El Paisano Hotel: The Inn That Holds Marfa's History
Near Marfa, Texas
Stand in front of the El Paisano Hotel on Highland Avenue in downtown Marfa and you are standing in front of the building that has held every era of the city's history together. The hotel was built in nineteen thirty in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, a handsome two-story structure with arched colonnades and a courtyard that has served as the social heart of Marfa for nearly a century. It was designed to accommodate the ranchers, railroad men, and businesspeople who moved through this remote county seat.
The hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But its most famous chapter came in the summer of nineteen fifty-five, when Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean checked in for the filming of Giant. The rooms where they stayed became part of local legend, and photographs of the production hang in the hotel lobby today.
After years of decline in the second half of the twentieth century, the El Paisano was bought at auction in two thousand one and then restored over several years of renovation. It continues to operate as a full hotel, its original Spanish Colonial character preserved and its history on display. In a town where cattle ranchers, the army, filmmakers, and the international art world have each left their mark, the El Paisano has been present for all of it, a modest building at the intersection of every Marfa story.
