The story below is from our January/February 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Photo above: Julianne Rainone / Archival image courtesy of the Virginia room, Roanoke Public Libraries
The Ponce de Leon, now an apartment property, houses remnants of its past as a hotel.
From two hotels to an office building, and now, 89 modern one- and two-bedroom apartments, with event and retail space.
This corner at Campbell Avenue and 2nd Street in downtown Roanoke has taken on many identities since its beginning as a five-story hotel called the Trout House in 1890.
When its current owner, Faisel Khan, bought the property in 2012, he went to great lengths to recreate it to look like its former identity as the Ponce de Leon Hotel, which was there from 1930 until the 1970s. He studied old photos, like the one here of the hotel in 1951.
During renovations, Khan’s crews uncovered art deco designs on the top of the building that had been hidden over the years. Using his daughter’s colored pencils, Khan experimented with color schemes on paper for the building’s exterior architectural designs. He also used an old postcard advertisement of the hotel, which was converted to an office building in the 1970s, to recreate the original look of the lobby and mezzanine with shiny terrazzo floors and wrought-iron stair railings. Apartment residents still use the structure’s original elevator cabs, complete with restored brass knobs.
The Ponce de Leon apartments are among numerous residences throughout Roanoke’s downtown that have been crafted inside historic buildings in the past decade.
All house uniques features from the past, including the Lick Run Spring, which flows underneath the Ponce de Leon. The Trout House restaurant reportedly served trout from this spring to its patrons.
Now, this same spring flows through an outdoor courtyard for residents of the Ponce de Leon apartments to enjoy.
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