Hotel Timnath is patiently awaiting its next life

At the corner of Main Street and Third Avenue in Timnath stands what for many years served as the largest building in town. Erected in 1905, the Hotel Timnath’s construction was financed by Mrs. Herman Strauss, who later owned it.

According to the book “Timnath: A History Presented by the Columbine Club of Timnath,” the two-story property offered guests state-of-the-art upstairs rooms with downstairs lobby, kitchen and dinging room facilities. Extras that provided travelers all the comforts of home included an outhouse (including windows for lighting, hopefully with curtains!) and a clothesline.

A 1906 article, The Larimer County Democrat lavishly complimented the hotel: “…the stranger is hardly prepared for the sight of so elegant and modern an inn as the Hotel Timnath. This house is brand new and most beautiful in all of its appointments. The heating arrangement is steam and the rooms shine with the splendor of new furniture, paintings and carpets. Mrs. Anna Williams is the proprietress, and she well knows how to serve a wholesome, appetizing meal in her bright cheery dining room. Altogether it is a most home like place and the hostess prides herself on sending no guest away with either insomnia or dyspepsia.”

That glowing critique doubtless drew many visitors to what now sits unoccupied and awaiting its next incarnation. Subsequent to its use as a hotel, several local and certainly diverse businesses occupied the downstairs portion. Some of these were a drugstore, gift shop, livery and transfer company, and several meat markets. Those latter going concerns were owned by Earl and Gladys Miller in 1922, R.K. and Maude Huff in 1925. The most well-known, though, was a Mr. Bass who carried out custom slaughtering and butchering near the river, according to the Timnath description. He also raised a prolific number of goats, bestowing on him the title of the “goat man”. His tenure at the hotel dubbed it the Bass Hotel. The hotel became a private residence, too, first for the Morton family and later for the Elliotts.

Now the grand old gal of a structure is again up for sale. Timnath Town Planner Matt Blakely advised Timnath News that the property is currently zoned R-1 (Old Town Residential). As part of a Comprehensive Plan Update in April 2013, its land use was designated as Downtown Core (commercial, residential, institutional). The hotel’s zoning, which had been applied many years ago, presently doesn’t line up with that designation. Other properties in the Downtown Core had changed zoning but the hotel’s owners reportedly never applied. Blakely advised that the April 2014 land use designation will help support any subsequent zoning change.