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Holland House

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Holland House: A hotel famous for food

Famous for Steaks, Chicken, Trout, Banquets and Parties
Hotel, dining rooms, coffee shop, and lounge-the Holland House had it all. It was the sixth hotel to occupy 1310 Washington Street in Golden since 1925, when the Hotel Berrimoor opened up shop. Then followed the Cody Hotel, Wright Hotel, Golden Hotel, LaRay Hotel, and finally the Holland House. Today, it's home to the Table Mountain Inn.
Marion Luther "Lu" Holland and his wife Ethel arrived in Golden from Billings, Montana, in 1944. Lu was already working as the chef and assistant manager at the LaRay Hotel when he and Ethel bought the place in May of 1946.They renamed it the Holland House and remodeled two rooms and a bath into their own residential suite. It was their home for the next 40 years.
In its heyday the Holland House drew patrons from all over the region and was considered one of the finest restaurants anywhere near Denver-renowned for homemade pies and biscuits and the wonderful artwork adorning its walls.

A seasoned cook and a welcoming hostess: Lu and Ethel Holland
They were a team, and absolutely devoted to it.
-William Holland, describing his parents in 1982
German chefs taught Lu to cook while he worked in the Brown Palace Hotel kitchen before World War I. Drafted into service, he ran huge Army kitchens in Calais, France-essentially, large tents turned into dining rooms. He managed to feed up to 5,000 servicemen at a time as they came and went from Europe.
Lu met Ethel Watson at a dance in the ballroom at the original Elitch Gardens, and married her in 1918. She grew up in Denver across the street from Washington Park, spending many summers with her siblings and cousins playing there and swimming in the lake.
Together, during the roaring twenties, the Hollands owned and operated the Pine Grove Restaurant at 18th and Welton Streets in downtown Denver. Covering an entire block, the Pine Grove served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During the week, folks paid a nickel to hear the band and got their lunch free. In the evenings, musicians from the many nearby theaters came by after their shows and jammed with the house band into the wee hours of the morning.
Ethel was a people person, and she managed the human resource and general operations side of the hotel's business. Lu oversaw the restaurant: He cut his own meat on-site and made everything from scratch. Guests came-and then came back-for homemade pies, biscuits with pitchers of honey, Lu's special Swiss steak, chicken and dumplings, biscuits and gravy, and prime rib.
The Hollands owned a ranch nearby on McIntyre Street, where they raised the Charolais beef cattle that they served exclusively in their dining room. Charolais cattle grow larger than most other breeds and they are more lean, which means more meat with less fat.
Their son William "Bill" Holland and his wife Artie relocated to Golden in 1955 to help run the business. Bill later worked as an attorney and ran his office out of the Holland House. Bill and Artie had three sons: Mike, Jeff, and Greg. Greg took after his grandfather Lu. He loved to cook and even managed the Holland House from about 1974 to 1982.
Civic-minded to his core, Lu joined the Golden Chamber of Commerce and served as its president from 1948 to 1950. He was the driving force behind the Golden Welcome Arch, today one of Golden's most famous landmarks. He was an outspoken advocate for the completion of the Clear Creek Highway. Not to be outdone, Ethel was named Woman of the Year in 1965 by the Golden Business and Professional Women's Club for her own work on behalf of the city she and Lu loved.

Three dining rooms with art
The couple remodeled the Holland House four times. In 1957, they completed the first extensive construction and remodeling project with the addition of a coffee shop on the north side of the building. An ad in the Boulder "Daily Camera" announced an increased diner capacity of 120, and newly commissioned photomurals and artworks.

The Colorado Room was home to large photographic murals of Echo Lake and Red Rocks by Denver's Hopwood Studios. In the Empire and Pioneer Rooms hung The Founding of Golden in 1858 and Colorado Today, both by Golden cartographer and painter Hal Shelton. The Hollands paid $5,000 per mural and, fortunately, both safely survive in private collections today. One belongs to the Golden Civic Foundation and hangs at the Golden Community Center, while and the other hangs at Stevinson Toyota in Lakewood.

In 1960, the Hollands bought the vacated First Methodist Church and education buildings just south of their property. They converted the education building into employee housing and razed the church for more parking. Because Lu routinely hired African American men from outside of Golden as dishwashers and cooks, housing proved crucial. Robert "Bob" Wilkens signed on in the 1950s and worked his way up to chef, remaining an integral part of the Holland House for over 20 years.

Completed by 1965, this remodel added 25 rooms and a new dining room for 150 diners in addition to the expanded parking. It also heralded a new name: the Holland House Motor Hotel.

It was around this time that the Hollands installed a life-size bull made of fiberglass next to the new parking lot. The bull quickly became the target of pranks from Colorado School of Mines students who made it a tradition, especially during homecoming week, to paint the white bull's testicles bright red. Members of the Holland family were always prepared with some white paint to remedy.

"Holland House Happenings"-Golden's social center
Let us serve your next banquet, special party, business social, birthday, anniversary, fraternal, family get-together, wedding, or luncheon card party.
-Holland House menu, about 1959
The Holland House was the gathering place for meetings of every kind. Beginning in the 1950s, the local paper's regular "Holland House Happenings" section outlined the venue's major weekly social events. Whether the Golden Lions Club, Jaycees, Women's Business and Professional Club, Chamber, or Colorado School of Mines, the Hollands hosted them all.
Until the high-profile kidnapping and murder of Adolph Coors III in 1960, the Coors family were regular customers for Sunday dinners. After the tragedy, they stopped dining out in the interest of safety and privacy. Meanwhile, other famous guests included:
"Child actor Jay North, from the "Dennis the Menace" TV sitcom
"John Wayne
"Sheriff Scotty-late 1950s TV personality
"The Queen of Iran (wife of the Shah), who traveled with two bodyguards
"World heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer
"Numerous world leaders who came to do business with Coors and the Colorado School of Mines

Tasty food
Duncan Hines included the Holland House in his 1958 travel guidebook, Adventures in Good Eating. This recognition put Golden on the food map and the Holland House into a select group of highly regarded restaurants nationwide. At the time, the Holland House was the only Golden restaurant to earn that honor-the equivalent of a top TripAdvisor or Yelp review today.
Holland House festive dinners
A menu from about 1959 plugged Holland House Western Special Quality Steak Dinners for only $4, with your choice of a T-bone, club steak, or New York cut sirloin. Roquefort cheese dressing for your salad was an extra 25 cents, as were French-fried onions for your potatoes. Still, a great deal. Not a steak fan? Other "festive" dinner options included lamb, pork, veal, poultry, and both ocean and freshwater fish, alongside children's plates of chicken, shrimp, or a burger.
The less formal coffee shop served breakfast in addition to lunch and dinner. A breakfast bestseller through the mid-1970s was calf's brains and eggs. Sound good?

The end of an era
Following Lu's death in 1981, the family sold the business in 1982. Bought by a group of local investors, the Holland House lived on under the same name until 1986, when the property reverted to the Colorado National Bank and then closed. The Golden Civic Foundation bought the property for $290,000 in 1989. After an extensive remodel under new ownership, the old Holland House was reborn as the Table Mountain Inn in 1992.