Historic Inns

New Mexico

Historic Hotels & Inns in New Mexico

From the Santa Fe Plaza and Taos to Albuquerque’s Old Town, the Las Vegas Plaza, the Route 66 motor courts and the mountain and hot-springs towns of the south: every historic hotel and inn in the state we could verify.

24 historic places to stay in 11 towns · verified October 2026 · by Historic Inns editors

The short answer

Santa Fe has the most, with eight historic hotels and B&Bs on and around the Plaza, at the Railyard and south of the Capitol, led by La Fonda on the Plaza, a Fred Harvey house until 1968, and La Posada, on Historic Hotels of America’s 2024 most-haunted list. In Taos, stay at the Historic Taos Inn, a block from Taos Plaza, or the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, a National Historic Landmark. In Albuquerque, book Conrad Hilton’s 1939 Hotel Andaluz downtown or Los Poblanos, John Gaw Meem’s 1932 house on a working farm. For Route 66, El Vado in Albuquerque, El Rancho in Gallup and the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari are all on the National Register. In the south, stay at The Lodge at Cloudcroft, at about 9,000 feet, or The Murray, Silver City’s 1938 hotel.

Our top picks

Best value

El Rancho Hotel

Built 1936 · Gallup

Film director Griff Griffith's Route 66 hotel, its lobby balcony lined with photos of stars it hosted; ask for a room in…

Check ratesBook direct

Grand hotel

Plaza Hotel

Built 1882 · Las Vegas

A three-story brick hotel that Benigno Romero and partners built on the Las Vegas Plaza, seen in Easy Rider and No Country…

Check ratesBook direct

Where they are

Where to go

Santa Fe8 historic places to stay · founded 1610Oldest: La Posada de Santa Fe (1882)See the guide →

Every historic inn in New Mexico

InnTownBuiltRoomsTypePriceHaunted
Inn on La Loma PlazaTaosc. 1800 (inn's claim)–B&B–Rates
La Posada de Santa FeSanta Fe1882–Resort–YesRates
Plaza HotelLas Vegas1882–Grand hotel–Rates
The Lodge at CloudcroftCloudcroftby 1911–Resort–YesRates
El FarolitoSanta Feby 19128B&B–Rates
Bottger Mansion of Old TownAlbuquerque19127B&B–Rates
Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & SpaOjo Caliente1917–Resort$$Rates
Mabel Dodge Luhan HouseTaos1918–Inn–Rates
La Fonda on the PlazaSanta Fe1922–Grand hotel–YesRates
Inn of the Turquoise BearSanta Fe19239B&B–Rates
Hotel St. FrancisSanta Fe1924–Boutique hotel–Rates
Hotel Parq CentralAlbuquerque1926–Boutique hotel–Rates
Piñon Court by La FondaSanta Fe1930s–Inn–Rates
Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic FarmLos Ranchos de Albuquerque1932–Inn$$$Rates
Historic Taos InnTaos1934–Inn–Rates
El Rancho HotelGallup1936–Grand hotel$Rates
Hotel La Fonda de TaosTaos1937–Boutique hotel–Rates
El Vado MotelAlbuquerque1937–Inn–Rates
The Murray HotelSilver City193853Boutique hotel–Rates
Hotel AndaluzAlbuquerque1939–Grand hotel–Rates
Blackstone HotspringsTruth or Consequencesc. 194012Inn–Rates
Blue Swallow MotelTucumcari1942–Inn–Rates
Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa FeSanta Fe1951–52182Boutique hotel–Rates
Hilton Santa Fe Historic PlazaSanta Fe1972–Boutique hotel–Rates

Price is a typical nightly rate: $ under $200, $$ $200–349, $$$ $350–549, $$$$ $550+. Rates vary by season; check the inn for exact prices.

Elsewhere in New Mexico

c. 1800 (inn's claim)Inn on La Loma Plaza

Built c. 1800 (inn's claim) · Spanish Colonial adobe hacienda (per inn) · Taos · B&B

Inn on La Loma Plaza

Why stay A walled adobe hacienda whose first floor, the inn says, was built in 1800 as part of a fortified Spanish settlement on La Loma Plaza.

