The historic Lexington Hotel in downtown Gallup, New Mexico, has been put up for sale by the nonprofit organization that owns it.
According to a story by the Associated Press, CARE 66, which owns the building, said it no longer has the money to keep it.
CARE 66 Executive Director Sanjay Choudhrie says the organization still owes about $1 million on the facility that is home to about 30 men, many of whom are veterans.
Choudhrie says the hotel provides rooms to people who once lived on the streets.
The Gallup Sun also reports the hotel will close Sept. 30. CARE 66 is moving about 30 tenants to other housing options in the area.
The newspaper reported CARE 66 lost its funding from the Navajo Housing Authority in 2011-2012.
CARE 66 wrote about the hotel’s history on its blog:
The Lexington Hotel was built in 1930 of local stone by Mike Butkovich. Original owners Ruth and Thomas Stockard opened the Lexington in 1931 as a refined place for travelers to stay, with pressed tin ceilings and, a few years later, large-scale frescos in the lobby by acclaimed super-realist painter Carl Von Hassler, known as the “Dean of the Albuquerque art colony,” depicting Native American and landscape scenes. The Lexington provided comfortable and tasteful accommodations to Gallup’s visitors through the 1940’s.
It’s not clear how or why things went downhill at the Lexington, over many years and the tenures of several different owners, but by 1999, the Lexington was known as a flophouse for people who needed a cheap place to “sleep off ” drunkenness. The City of Gallup was ready to condemn the hotel.
The downward trend began to change when Pat and John Rosendall bought the Lexington Hotel in 1999. They had a vision for making the Lexington a “clean, safe, and dignified place to live.” The local couple loved the classic building and felt moved to make something better of it. They began working on the renovation of the hotel and living there themselves. They based rental rates on the incomes of the residents, many of whom received social security, and some residents worked as janitors, cleaners, handymen or even assistant or night managers to help pay their rent. The Rosendalls renovated all 33 rooms, refinished floors, and replaced windows. They pulled up two tons of stained and ruined carpet. The Gallup community, friends, family, volunteer, youth groups and supporters from as far away as Boston rallied behind the Rosendalls’ efforts. They contributed everything from labor and cash to fresh flowers and ingredients for soup.
In the 2004, the Gallup Community came together to form a non-profit organization, dedicated to “creating opportunities to end homelessness” called CARE 66. CARE 66 immediately opened a transitional shelter called the Frances Opportunity Center in an Industrial Park on the east side of Gallup. The Board of CARE 66 saw an opportunity in the Lexington Hotel to provide a more “homey” place for their transitional shelter on the ground floor of the Lexington Hotel and to continue to provide permanent housing in the 21-single room occupancy rooms on the second floor. In the spring of 2009, CARE 66 bought the hotel from the Rosendall’s who were happy to see that their efforts would be continued and expanded.
The Lexington Hotel received an $10,109 cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program to rehabilitate its storefront windows, main entrance awning, south-side windows, electrical system and neon sign.
(Image of the Lexington Hotel sign in Gallup, New Mexico, by Steve Walser via Flickr)