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A new hotel gives life to one of Roanoke’s signature early buildings.
When what came to be known as the Liberty Trust Building was first opened in December of 1910, it caused quite a stir in Roanoke. The French Renaissance/Beaux Arts building, designed by one of the Commonwealth’s best architects, John Kevan Peebles, was called a “Temple of Finance” by a local newspaper. It opened as First National Bank and remained a bank of one vintage or another for nearly 100 years.
In March of 2022 the building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, will re-open as a downtown hotel, The Liberty Trust, and it will retain many of its most spectacular features, especially the main lobby.
According to Managing Director Vishal Savani of Savara Development, “The building is a total of approximately 36,000 square feet, 54 guest rooms (200 square feet to 500 square feet), and six room classes ranging from Petite Queen to Classic Double Queen with two queen beds. Most rooms will have one king-size bed. The vault is being renovated and will be a tasting room.”
The seven stories were initially made possible by the invention of the electric elevator and improvements in fireproofing. Liberty Trust was Roanoke’s first skyscraper.
Ana Bell has been named general manager for The Liberty Trust. She served as the operations rooms manager at Keswick Hall, a luxury resort in Charlottesville.
Savani says of obtaining financing during the pandemic, “Fortunately, we commenced the project and secured our financing before COVID began. We acquired the building in 2018 and began construction at the end of 2019. We paused construction during COVID and restarted it in January 2022.”
Most of the key project participants in the renovation are local businesses. The general contractor is R.L. Price Construction, based in Salem. Architectural and engineering work is being completed by Balzer and Associates. Hill Studio is consultant on historic restoration and preservation. The project is financed locally by Roanoke-based Freedom First Credit Union.
Roanoke engineer and developer John Garland of Garland Properties, who has a history of renovating historic downtown buildings, says, “I have admired the Liberty Trust building for many years. Liberty Trust is one of the best remaining historic gems we have in downtown Roanoke. The first floor is breathtaking. The copper-clad office doors are the only ones I know of in Roanoke. Even the urinals are historic keepers.
“Unfortunately, there are so many historic components that should be restored and integrated into the adaptive reuse of the building, it became problematic to convert to apartments. The boutique hotel is more easily adapted by using the small office rooms for hotel suites and the first floor becomes a grand lobby.
“Losing the Liberty Trust building to a non-historic preservation developer, or worse yet, to be razed, would have been a significant loss to our downtown historic building fabric. A hotel use should be a significant economic positive driver for our downtown.”
Robert Pilkington of Balzer & Associates, the project’s architect, says, “It’s always a challenge to preserve the historic character and at the same time suit a modern purpose and meet modern codes.” With historic tax credits applied to the renovation, he says, “come guidelines. You can’t just go and tear things out. You can’t move them. In historic renovation you want to keep everything in historic locations.”
Pilkington stresses that “the project has entailed a full historic restoration of the Liberty Trust building, from top to bottom. In addition to a full restoration of the building’s historic features including its parapet, and historic copper interior doors, we have installed completely new mechanical systems, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, life safety systems, etc., inside the building.”
Liberty Trust presented a significant challenge, says, Pilkington, one so distinct that several other potential developers passed on the project. “Challenges are opportunities,” says Pilkington.
One of those was to make a bank lobby feel like a hotel lobby, and converting the spectacular vault into a tasting room became “a cool feature,” he says.
Pilkington has spent a significant portion of his career working on old buildings and says, “Any historic property like that is a joy to work on. A project like this comes every once in a while. I feel fortunate we got to work on it.”
For a detailed history of the building and its importance to Roanoke, visit Libertytrusthotel.com.
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