Good to know Breakfast: included · Pets welcome

Check ratesFull storyBook direct
The Lodge at CloudcroftAllenS / Public domain

Built by 1911 · Cloudcroft · Resort

The Lodge at Cloudcroft

Why stay The lodge of a resort a railroad founded in 1899, rebuilt at about 9,000 feet after a 1909 fire; the hotel says Conrad Hilton managed it in the 1930s.

The ghost story The hotel says its resident ghost, Rebecca, is well known for her mischief, and it invites guests to go ghost hunting.

Good to know Breakfast: available · Pets welcome

Check ratesFull storyBook direct
1938The Murray Hotel

Built 1938 · International style with Moderne details · Silver City · Boutique hotel

The Murray Hotel

Why stay Percy McGhee's five-story 1938 hotel in the International style, Silver City's tallest building, reopened in 2012 with 53 rooms.

Good to know Breakfast: included · Pets welcome

Check ratesFull storyBook direct
c. 1940Blackstone Hotsprings

Built c. 1940 · I-plan apartment court with a rear wing (broken U-plan) · Truth or Consequences · Inn

Blackstone Hotsprings

Why stay A c. 1940 apartment court with hot water piped to each unit, now 12 TV-themed rooms, each with its own hot-spring soaking tub; 21+ to book.

Good to know No pets

Check ratesFull storyBook direct

Ways in

Themes in New Mexico

Santa Fe, from the Plaza to Don Gaspar

Isaac Hamilton Rapp designed La Fonda on the Plaza, which opened in 1922; after the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway bought it in 1926, John Gaw Meem and Mary Colter reworked it as a Harvey House, and the Fred Harvey Company ran it until 1968. Three blocks east, La Posada surrounds Abraham Staab’s 1882 Second Empire mansion with Pueblo Revival adobe casitas first built in the 1930s, and a block from the Plaza, Hotel St. Francis was rebuilt in 1924 with a Mission Revival front. South of the Capitol, Inn of the Turquoise Bear is poet Witter Bynner’s 1923 house, and Meem also designed the 1950s St. Vincent Hospital that is now the Drury Plaza.

Taos and its artists

Mabel Dodge, a New York salon hostess and arts patron, married Tony Lujan of Taos Pueblo, and from 1918 Pueblo builders enlarged a four-room adobe into their house, where Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather and Ansel Adams visited and which D.H. Lawrence wrote about; it is a National Historic Landmark. On Taos Plaza, members of the Taos Society of Artists met at the Columbian Hotel, now Hotel La Fonda de Taos, which hangs reproductions of Lawrence’s ‘forbidden’ paintings. A block north, Helen Martin turned her family’s adobe houses into the Historic Taos Inn, and the Inn on La Loma Plaza says its first floor was built in 1800.

Conrad Hilton and the railroads

Conrad Hilton built Albuquerque’s 1939 hotel, now Hotel Andaluz, as the fourth he developed, and the hotel calls it New Mexico’s first high-rise; The Lodge at Cloudcroft says he managed the lodge there in the 1930s. Railroads built or rebuilt several stays: the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway founded the Cloudcroft resort in 1899 and the El Paso and Southwestern rebuilt its lodge after a 1909 fire, the Santa Fe Railway bought La Fonda in 1926, and its 1926 railway hospital on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue is now Hotel Parq Central.

Route 66 motor courts

El Vado opened in 1937 on West Central Avenue as Route 66 was realigned through Albuquerque, and its National Register nomination calls it the oldest tourist court on that strip. In Gallup, film director Griff Griffith’s El Rancho Hotel, built in 1936, became the center of the town’s film business, and photos of Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck line its lobby balcony. In Tucumcari, the Blue Swallow, completed in early 1942, gives each room an attached garage, and Lillian Redman ran it for decades.

