The Hotel Cornelius is a historic building in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 that was designed by John V. Bennes's firm and constructed in 1907-1908. The seven-story building is categorized as being 20th Century Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 and contains 66 hotel rooms. It was operated by Charles W. Cornelius, who named the hotel for his family and his brother Colonel Thomas R. Cornelius

Thomas R. Cornelius

Thomas R. Cornelius was a prominent American politician and soldier in the early history of Oregon. A native of Missouri, he moved to the Oregon Country with his family as a young man where he fought in the Cayuse War and Yakima Indian War against the Native Americans...

. Their father founded the town of Cornelius

Cornelius, Oregon

Cornelius is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States. The population was 9,652 at the 2000 census. The 2007 estimate is 10,895 residents.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

 to Portland’s west after emigrating to Oregon with Joseph Meek

Joseph Meek

Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A pioneer involved in the fur trade before settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek would play a prominent role at the Champoeg Meetings of 1843...

, "famed fur trader, lawman and politician, in a day when you could be all three."

The building has a "dramatic coffer

Coffer

A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...

ed ceiling in the lobby" and a French sheetmetal mansard, cornice

Cornice

Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

, entablature

Entablature

An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...

, exterior masonry, and terracotta. It included a ground-floor wood storefront that was once a "Ladies Reception Hall" and an "opulent" basement cafe. "Ornate wood paneling and trim" was included throughout the building.

The Cornelius served as a bathhouse for gays in the 1960s and 1970s and was then empty for years. There were plans to renovate the building, owned by Portland developer Tom Moyer, as a business hotel in recent years following a period where it was home to vagrants

Vagrancy (people)

A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...

for many years after the 1980s.