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Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States · Four Seasons · High Luxury

Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis: ExteriorFour Seasons Hotel Minneapolis: Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN : Five Star AllianceFour Seasons Hotel Minneapolis: Bedroom

The hotel's Hennepin and Washington Avenue corner has hosted Minneapolis's premier hotel since 1858, when the Nicollet House first opened there and later welcomed sitting Presidents Cleveland, McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt; Four Seasons' 2022 successor, occupying floors 23-30 of a modern tower with James Beard winner Gavin Kaysen's Mara Restaurant & Bar, became Minnesota's first-ever Forbes Five-Star hotel.

About Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis

History

The corner of Hennepin and Washington Avenues in downtown Minneapolis has been associated with the concept of the premier hotel since 1858 — the year Minnesota achieved statehood and local boosters commissioned a four-story brick hotel called the Nicollet House on exactly this site. Named after French-American explorer Joseph Nicollet, the hotel quickly became the social center of a raw frontier settlement, hosting Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt in its most celebrated room, and welcoming former presidents Ulysses Grant and James Garfield at a landmark celebration of the Northern Pacific Railroad's completion. Oscar Wilde stayed briefly in 1882 and reportedly complained about the furnishings.

By the early 1920s the original structure was obsolete and fire-safety regulations made renovation impractical. It was demolished in 1923 and replaced by an ambitious twelve-story successor financed through an extraordinary act of civic participation: local citizens — clerks, children, business owners — purchased more than $1.25 million in preferred stock during a single eight-day sales campaign, funding what the Minneapolis Tribune breathlessly called a "Triumph of Hotel Design." The new Nicollet Hotel, designed by Chicago-based Holabird and Roche, opened June 17, 1924 with 637 rooms and its own concert orchestra, and became the city's grand address for the following decades. Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Lawrence Welk all performed in its Minnesota Terrace ballroom. Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Judy Garland all passed through its doors.

The hotel declined with the surrounding Gateway District in the postwar decades, was acquired by Soul's Harbor Church in 1973, stripped bare by salvage companies after the church's 1984 bankruptcy, and finally demolished in 1991. The site remained a surface parking lot for nearly three decades. Construction on the RBC Gateway tower began in June 2019, and Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis opened June 1, 2022 as part of that development, occupying floors 23 through 30 of the mixed-use skyscraper. It arrived as Minnesota's first-ever Forbes Five-Star hotel, with James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen — a Minneapolis native who staged at Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe before returning to his hometown — anchoring the flagship Mara Restaurant. The tower is connected via the Minneapolis Skyway system to Target Field, Target Center, and U.S. Bank Stadium, and sits two blocks from the Mississippi River whose banks drew the city's original settlers.

The setting

Located in the North Loop neighborhood at the corner of Hennepin and Washington Avenues, the hotel is two blocks from the Mississippi River and connected via the Minneapolis Skyway system to U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Center, and Target Field.

Restaurants and bars

Experiences

Amenities

Awards

Open Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.

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