Manitou Springs
The Cliff House at Pikes Peak
An 1873 Manitou Springs boarding house that grew into a turreted Queen Anne hotel, shut by a 1982 fire and reopened in 1999.
- Built
- 1873Began in 1873 as a boarding house, with large 1880s additions by the Gillis Brothers for owner E.E. Nichols (Manitou Springs Historic District nomination); The Gazette says it opened in 1874 as The Inn. NPGallery lists 1870 as the significant year. A 1982 fire closed it; it reopened in 1999 after restoration.
- Style
- Queen Anne
- Architect
- Gillis Brothers (1880s additions)
- Type
- Boutique hotel
- Rooms
- 54
- Credentials
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places; Inside a National Register historic district
The story
The Cliff House started in 1873 as a boarding house and grew in the 1880s into a four-story resort hotel with stone lower floors, a full verandah and three turrets, run for decades by E.E. Nichols. A catastrophic fire shut it in 1982 and it sat vacant until a restoration of more than $10 million reopened it in 1999. Gal-Tex Hotel Corp. later bought and reinvested in it, and in February 2026 Mark Wyant, who restored Galveston’s Grand Galvez, bought it for $4 million. Its celebrity suites are named for guests such as Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt.
Good to know
- Address: 306 Cañon Ave, Manitou Springs, CO 80829
Sources (3)
Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.