Toledo Revival

11/08/2023

Hey there, I’ve had an overwhelming amount of interest in the Hotel Royal Apartments in the last few days. If you’ve reached out, look for an email very soon. And if you haven’t but are interested, got to hotelroyaltoledo.com and download and submit your application right away!

🙏🏻 to Electric Fun for this beautiful video of Apartment 201 and watch for the other two coming very soon!

11/02/2023

Photo galleries and videos for each of Hotel Royal‘s three beautiful apartments are up at hotelroyaltoledo.com/apartments, just click through to check each one out. I’m pretty darn proud. Request a showing and start the application process online. And you can find rental listings on Zillow as well.

🙏🏻 Noelle Ann Photography pics
🙏🏻 Electric Fun videos

10/06/2023

Hey! If you’ve ever reached out about getting involved in or how to “do” a particular aspect of historic preservation, come hang with me in Dayton next week to learn and network with all the best in the state. is THE historic preservation non-profit for Ohio and I’m incredibly honored for the opportunity to serve on the board as Secretary. There will be a lot of angles covered at this conference. Like ALL of them: real estate development, preservation trades, recording and listing buildings to the National Register, best practices for local historic district commissions, the National & Ohio Main Street Programs, archaeology…sessions, workshops, tours. Single-day registrations are available!

If you’re going to be there, please let me know!

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Join us October 10-12, 2023 in Dayton for the Heritage Ohio Annual Preservation & Main Street Conference. This year's conference will be held at the historic Dayton Arcade in the heart of the city.

We're excited to announce our new partnership with the State Historic Preservation Office to host Ohio's premier historic preservation and downtown revitalization conference. Engage in conversations around expanding the definition of preservation, and learn how you can take action in your community. Take a fresh look at the Main Street approach to revitalization, and how you can take on small town opportunities and big city challenges. See our current schedule of sessions and tours you can participate in at this year's conference.

09/18/2023

If you were one of the 450+ people who came for a sneak peek of Hotel Royal last Sunday during Toledo Warehouse District’s Wander the Warehouse, thank you, thank you. Hope you liked what you saw. Hotel booking opening early October. Apartments are leasing now, follow the link in comments and click on the unit you’re interested in to apply and don’t hesitate to request a showing if you didn’t make it last weekend. Revival Flea coming to the storefront in November. Thanks to Electric Fun for the fantastic signage. And to ALL the people that worked to make the day possible. 🙏🏻🫶🏻

09/05/2023

This had to go back in and though it’s been so much work, so worth it.

08/29/2023

Thanks Toledo Warehouse District for letting Hotel Royal be a part of the fun. Gunning for the ✨. Can’t wait to share with everyone!

Learn the fascinating story of the Hotel Royal’s past and future during Wander the Warehouse, September 10. The building at 337 Broadway Street originally housed a drugstore on the first floor about 1888. In 1900, it was converted to a hotel, serving travelers and railroaders until the 1980s. An ongoing rehab is transforming this piece of Toledo history into three, two-bedroom apartments; a five-room, boutique Hotel Royal; and commercial spaces.

Tickets: https://www.toledowarehouse.org/events/2023/09/10/events/wander-the-warehouse-district/?fbclid=IwAR1TESwSKv_SRuBZFGiA-Q698FkVJ-UJLnMBeLf7vkLonFLnaarxvNSQ8Vc

08/25/2023

Alrighty, here’s your chance…

Hotel Royal is one of the stops on this year’s Toledo Warehouse District Wander the Warehouse tour!

Sunday September 10, 12-4

The entire building will be open for your viewing pleasure: 3 gorgeous apartments, 5 lovely hotel rooms, stylish lobby, and 2 commercial spaces that will be home to Revival Flea.

Tickets are available at link in comments or use Google Lens on that QR . Or can be purchased day of at specific locations (not at all stops/not at Hotel Royal!)

If you’ve never been, this event is such a great opportunity to peek behind the rehab curtain. Fun fact, it was at a Wander many moons ago that I met ARK Restoration & Construction and told them I was thinking about buying a certain building and asked if they might be interested in helping me out… and the rest is about to be history!

08/13/2023

💡I see the light⚡️…

🚂 at the end of the tunnel 🛤️

Not the sexiest, but such a welcome sight… the week before last this old railroad hotel got back on the grid for keeps. Fun fact it was from the get go, swipe 👉🏻 for the old wiring as well as a gas line which probably supplied a dual sconce in the original 1888 portion of the building.

There were delays around getting service, which followed delays getting electrical equipment. But now that the building is hot, gunning for the finish. While I was hoping to have Hotel Royal open at the end of July, now shooting for the second week of September. September 10 to be exact… details shortly, save the date!

07/29/2023

If you’ve been here for awhile, you probably know that Hotel Royal still sports it’s original mid twentieth century sign up at the front corner of the building. But I recently noticed a much more subtle ghost of this past and soon to be again occupation of the building…

👀 between the second and third floor windows to the right… see it? *HOTEL*
The building became a hotel in 1900 and it was at this time this rear three-story portion was built. It opened as Kest’s European Hotel before becoming the Meyerhoff Hotel about a decade later. Given the sizes of the lettering, it looks like this may have advertised for Kest’s. Also lending to this, there was a fire escape right over the top of this area until after rehab began, probably dating to the early twentieth century (and part of the reason why I didn’t notice the sign sooner!). The rear of the building faced Toledo’s Union Station, thus the sign was strategically placed to be seen by travelers arriving into town.

Scroll back in the Toledo Revival feed, for the other ghost signs that have been uncovered in the process of rehab and checkout hotelroyaltoledo.com/story (link in bio) for more on the building’s history.

And stay tuned for an exciting *open house* announcement!

07/14/2023

Before Hotel Royal was a hotel, the storefront at the corner of Broadway and Knapp housed Fenneburg Drug Store for a time from after the building was constructed in the late 1880s until it was converted to a hotel in 1900. Thus a Pond’s Extract ad on this side of the building (see previous reel) makes perfectly good sense.

The building is not on the 1888 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, it first appears on the 1895 map, the first one pictured. I had thus called the build date “circa 1895”, but directory research by for an adaptive reuse class at Eastern Michigan University put Fenneburg Drugs in the building in 1888, so it was probably built just shortly after the map was drawn. That is, the two-story front portion was built in 1888. The rear three-story portion was built in 1900 when it was converted to a hotel. The second pic is of the 1904 Sanborn map which labels the building Kest’s European Hotel with this addition and a bar and restaurant on the first floor. The people of the south end were sad to see Fenneburgs go according to a March 1900 Toledo News Bee article (third pic).

The more you know… the more likely you might be able to decipher an almost-faded-into-obscurity ghost sign. 👻