How An Average Nineteenth-Century Man from France Built One of the Most Renown Hotels in America

By Donna Wichelman

Rated among the fifteen most favorite local art businesses in the United States of America, the nineteenth-century Hotel De Paris in Georgetown, Colorado, has always maintained a first-class reputation. Though it has been owned and operated as a museum by the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America since 1954, the Hotel De Paris remains one of the best-preserved nineteenth-century hotels in the United States.

Hotel De Paris, Georgetown Colorado: Donna's Gallery, December 2019

But how did the hotel rise from the site of the Delmonico Bakery in October 1875 to become a first-class hotel and restaurant in this gold and silver mining town of 1879? To understand the origins of the Hotel de Paris, we must develop a picture of the man known to Georgetown residents as Louis Dupuy, who conceived it.

Born Adolphe Francois Gerard in October 1844 in Alencon, France, Adolphe came from parents of average means who operated an inn. After his father's death, his mother encouraged Adolphe to enter a Catholic seminary at age fifteen. However, the priesthood didn't suit him, and by age twenty, he left the seminary at Sées and headed to Paris.

Louis Dupuy (a.k.a. Adolphe Francois Gerard: Photo on the Wall of the Hotel De Paris, Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery October 2018

In Paris, Adolphe served as an apprentice chef at a large hotel and learned how to prepare fine French cuisine. However, seeking to improve his English fluency, he left France for London, England, where he worked at a newspaper, translating reviews.

But as a free spirit will be, Adolphe moved on to New York City in 1866 and worked for another newspaper. However, caught selling an article he didn't write, Adolphe enlisted in the Army in disgrace, and in August 1868 was assigned to the cavalry at Fort Russell (now Warren Air Force Base) near Cheyenne, Wyoming. By now, we can anticipate Adolphe's pattern of moving on and deserting, and indeed, he went AWOL from the cavalry on April 1, 1869, finding his way to Denver, where he called himself Louis Dupuy to hide from the government.

Yet Louis's (a.k.a. Adolphe) passion for research and writing hadn't waned, and he wrote an in-depth article about a political controversy in France that caught the attention of W.N. Byers of the Rocky Mountain Newspaper. Byers liked Louis so well that he assigned him to report on the new mining districts across Colorado. For more than a year, Louis rode a mule throughout the region until he came to Georgetown, a city of five thousand people.

Unlike the other mining towns Louis had visited, Georgetown was a bustling metropolis of homes and businesses with an international flair. This appealed to him, and he took a job as a miner at a mine near Silver Plume. But on March 6, 1873, a delayed reaction of dynamite caused an explosion in the mine. Louis saved his partner by pushing him away, taking the brunt of the explosion.

News of what Louis had done spread throughout the community, and people treated him as a hero. It was during his convalescence that Louis finally found his mission in life. "In this land of gold and silver, we should live like princes. We should have a great hostelry and the best of wines. While we cannot have the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Cellini, we can at least have the reproductions. I would have a library, and the thoughts of the best authors of the Old World would be upon its shelves."

Therefore, when an advertisement appeared in the Colorado Miner soliciting help from his fellow citizens to pay the rent on the building that housed the former Delmonico Bakery, everyone gathered around to support Louis's proposal for a first-class hotel.

Luxury Hotel Room, Hotel De Paris, Georgetown Colorado: Donna's Gallery October 2018

State of the Art Kitchen, Hotel De Paris, Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery October 2018

Hotel De Paris, Georgetown, Colorado Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Collection

Thus began a project that took shape in stages over the next four years in which Louis added onto the original building, initially doing all the work himself, remodeling and improving and paving the way for one of the finest hotels and restaurants in the region, evoking a picture of the inns one might find in Louis' home in Normandy, France. Indeed, he had been known to say, "Show them this little souvenir of Alencon which I built in America, and they will understand.


Louis's dream was realized over the years until his death from pneumonia on October 13, 1900. He built his library with books by the best authors from around the world on his shelves. He also continued to invest in the hotel, providing state-of-the-art rooms with all the accoutrements and serving the restaurant's patrons from a state-of-the-art kitchen, offering the finest French and Western wines and cuisine available in the New World, and the most elegant crystal and china one could buy.

Library at Hotel De Paris, Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery October 2018

After Louis died, the hotel passed to Sophie Gally, who died only four months after Dupuy. It went to her nieces, and then was first rented, then sold, to the Burkholder family, who ran the hotel until 1949 when it closed. The hotel fell into disrepair until the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Colorado bought the hotel and restored it to the excellently kept museum it is today. The Hotel De Paris is a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It contains ninety percent of its original furnishings.

Dining Room Hutch with Fine Crystal, Hotel De Paris, Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery 2018

Donna is an Angel-award-winning author of Historical fiction for A Song of Deliverance. Book Two in the Silver Singing Mine series, Rhythms of the Heart, was released in November 2025. Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before becoming a full-time writer. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. 

Donna and her husband of forty-one years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.