Road trip

Albuquerque to Taos, inn to inn

Albuquerque

Start downtown at Hotel Andaluz, Conrad Hilton’s 1939 hotel, or in Old Town at the Bottger Mansion, a seven-room B&B in a 1912 house.

Santa Fe

Take the Rail Runner or drive north, and give Santa Fe two nights. Pick a hotel on the Plaza or a B&B south of the Capitol from our Santa Fe guide.

Ojo Caliente

On the way to Taos, soak at Ojo Caliente, where Elizabeth Joseph built the adobe hotel in 1917. Book the Historic Hotel room type to sleep in it.

Taos

Finish in Taos at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Hotel La Fonda de Taos on the Plaza, or the Historic Taos Inn a block north.

Beyond the inns

Signature tours in New Mexico

Tours from GetYourGuide

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Context

History and architecture

Santa Fe dates to 1610, when Governor Pedro de Peralta formally established it as the capital of Spanish New Mexico, and the Inn on La Loma Plaza in Taos says its first floor went up in 1800 as part of a fortified Spanish settlement. In the 1880s, when Las Vegas was the largest town in New Mexico Territory, Benigno Romero and partners built the Plaza Hotel, and in 1882 merchant Abraham Staab built the Santa Fe mansion now at the center of La Posada. Railroads added a mountain resort at Cloudcroft in 1899 and, in 1926, the Santa Fe Railway Hospital in Albuquerque. New Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912, and Pueblo Revival hotels went up after it: La Fonda in Santa Fe in 1922 and the Taos Inn in 1934. Conrad Hilton opened his Albuquerque hotel in 1939, as motor courts such as El Vado (1937) lined Route 66.

Questions travelers ask

What is the oldest hotel in New Mexico?

It depends on how you count. The Inn on La Loma Plaza in Taos says its first floor was built in 1800, the earliest date any inn we list claims for its building. Among hotels still in the buildings they opened in, Hotel La Fonda de Taos began as the Columbian Hotel on Taos Plaza in 1880, though it gained two stories before reopening as La Fonda in 1937, and the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas dates from the early 1880s. In Santa Fe, La Fonda says an inn has stood on its corner of the Plaza since the city’s early years, though its present building dates from 1922.

What is the most haunted hotel in New Mexico?

There is no official ranking. Historic Hotels of America has put two Santa Fe hotels on its most-haunted lists: La Posada in 2024, where guests and staff report the ghost of Julia Staab, especially in Room 101, and La Fonda on the Plaza in 2025, for sightings attributed to Chief Justice John P. Slough, shot in its predecessor’s lobby in 1867. The Lodge at Cloudcroft says its resident ghost, Rebecca, is known for her mischief. These are stories guests and staff tell, not documented fact.

Where can you stay in a historic Route 66 motel in New Mexico?

Three we list are on the National Register: El Vado Motel in Albuquerque (1937), El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, built for film director Griff Griffith in 1936, and the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, completed in early 1942. Hotel Parq Central, the 1926 Santa Fe Railway Hospital, also stands on Route 66 in Albuquerque.

Are there historic hotels in Taos?

Yes, four we list: the Historic Taos Inn (1934), a block north of Taos Plaza; Hotel La Fonda de Taos on the Plaza itself; the Inn on La Loma Plaza, a B&B that says its first floor dates to 1800; and the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, a National Historic Landmark that also hosts workshops.

Where are the best historic bed and breakfasts in New Mexico?

Four we list are B&Bs. In Santa Fe, Inn of the Turquoise Bear has nine rooms in poet Witter Bynner’s 1923 house, and El Farolito has eight adobe rooms and casitas on Galisteo Street. In Albuquerque’s Old Town, the Bottger Mansion is a seven-room B&B in a 1912 house, and in Taos, the Inn on La Loma Plaza fills a walled adobe hacienda.

How we chose these inns

Every place on this page is at least 50 years old, holds a credential we can check (National Register listing, a listed historic district, landmark status, or Historic Hotels of America membership), and takes bookings today. We verify each one against primary sources before it goes on the list, and last checked this list in October 2026. Read our criteria.

Sources (51)

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