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Washington School House Hotel
Park City, Utah, United States · Independent · Grand Luxury
Washington School House Hotel occupies a hand-quarried limestone school at 543 Park Avenue in Park City's Old Town, built in 1889 during the silver-mining boom, and it survived the Great Fire of 1898. The building spent the 1930s and 1940s as a dance hall before opening as a bed-and-breakfast in 1984. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, a Leading Hotels member, and MICHELIN gave it Two Keys in 2025.
- 12 rooms
- Opened 2011
- Neighborhood: Utah
About Washington School House Hotel
- The schoolhouse spent the 1930s and 1940s as a dance hall before its hospitality life began, first opening as a bed-and-breakfast in 1984.
- It belongs to Leading Hotels of the World.
History
The Washington School House was built in 1889 as one of the three original schools serving the young mining town of Park City, Utah, and named for George Washington in the earnest patriotic fashion of the frontier West. The building was constructed in hammered limestone — a material unusual in the predominantly wooden architecture of the mining era and one that would prove crucial to the structure's survival. When the catastrophic Park City fire of 1898 swept through the town, destroying block after block of timber-frame construction, the limestone schoolhouse endured while nearly everything around it burned.
The school served the children of Park City's mining families through the boom years of silver extraction, the bust years that followed, and the subsequent decades of the twentieth century when the town cycled through several identities before the ski industry discovered its extraordinary mountains in the 1960s. The schoolhouse had long since stopped functioning as an educational institution; through the 1930s and 1940s it was repurposed as a dance hall, hosting the big-band social life of a small Western town. The Forbes Travel Guide notes it as a property on the National Historic Registry.
By 1984 the building opened as a bed-and-breakfast, its first foray into hospitality. A total interior renovation — gutting the interior to the studs — was completed and the school reopened in December 2011 as the Washington School House Hotel, a twelve-room luxury boutique property whose scale and setting are the antithesis of the large ski resorts that dominate Park City. The rooms are furnished with antiques; suites add marble bathrooms, reclaimed wood floors, and spiral iron staircases. A heated outdoor pool and a ski lounge with a fireplace make the post-slope experience as comfortable as the limestone walls make the rest. The hotel sits 1.1 miles from Park City Mountain Resort and 1.5 miles from Deer Valley, making it the most intimate and historically rooted address in Old Town ski country. The MICHELIN Guide awarded it Two Keys in 2025.
The setting
Washington School House Hotel occupies a hand-quarried limestone building at 543 Park Avenue in Park City's historic Old Town, erected in 1889 as one of the town's first schools during the silver-mining boom. The structure survived Park City's Great Fire of 1898, and its hammered-limestone facade is listed on the National Historic Registry. The Park City Museum is a two-minute walk, anchoring a block dense with mining-era architecture, galleries, and chef-driven restaurants along nearby Historic Main Street. Park City Mountain is 18 minutes on foot, and Deer Valley Resort is seven minutes by transit, placing this 12-suite boutique at the intersection of Old Town walkability and premier ski access.
Restaurants and bars
- Ski lounge — Restaurant · Après-ski fare
Experiences
- Après-ski fare fireside in the ski lounge — Après-ski fare served fireside in the chic ski lounge.
- Ski valet — Ski valet service at guests' disposal.
- Outdoor pool/spa terraced into the hillside — An outdoor pool and spa terraced into the hillside.
Amenities
- Pool
- Pet-friendly
Awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Recommended (2026)
- MICHELIN Two Keys (2026)
Open Washington School House Hotel in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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