St. Louis Union Station Hotel offers architectural splendor, train-themed guest rooms, and easy access to a bevy of restaurants and tourist attractions
Grand it is.
The glorious, barrel-vaulted Grand Hall of the St. Louis Union Station Hotel, once the main waiting room of the world’s largest and busiest train terminal, wows anyone who enters for the first time.
Arguably St. Louis’ most magnificent public interior, the hotel’s sumptuous lobby lounge is a symphony in gold leaf, marble, wood carpentry, stenciling and stained glass. Intricate mosaics, ornate plasterwork, green glazed terracotta bricks from Italy and graceful Romanesque archways enhance the splendor.
The barrel-vaulted Grand Hall, St. Louis Union Station Hotel
Accompanied by music, nightly 3D light shows projected onto the 65-foot-high ceiling dazzle guests relaxing in armchairs and sofas or seated at the long marble bar. During my recent stay, I caught kaleidoscopic shows themed around train nostalgia and marine life (a nod to the St. Louis Aquarium, one of several attractions in the Union Station complex).
The Grand Hall is the centerpiece of the former station’s castle-like headhouse, a National Historic Landmark that stretches an entire block along Market Street. Constructed of Indiana limestone in 1894, the Romanesque-style “fortress” sports gables, red-roofed turrets and a stately clock tower patterned after architecture in the medieval walled city of Carcassonne, France.
Train-Themed Guest Rooms at St. Louis Union Station Hotel
Guest rooms pay homage to Union Station’s history with artwork depicting railroad themes. On Floors 3 and 4 in the headhouse, high-ceilinged nests in the premium Grand Hall and Clock Tower room categories are named after famous railroads or legendary trains like The Texan, Dixie Flyer and Wabash Cannonball. Vintage Pullman advertisements touting the luxury of passenger rail travel adorn the hallways. Interior balconies on the third and fourth floors, accessible only to guests in those headhouse rooms, look down on the Grand Hall.
Besides the fancier digs in the headhouse, this 539-room Curio Collection by Hilton property has modern, six-story wings surrounding a courtyard garden under the steel girders of the massive 11.5-acre train shed. Once the world’s largest roof span, the sprawling piece of real estate held 42 tracks. The courtyard’s swimming pool operates from May to October.
My sixth-floor garden-view room had framed posters recalling rail service offered by Frisco (St. Louis-San Francisco Railway) and an archival photo of a Frisco locomotive.
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The St. Louis Wheel rises high above the historic train shed at St. Louis Union Station Hotel.
St. Louis Union Station’s History
Union Station, at its peak during World War II, handled 300 trains and 100,000 people a day. The last Amtrak train departed on October 31, 1978, ending a chapter in St. Louis history.
The station reopened in 1985 as a mixed-use complex with a hotel, retail shops, restaurants and event spaces. For two decades a popular spot for tourists and locals alike, the mall eventually began to lose tenants and sat empty for a number of years. Lodging Hospitality Management (LHM), the current owner of Union Station, bought the site in 2012 and began an ambitious multi-year overhaul that started in 2016.
The St. Louis Aquarium is one of several visitor attractions at St. Louis Union Station
St. Louis Union Station Attractions and Restaurants
Today, St. Louis Union Station thrives as a downtown tourist magnet with attractions like the St. Louis Aquarium, a two-story ropes course, the Mirror Maze and St. Louis Wheel, a 200-foot-high observation wheel with 42 climate-controlled gondolas. Steps from the wheel are a mini-golf course, carousel and the Koi Pond, where vending machines dispense pellets for feeding the fish. A fire and light show on the lake, synchronized to music, is staged daily on the half hour from 5-9 p.m.
Facing the lake are three full-service restaurants—Landry’s Seafood, The Train Shed and St. Louis Union Station Soda Fountain, a diner renowned for its over-the-top, Instagram-worthy ice cream creations.
The complex’s newest eatery is The Pitch, a soccer-themed pub. Located at the west end of the headhouse, it resides across the street from Citypark, home of the new St. Louis City SC soccer team.
In the hotel, the Station Grille occupies the elegant confines of the Fred Harvey restaurant, one of 80-some Harvey Houses that served passengers during the heyday of rail travel. Bring your appetite to the lavish breakfast buffet. I loved the biscuits and gravy (with mini croissants) and the decadent chocolate muffins.
The Fred Harvey closed its doors in 1970 along with other shops and food outlets in the station, whose Terminal Hotel had shuttered two years before.
Just beyond the Grand Hall, the station’s former Ladies Lounge is now the Market Street Cafe, a place to pick up snacks and Starbucks coffee. The original ornamental work around the fireplace is still visible.
Inside the main entrance, surrounding a 40-foot-long stained-glass window, is the Whispering Arch. If one person stands facing the wall on the arch’s right side and another faces the left side 40 feet away, they can communicate in a normal tone of voice. It has been the scene of many marriage proposals.
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By Randy Mink, Senior Editor
All photos courtesy of St. Louis Union Station
