Tucked off the lobby of The Oxford Hotel, The Cruise Room features an Art Deco décor in keeping with its provenance as downtown Denver’s first bar, which opened one day after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
During the 1930s, local architect Charles Jaka transformed Denver’s premier hotel into an Art Deco showcase. Designed in homage to one of the lounges on Cunard’s Queen Mary, the sleek neon and chrome room is bathed in rose light with stunning Art Deco bas-relief panels.
© The Oxford Hotel
Created by Alley Henson in 1930, the original celotex panels depicted illustrious (and nefarious) merrymakers proposing cocktail toasts around the world, including Adolf Hitler, complete with swastika, whose panel was removed during World War II.
Notable for its louche romantic ambience, The Cruise Room provided the setting for the video of singer-songwriter Jack White’s “Would You Fight For My Love?”
© Jack White
Classic cocktails are mixed by a bar staff outfitted in black-and-white attire, a complement to the room’s ruby red lighting as well as its Cunard lineage.
Winner of the Miami Art Deco Award in 1984 and voted one of the nation’s best bars by Esquire magazine, The Cruise Room is where you expect a perfect martini – and you get it.
