such as hardwood, marble tile and polished brass lend a historicist refinement to the property.

The Fairmount Hotel opened in 1986 with a gala party, to much local acclaim. Notably, the ground floor fine dining restaurant, Polo’s at the Fairmount, was the first home of chef Bruce Auden of Biga on the Banks, showcasing his unique brand of New American cuisine. The hotel continues to serve a discerning clientele with well-appointed rooms and suites, ground floor fine dining and a new rooftop bar with prime views of the skyline and the new Hemisfair Civic Park.

Alamo Architects acknowledges a huge debt of gratitude to the developers of The Fairmount Hotel for an early opportunity to participate in their landmark project, and in the historic preservation of downtown San Antonio.

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The Fairmount Hotel
San Antonio, Texas

Joint Venture of Van Steenberg, Wright Development and BK Johnson

14,000 SF / 37 guest rooms
Completed 1986

STORIES WE NEVER GET TIRED OF: THE FAIRMOUNT MOVE.

We’ve always wanted more hotels on the River. We may end up with a hotel in the River if this move does not go well.

Mayor Henry Cisneros, 1985

From the get-go, the story of saving the Fairmount Hotel captured the public imagination with its Texan audacity and the burly mechanics of moving a 1600-ton dowager hotel across six city blocks – including a bridge spanning the River Walk. Joking aside, Mayor Cisneros and others on City Council heartily endorsed the project.

“Barely a year into architectural partnership, in 1984 we were hired to document the structure for submittal to the National Register, ahead of demolition,” recalls Irby. “As the project pivoted toward saving the hotel, we coordinated the stabilization and transportation of the building.” The move was engineered and executed by industrial moving specialist Emmert International (Oregon). Guido Construction provided mission-critical stabilization of the structure, shored up Market Street bridge, and set the foundation to receive the structure. In a final step to make way for the move, the City of San Antonio temporarily removed streetlights along the route. Just before the scheduled start, the project was abruptly delayed two weeks to accommodate an emergency archaeological survey on the new site. The dig yielded impressive Alamo battlefield artifacts – due diligence that then allowed the move to go full speed ahead.

Speed being a relative term: As onlookers crowded sidewalks on move days, the building crept noiselessly along on 36 rubber-tired hydraulic dollies. A heavy-duty crane steadily winched the building steadily forward along its route, hauling against the dead weight of dump trucks loaded with gravel. The move made headlines worldwide, with photos featuring the novel sight of the building parked mid-block between move days. At an impromptu street party, developers cut a hotel-shaped cake, raising a toast to the ponderous structure’s uneventful trip across the Market Street bridge. On the last day of its journey on wheels, the building was rotated 90 degrees on a dime, and settled onto waiting foundations – opening a new chapter in its now-famous history.

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With our first significant commission, our brand-new architecture practice received a surprising, but welcome, amount of attention both nationally and internationally.