09.14.23

The 2023 Top 25 Historic Hotels of America® Most Magnificent Art Collections List Is Announced

WASHINGTON D.C. —— Historic Hotels of America® is pleased to announce its selections for The 2023 Top 25 Historic Hotels of America® Most Magnificent Art Collections List. A program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic Hotels of America is a collection of authentic historic hotels known for their stunning architecture, colorful gardens, and romantic settings—amenities that are often enhanced with historic, museum-quality art collections. Historic hotels across the United States offer guests the opportunity to experience and enjoy a variety of artwork, including furniture, paintings, sculpture, augmented reality, fountains and more.

The Pfister Hotel was included in this prestigious list:

The Pfister Hotel (1893) Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Pfister Hotel’s art collection is reportedly the largest Victorian art collection of any hotel in the world. Collected by Guido and Charles Pfister, the historic Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hotel keeps at least 80 pieces of 19th and early 20th-century Salon and Genre works on permanent display. Drawn from a variety of styles and subject matters, and gracing the setting for which they were selected, the collection offers guests a rare glimpse into the tastes and sensibilities that enlivened the Belle Epoque. Visitors can explore and learn about this art collection with a self-guided tour, or through a scheduled tour with the hotel’s current Artist-in-Residence. As guests enter, they are greeted by the two bronze statues called The Pikemen dating back to the opening of the hotel, standing on each side of the entrance. In the lobby are the well-known Pfister Lions, today called “Dick” and “Harry.” Charles Pfister used to introduce them as “Mason” and “Jefferson” to his guests. Moving through the hotel, nearly all of the art embraces a style that was very much in vogue in the early 1900s and complements the hotel’s history. The landscapes, portraits, and sculptures are distributed throughout the hotel, and serve as a welcome invitation at the top of each stairway or down a long corridor. Currently, the hotel offers self-guided tours of the art collection.

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