El Fidel Hotel to be auctioned next week

The historic El Fidel Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, will be auctioned online for six-day period starting Oct. 27.

The 1923 hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is going on the block because its owner is retiring.

The auction will begin 10 a.m. Oct. 27 and end 6 p.m. Nov. 1. The starting bid is $300,000. The auction website is here, which includes more photos of the interior and exterior.

According to an Associated Press report, the hotel also became notorious for a homicide:

Two years after it opened, the hotel — then called The Meadows — made headlines as the site of a shooting involving Las Vegas Judge David Leahy and Carl Magee, founder of the now-defunct Albuquerque Tribune.

Leahy attacked Magee in the hotel’s lobby over Magee’s coverage of political corruption. Magee drew a revolver and shot Leahy and killed a State Highway Department official.

Magee was acquitted of manslaughter.

According to a report by the Las Vegas Optic newspaper:

The Douglas Avenue property, currently owned by the Wolff family, features 34 renovated hotel rooms and apartments, a restaurant with beer and wine license, offices, retail spaces, lobby and coffee bar. It also comes with an adjacent warehouse and an additional parking lot. […]

Originally named The Meadows, El Fidel was a community project initiated by the Commercial Club of Las Vegas in 1920. The community wanted to capitalize on U.S. Highway 84, — now Interstate 25 — which had just opened. […]

Prohibition was in full swing when the hotel opened, but that didn’t stop the hotel from selling liquor. Individuals wanting adult beverages would enter through the alley “as a nod to respectability,” the hotel website notes.

Locals have speculated Allan Affeldt might bid on the property. However, Affeldt is busy overseeing the historic Plaza Hotel in downtown Las Vegas and a long-term restoration of the La Castaneda Hotel. I doubt he’ll have the time or resources for a third historic hotel in town.

Affeldt also owns La Posada in Winslow, Arizona.

Las Vegas sits a few miles from the early Santa Fe Loop alignment of Route 66; the city has become a common side trip for travelers.

(Image of El Fidel Hotel via SVN Auction Services)