When it opened in 1919, the fourteen-story brick tower at the corner of Tenth and Walnut streets was the tallest building in Iowa — a Beaux-Arts commercial palazzo designed by Proudfoot, Bird and Rawson that announced Des Moines's arrival as a serious American city. Hotel Fort Des Moines has carried that civic ambition across more than a century, and its most recent restoration, which brought it into Hilton's Curio Collection, preserves the building's original grandeur while threading contemporary interiors through its upper floors. The lobby makes the strongest case for the building's bones: tall arched windows flood a double-height room with natural light, dark-stained timber panelling frames coffered plasterwork overhead, and a sculptural chandelier of suspended filament points descends from the original ceiling like a controlled explosion of brass and light. Marble-topped tables and velvet lounge chairs in sage green are arranged beneath a mezzanine balustrade that remains entirely intact. Guest rooms take a quieter approach — linen-toned walls, dark walnut desk runs, mid-century leather armchairs with brass leg detailing, and ring pendant fixtures mounted on articulated wall arms — while the ground-floor café shifts register entirely, its botanical ceiling mural, sage-painted panelling, tufted tan leather banquettes, and bentwood café chairs evoking a Parisian brasserie transplanted to the Iowa prairie.

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