Historic boutique hotel built as bank

Liberty Trust Hotel, which opened in downtown Roanoke in March, has been hailed by Forbes Magazine and UK Times News as one of the “highly anticipated hotels” debuting in 2022. The Liberty Trust building, which opened in 1910 as home to First National Bank, is on the National Register of Historic Places and a Virginia Historic Landmark.

The hotel is operated by Fairfax-based Savara Hospitality, which has been a regular supporter of the Historical Society of Western Virginia.

According to a history written by historian and book author Nelson Harris, First National Bank in 1926 became First National Exchange Bank. The building was sold to the Liberty Trust Company, which was headquartered at the 101 South Jefferson Street site for 20 years. It then merged with The Colonial American National Bank and relocated.

The building, designed by John Kevan Peebles of Norfolk, was described in The Roanoke Times upon its opening as having “the great columns of marble, the copper and brass and tiling, the splendid steel vault glittering behind its polished bars, and the lofty ceiling…and through the big swinging doors thronged the visitors.”

The hotel features Roman Ionic columns at the entrance and Doric columns in the main hall, bronze main doors, a granite exterior with carved rosettes, and a balustrade roof, all of which harken to the past. The walk-in vault is now a Tasting Room.

Harris, a former Roanoke mayor and past president of the Historical Society, notes the “Liberty Trust property is still considered to be one of the best-appointed Edwardian era bank buildings in Virginia.”

More information can be found at https://www.libertytrusthotel.com/